Solid 8, soft 8.5.

*Spoilers Below*

The one plot element that stood out to me most is the fact that Percy has taken Fisk as he was “Born Again” so to speak from Ahmed’s Daredevil run and is actually using him in an interesting portrayal.

That alone sold me, as this was something Ahmed could absolutely have done to make his run more interesting. But that’s Daredevil. This is Punisher, Frank Castle.

I do like how tropey this inaugural issue was. I mean that in a good way. Percy has taken the amnesia protagonist trope and applied it here and honestly I’m all for it. What’s more, he has the makings of a classic marvel and classic crime story (and therefore classic Pun tale) in this issue.

Percy’s prose was also very nicely written. Nothing in his script felt wasted. It was all very tight and deftly hit all the points to ultimately facilitate great pacing.

Ohta’s art is heavy and dramatic, and Nitro’s colors are equally so. I’d go as far as to say this has been the best single Red Band issue I have read from Marvel thus far. And hell was it flushed in red.

The violence made even someone as high tolerant of gore wince and go wide-eyes from the gore by surprise. There’s some ghastly stuff in here.

But it wasn’t over the top. Shocking in the right way. Also, this issue has been the first to really deliver on the Red Band idea so far. Other Red Bands I’ve read have still felt too tame (see Blood Hunt and Elektra Red Bands).

All in all very satisfying start and hope this keeps up. more