Punisher Nightmare #1

I’ll preface my review with this: juxtaposing two different stories in one comic is a tough thing to do. But that’s not an excuse for doing it poorly.

And in the particular case of Punisher Nightmare #1, it’s done very poorly and it’s a big problem. But unfortunately for Scott M. Gimple (writer and producer for AMC’s The Walking Dead), that appears to be the schtick of the limited series, and even if it wasn’t, there’s a lot of problems with the book, and I don’t really see it getting worked out in five issues.

The book starts off strong, with an endearing late night conversation between J (a war veteran who has come home from too many tours) juxtaposed with The Punisher killing someone in the middle of the street. J tells his daughter it’s not safe outside, he tells her about the boogeyman; The Punisher dubs himself the boogeyman. And so it begins.

Then J’s family gets gunned down. He’s in the hospital with a lot of issues, but he survives. The rest of the book switches back and forth between J’s (or Johnny’s) war stories and The Punisher doing whatever he does. Things get really, blandly complicated when Gimple attempts to balance the differences between J and Johnny (J splits his personalities so he can handle his Special Ops while also helping the people in the communities in Afghanistan) and simultaneously telling The Punisher’s story.

But even if there was only one story, the pacing in this book is wretched and most of the text is laced with overwrought cynicism and anger for angers sake. It’s the same lines rewritten over and over again, and the book never feels like it goes anywhere.

The biggest problem with the book, however, but me the premise itself. For no real reason, the killing of J’s family resonates with The Punisher at a far higher degree than any of the other murders he deals with. He makes not that these types of things happen all the time, everyday, and Gimple gives no explanation as to why this particular instance is somehow superlative.

The art is mostly very good, though the faces can be hard to distinguish at times. Mark Texiera and Frank D’Armata do a very fine job with it, and it never takes away from the work at all. There is, however, one truly exceptional nine-panel page that deserves a lot of praise on page nine. It’s evocative and frankly (that’s a pun, high-five if you get it) terrifying, which is exactly what art for a Punisher book should be.

Despite good art and lots of bullets, this book falls very flat. It has the potential to buck up over the next four issues, and it’s always tough to churn out a first issue with new colleagues and such. I’m not condemning the book just yet, but it’s not on my nice list. This books has been treading around the nuances of The Punisher’s character but hasn’t actually touched any of them. They need to do more than just scrape the surface moving forward if they want the book to reach its potential.