Punisher #7

This issue is generating a lot of buzz because it is the final issue of The Punisher featuring artwork by Steve Dillon, who died unexpectedly of appendicitis. Dillon does get a few good panels in this comic, but the heavy lifting is done by Matt Horak, who filled in and molds his style after Dillon.

When we last left Frank Castle, he had fired a rocket launcher at some bad guys in an underground tunnel. Issue #6 ended, confusingly, with Frank crawling out of a grave. This issue explains that a cemetery was above the underground tunnels so that’s why Frank crawled out of the grave. Does it seem like a bad idea to anyone else that they put a cemetery over tunnels or, I suppose, dug tunnels under a cemetery? It was obviously just an excuse to show Frank crawling out of a grave. If writer Becky Cloonan wanted to show Frank crawling out of a grave, she could have waited for a better opportunity.

DEA Agent Ortiz is still on Punisher’s trail, determined to take down a drug operation that has something to do with Frank Castle’s former commanding officer, Olaf, and a mercenary organization called Condor. Flashbacks in the last issue attempted to shed a dim light on Frank’s history with Olaf and Condor, but had technical oversights, confusing plot threads and nonsensical motivations that made me wish I didn’t know anything about Frank’s military service.

This issue starts to set things back on track. Ortiz has been suspended after the death of her partner and the collapse of her operation, but now she seems more open to Punisher’s way of thinking. Even the DEA is on board with using Castle against the mercenaries. They’re willing to claim that he died just so it will surprise the mercenaries when he shows up and starts murdering them.

The first thing Punisher does when he pulls himself from the mudhole is track down Condor operatives, even without his weapons. He tracks them down in a dive bar where the bad guys complain the way working stiffs do at dive bars. The scene is gleefully gory and silly, enticing memories from Ennis’s earliest Punisher series to surface. So far, this series has had its ups and downs, but this one is worth it just for the bar fight.

I hold out hope that Cloonan will eventually hit full stride, consistently striking the balances between violent action, comedic shenanigans, character development and a twist of originality. Thus far, it still feels like she’s finding her footing and losing Steve Dillon is quite a blow to the sturdy foundation he provided. I haven’t run out of patience yet, because Cloonan and Dillon have provided some excellent scenes in this series, but it is admittedly growing thin.

About Steve Dillon’s artwork...

Before he passed away, Dillon became an undeserving punching bag in some comic fan communities. People believed he didn’t show differentiation in expression or facial structure between characters. I can tell you from experience that they are confusing his style for general inability. No one gets on Jim Lee for drawing similar looking characters, but the only way to tell them apart is by their hair. Dillon draws attention because he’s so different from mainstream comic book art, despite having worked on mainstream comic books for the past 30 years.

Steve Dillon differentiated facial angles and jawlines, distances between eyes, nose and lip sizes, chin shape and hairline. Just because they’re all drawn in the same style, doesn’t mean they’re not different. He was among the first artists to show different physiques and heights on different characters. He drew fat characters, skinny characters, buff, weak, flabby, and stout, aged characters and children that actually looked like children instead of tiny adults. Losing him was a horrible loss to the industry.