The Punisher # 8

At a ski-resort in Upstate New York, Frank Castle and Rachel Cole-Alves are in a tense stand-off with their pistols raised at one another, the two of them having already killed all of the members of the Exchange inside the resort. Rachel gives the code phrase "blue on blue", which Frank repeats, recognizing her as a Marine, same as him. The two collect all of the laptop computers from the room and go their separate ways, with Castle telling Rachel to stay out of his way.

Later, Stephanie Gerard and Christian Poulsen - the two leaders of the Exchange - meet in front of a warehouse in Queens. Stephanie is upset about the Punisher having killed everyone at the resort, which Christian had expected; he'd set up the meeting at the resort to lure the Punisher into a trap. Poulsen takes his partner into the building, which is actually a deserted SHIELD outpost that he's commandeered from Nick Fury. Stephanie tells Christian to have the Castle situation resolved by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, both Castle and Rachel are looking for information on the recovered laptops. Rachel is visited by Detectives Clemons and Bolt, who are investigating the murders at the resort and have discovered that the Punisher now has a partner working with him. Clemons suggests that she's helping Castle, her response to which is tell the detectives to get out of her apartment. The next night, Castle is watching a building that the laptop notes have led him to, from a memo outlining the Exchange's information gathering location. Disguised as a janitor, an intruder sneaks onto the 19th floor, unaware that they're being tracked by their heat signature. Poulsen springs his trap, striking the intruder - who believes is the Punisher - with laser-firing robot sentries. But the intruder isn't the Punisher, it's Rachel who is trapped and being blasted by the robots. Poulsen who is on another floor with the robot controls, still thinks he's killing the Punisher, unaware that Castle is actually standing behind him.

Annotations:
The dual assault on the Exchange's "business retreat" by the Punisher and Rachel Cole-Alves occurred in The Punisher (2011) # 6. This issue picks up directly from the cliffhanger last page of issue # 6, while The Punisher (2011) # 7 takes place between pages 6 and 7 of this issue.

The Punisher suffered the injury to his eye during his fight with the Vulture in The Punisher (2011) # 3.

Rachel Cole-Alves was the only survivor of the "Wedding Day Massacre" in The Punisher (2011) # 1.

The phrase "blue on blue" is a military term referring to "friendly fire" amongst soldiers. According to Wikipedia, "Many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) militaries refer to these incidents as blue on blue, which derives from military exercises where NATO forces were identified by blue pennants, hence "blue", and Warsaw Pact forces were identified by orange pennants."

Review:
Marco Checchetto is back on the art duties and the plot is finally moving forward (finally)!

Just to get it out of the way at the beginning, it really cheeses me off when writers don't give their comics titles. Even if it's just "Blankity-Blank, Part 9 of 2", it gives me the feeling that yes, this is still a comic book no matter how much the creators want me to think it's a movie. I was really happy in a nit-picky way to see titles on the last three issues of this series, but here we are again with "untitled" and it annoys me.

On to things that actually matter to sane people, this issue marks a major improvement over issue # 7. The Exchange plot-line is advanced and the Punisher actually appears (and even speaks!), so that's two things already in this issue's favor. The decompression is still there, of course, frustrating as it may be, but at least here it doesn't hinder the storyline's forward progression. But even here, in an issue I did genuinely enjoy reading, is an opening sequence that takes 6 silent pages to resolve a cliffhanger with two spoken sentences. That's an act of "page waste" that's worthy of Brian Michael Bendis. I honestly don't see how this book is going to cross over with Daredevil and Avenging Spider-Man without a jarring style clash right in the middle of the story.

As with past issues, Rucka spends most of his time on the supporting cast, and that's not all bad. He gives us a much-needed look at the two leaders of the Exchange during a great conversation sequence inside a SHIELD bunker, and even though she's a huge cliche of a character I'm starting to warm up to Rachel Cole-Alves, mainly because of her great response to the detectives that are questioning her. I don't like Clemons and Bolt, so seeing Rachel put them in their place was cathartic for me as a reader, who has wanted to see Ozzy Clemons get his face caved in for 8 issues now. This issue also ends with a killer bait-and-switch cliffhanger that I truly didn't see coming until the last page but is totally obvious during a second look (which is how those type of cliffhangers should be done). Rucka also throws out a great villain quote there: "I'm inclined to monologue here. But people who do that to the Punisher tend to end up dead."

But what really steps this issue's game up is the return of Marco Checchetto, whose artwork I have sorely missed. The fill-in artists did great work, I freely admit that, but Checchetto has made this series his during his previous five issues. I went from wary optimism about his work in issue # 1 to full-on support with this issue. I'm eagerly anticipating "The Omega Effect", since he's doing the artwork on all three chapters. I do wonder how long he's going to have Frank wandering around with an eye bandaged up and a beard (which looks great)?

So far this series has had a really uneven track record, with great even-numbered issues and really disappointing odd-numbered issues. That doesn't give me much hope for the next issue, but this one sure set it up beautifully.

Grade: A-
Review Date: 02/05/12