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PUNISHER #7
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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Marvel Comics/Marvel Knights imprint
Writer/Pencils: Steve Dillon
Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Editor: Stuart Moore
Price: $2.99 US/$4.50 CAN |
This is a perfectly serviceable silent story, but there's not much substance to it, and thus we begin to see the problem in having an entire month of these types of stories. Though you could hardly accuse Punisher of
being that substantive anyway, when you take away some of the more satiric plot
elements and subplots and reduce it to simply the Punisher hunting a man down,
it becomes a bit flat. Dillon's storytelling and artwork is as note-perfect as
always, but it's in service of a story that can be ably described in about 25
words, as demonstrated in the back of this book. If you just want some pretty
artwork and an example of storytelling that works, this is the place. If you
want funny or entertaining for story reasons, you're better off looking
elsewhere.
It's no surprise, of course,
that Dillon's storytelling is up to this task. With or without the dialogue
provided by Ennis, a lot of the humor in this series has been visual. The
interrogation of the suspect in the restroom makes it perfectly clear what the
Punisher's threat is without any words at all, and the silence does help the
feeling of Frank as an implacable and unemotional foe.
However, what we're losing out on is the narration in Frank's head, which is often as entertaining as the art, and usually carries the undercurrent of psychological examination that made Punisher anything but a two-minute film trailer. Also,
without the panic of the villains (in anything but the most basic visual sense),
the actions of the Punisher actually seem less frightening, and certainly less
amusing.
One of the big flaws of
Marvel's silent month is evident in this story, and that's the repetitive nature
of silent storytelling. If the creative team does a silent issue when nobody
else does it, it can be kind of fun and entertaining strictly on those merits,
even if the story isn't really about anything. Conversely, if the book moves
along a continuing story or builds on characterization towards a future goal, it
doesn't really matter whether the book is silent or not. But this issue is a
gimmick issue, and the gimmick is already old, since I've read five other silent
stories so far this month.
There are no complaints to be
made on this book from a storytelling standpoint. It's clear, it's fun at times,
it gets the basic character and story across and it's attractive to look at. But
it's so very empty that in the end, it accomplishes nothing, and even the brief
flicker of entertainment it provides is gone seconds after you close the
issue.
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