Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning; Artist: Dale Eaglesham; Inker: Scott Koblish; Letterer: Bill Oakley; Colorist: Marie Javins w/ Electric Crayon; Editor: Don Daley; Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco; Cover Artist: Vince Evans
At Central Park in New York City, an alcoholic newspaper reporter named McTeer wakes up on a bench to the sound of gunshots coming from the Sheep's Meadow area of the park. He stumbles toward the sounds and finds a grisly scene: a man hanging upside down from a tree, and a family consisting of a husband, wife, son, and daughter laying dead from multiple gunshot wounds. After the police arrive, Detective John Laviano and his partner Stan Witts go over the crime scene. They've identified the family as Frank and Maria Castle, and the only witness they've found is McTeer, who Laviano has a bad relationship with. While the detectives question McTeer, the EMTs realize that Frank Castle isn't dead yet - and then Frank wakes up in a psychotic rage, screaming loudly and attacking anyone he sees. The police aren't able to stop him until, when Frank reaches the body of his wife, the EMTs are able to inject him with a sedative that causes him to pass out. The medics then take both Castle and McTeer to Mount Sinai Hospital for treatment.
At the hospital, the detectives go over Castle's file, which says he's a Captain in the Marine Corps with numerous medals that's only recently come home from war. They're unaware that McTeer is listening to their conversation, ready to turn the situation into a newspaper story. Outside Castle's room, the detectives meet Dr. Miles Warren, who is actually a college professor called in to help with the hospital being short-staffed. Warren informs Laviano that the other victim of the park shooting, Forrest Hunt, is still alive as well; Laviano tells the doctor and his partner to keep this information from Castle when he wakes up, afraid the Marine might go vigilante on them. Meanwhile, at a bar, Mcteer is working on the story of Frank Castle and his family.
Later that night, Forrest Hunt has died and the detectives leave to get some sleep. Two men dressed as doctors threaten the cop guarding Castle's door, and he lets them inside. Frank wakes up in his room, and at first he thinks he's back in Vietnam during the war before he remembers what happened to his family. When the two assassins enter the room, Frank is kneeling down on the floor, distraught from the memories of what happened and oblivious to the men getting ready to shoot him.
Review:
Twenty years after his first appearance, the origin of the Punisher is told in detail while still remaining faithful to the continuity of past stories...extremely faithful, even to a fault.
Okay, Punisher: Year One is a really strange and interesting series that offers up a lot of material for discussion, so right now I'm only going to talk about what happens in this issue and I'll take an overall look at the series when I get to issue 4 (otherwise, I'd be here typing all night long). It's weird to me that it took this long for someone to produce this story, because the Punisher's origin had only been briefly referenced throughout his publication history. There was the story in Marvel Preview that gave us the broad strokes of what happened, but it mainly focused on Frank Castle after he had already become the Punisher. Since then, the origin had been referenced numerous times, but always in vague flashbacks that only gave the essential bits of information (and it changed from story to story, sometimes there was a kite involved for example). So for the Punisher's 20th anniversary, Marvel released Year One - let me deviate for a second: I really hate the "Year One" title because a) the series doesn't take place over a year's time, more like a couple of weeks and b) it's an obvious origin-story shorthand taken from DC's Batman: Year One, making it lazy.
What's really interesting about this comic is that it doesn't at all read like a mid-90s Marvel book, it's much deeper and more interested in emotional drama than a typical book of the era. This is the perfectly appropriate way to approach what needs to be a traumatic gut-punch of a story, and the decision to assign the book to writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning was spot-on. The writing duo are pretty well-known at Marvel nowadays from their work on the cosmic titles and books like New Mutants and Heroes For Hire, but they've been working for Marvel since the early 1990s - and in fact, I believe their first regular ongoing assignment was The Punisher series. By this point, they'd been involved with the Punisher franchise for a couple of years, and it's obvious that they have a great handle on the character. What gives this such a striking difference from their previous Punisher work is the characterization of Frank Castle, who is not the grim and determined vigilante that readers are familiar with. When we first see Frank as anything other than a body, he's gone insane from the trauma of his family's murder, and at the end of this issue he's a wreck that almost refuses to distinguish reality from memory. The Frank we see here isn't a Punisher yet, he's a victim and he's at his most vulnerable. This comic is almost painful to get through, and that's due to the amount of sheer emotion that the writers are able to convey through the main character.
Abnett and Lanning also take the time to introduce a few supporting characters, including Detective Laviano, who was a bit player in the first telling of the Punisher's origin. Laviano and his partner are instantly intriguing characters, and a sharp contrast to the other new character, Mike McTeer. I totally get where they're coming from with McTeer, he's a deadbeat writer who crawls inside a bottle of booze and blames others for his failures. I just wish they hadn't made him so damn annoying to read. Sure, he's supposed to be unlikable at first here, but I think it was taken a bit too far to the point where I was actively hoping someone would kill him halfway through the issue just so I wouldn't have to read him saying "She-suss!" one more time. There's also a really weird cameo from Miles Warren, the Jackal, and while I know they included him because of his ties to the Punisher during his first appearance it still seems to come out of nowhere (though it's nowhere near as jarring as the Peter Parker appearance next issue).
The artwork is handled by another creator who is pretty well-known these days for his runs on Fantastic Four and Justice Society of America, Dale Eaglesham. But fans of Eaglesham's artwork would likely find his work here to be unrecognizable as coming from the same artist - instead of the relatively clean line work of his current stuff, the work here is extremely detailed in 90s excess fashion. I happen to like Eaglesham's work on this series, it actually reminds me a lot of Gene Ha's early work for Marvel, because he nails the most important part of the book: the emotion of the characters. His facial expressions and body language are dead-on, and you can see every inch of anguish and anger on these characters' faces. The really weird part is the fashion that Eaglesham dresses the characters in; I'm not sure if the writers intended it or not, but the artist is definitely under the impression that this story takes place during the mid-1970s. I've not seen so many bell-bottom pants and open-necked shirts since "That 70's Show" went off the air, but it works for the story that's being told. It grounds the events in what looks and feels like the real world of the time, Marvel continuity be damned.
Punisher: Year One is a brilliant series that only takes a few minor missteps as it goes along, and it's something that I highly recommend every Punisher fan should read.
Grade: A+
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