Writer: Steven Grant; Artist: Mike Zeck; Inker: John Beatty; Letterer: Ken Bruzenak; Colorist: Bob Sharen; Editor: Carl Potts; Editor in Chief: Jim Shooter
Having barely survived the Trust's betrayal, the Punisher rushes to find the Ryker's Prison warden and his aide, who were the ones that brought Castle into the Trust to begin with. Frank busts into the aide's apartment only to find him dead at the hands of a Punisher look-alike under the Trust's control that manages to get away. Castle checks the aide's files and looks for information on Alaric but comes up empty, so he settles for the name and address of the warden. At the warden's apartment two blocks away, the Punisher look-alike is getting ready to murder him under orders from Alaric, but Frank gets there in time to kill the assassin and save the warden. The warden tells the Punisher that Alaric has been "brainwashing" criminals to become his army of killers, and he wanted Castle out of prison to lead this death squad. The warden tells Castle where to find Alaric, at an estate in upstate New York, and then he pulls a pistol and shoots himself in the head. Before he can leave, however, two police officers arrive and take the Punisher into custody.
Castle tries to explain the Trust's plan to the cops while they drive him to their station, but they naturally don't believe him. Then, the driving officer is shot and the car is run off the road by the Trust's Punisher assassins, forcing the surviving officer to free the Punisher in order to save their lives. After he kills the assassins, Castle escapes and forces Tony Massera - who has been watching the Punisher in preparation to kill him - to drive him to Alaric's estate. At his headquarters, Alaric and his lover Angela are reporting to another senior member of the Trust named Tex, who is skeptical of Alaric's plan to take over the mobs and eliminate organized crime. This gives Alaric an opportunity to show off the procedure he uses to brainwash criminals into false "Punishers".
Two hours later, Castle and Massera arrive at Alaric's compound, and Frank knocks Massera out and tosses him out of the car. Castle uses the car to ram the estate's gate, which the guards shoot at and cause to explode. But the Punisher wasn't in the vehicle, and he manages to sneak his way onto the grounds, which is guarded by the Trust's Punisher Squad. There he encounters the brainwashed Jigsaw, who upon seeing Frank begins to break his mental conditioning. Back to his normal state of mind, Jigsaw fires upon the Punisher while Alaric is alerted of the attack. Tex takes this as evidence of Alaric's failure, so Alaric elects to sic his guard dog on him, which chases Tex back to his helicopter. Alaric then orders Angela to escape in the jeep before the Punisher finds and kills her for betraying him. Outside, Frank hitches a ride on Tex's helicopter, but after Castle jumps to the roof of the building the helicopter explodes, killing Tex. Inside the house, Alaric taunts the Punisher via television monitors, trying to convince Castle to finally join up with the Trust. When Frank refuses, a trap-door opens in the floor, dumping him into the mental-conditioning chamber that first electrocutes and then gasses him.
Review:
"Circle of Blood" starts its wrap-up, and while Grant's story still holds up you can see the deadline stress starting to take effect on Zeck's artwork.
So, in this issue we finally learn what the Trust's (or really, Alaric's) plan really is: they're going to use brainwashed criminal death squads to stamp out organized crime, take over the mob, and use them to totally eradicate crime in America. You certainly can't fault them for not being ambitious, that's for sure. Where their plan falls apart, of course, is the naive idea to talk the Punisher into being the leader of their zombie army. At the start of this series, I could almost maybe see Frank considering the Trust's idea (though I still doubt he'd accept), but now we have a Punisher who's learned that long-term plots to end crime just don't work out how you think they will. Castle's own big idea to achieve that goal blew up in his face a few issues back, so his outlook has changed considerably. Frank Castle has accepted the fact that he'll never eliminate crime or even the mob itself, but is fine with just killing as many targets as he can. It really is an illuminating turn of events for the character, who at the time of this series was pretty ill-defined outside of "he shoots criminals".
There's actually a lot of pretty deep material in this issue, particularly when it comes to the Trust. Just like Frank predicted in an earlier issue, the Trust has become corrupted by one man, in this case Alaric, because conducting a war via committee just leaves the possibility of corruption to be easily accomplished. The Trust are undoubtedly bad guys here, but their goals are for the genuine good of society with their desire to end crime via the criminals themselves. It's their methods that distinguish them from the Punisher, who when viewed by an outsider is just as detestable as the Trust but still maintains an unwavering moral code. The Trust lives and dies by their ideals, and those ideals have been corrupted by Alaric, who is more in love with the idea of controlling the brainwashed criminals than their supposed end goal. Alaric's willingness to sacrifice innocents for "the greater good" is the ultimate mark of distinction between him and Frank, and in the Punisher's eyes it makes the Trust to be just as evil as the mob.
Unfortunately, this issue falls down with the artwork, because this is not Mike Zeck at his best. The panels look obviously rushed, and it's apparent that the monthly deadline was too much for him (I remember similar problems with Secret Wars, which had Bob Layton doing two fill-in issues right in the middle of the series). The detail work that made the first issues look so immaculate is gone now, or simply just glossed over in favor of turning the issue in on time. It's not as jarring as the next issue, which features a different artist altogether, but it's still disappointing to see such a great series falling apart in front of your eyes. I've failed to mention the much-discussed debate about whether this was supposed to be a 4-issue series or a 5-issue one, with the covers flailing back and forth between labels with each issue. From what I understand, the series was originally planned for 4-issues (that's what all of Marvel's limited series at the time ran for, this was the first to go over that limit), with both the 1st and 4th issues being double-sized. I'm not sure, though, if it was decided to split the final issue into two because of Zeck's deadline problems or for another reason; Marvel was hardcore about releasing comics on time in the 1980s, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that that's exactly what happened.
"Circle of Blood" is still a great, must-read series for any and every fan of the Punisher. Just be prepared for the quality of the art to slip a bit when you get closer to the end.
Grade: B-
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