Writers: Steven Grant & Jo Duffy; Artist: Mike Vosburg; Inker: John Beatty; Letterer: Ken Bruzenak; Colorist: Bob Sharen; Editor: Carl Potts; Editor in Chief: Jim Shooter; Cover Artist: Mike Zeck
The Punisher has been trapped inside Alaric's conditioning chamber, which he uses to brainwash criminals into becoming Punisher clones for the Trust via gas and electrical shocks. Before he succumbs to the gas, Frank is able to block the gas vent and cause an explosion, which frees him from the room. When he steps out, however, he's ambushed by Jigsaw, who has broken the Trust's conditioning and has returned to his true personality. Jigsaw savagely beats Castle, but Frank is able to stab his foe in the leg and gain the upper hand. He beats Jigsaw into unconsciousness in front of a group of Punisher clones, and when they see what Frank has done they all drop their weapons and run away.
Alaric is left alone in his control room, having been abandoned by all of his brainwashed soldiers. When Castle enters the control room, Alaric ambushes him and beats him to the floor with a rifle, then runs into his bedroom to pack his clothes and escape with his lover Angela. But the Punisher isn't dead, and he confronts Alaric, resulting in a stand-off with both men pointing guns at each other. The stand-off is broken when Alaric's dog attacks, but Frank is able to shoot Alaric and knock out the dog before either could harm him. Alaric begs Castle not to kill him, cowering on the floor like an animal, so Frank orders Alaric to call up as many press organizations as he can and to reveal all of the Trust's secrets. If he doesn't do this, the Punisher will return and kill him. Alaric agrees and is left crying in his room, while Castle leaves confident that Alaric will do as ordered because he's a coward.
Before he can leave the house, Frank is confronted by Tony Massera, the son of a mobster that the Punisher had killed. Tony has a gun and is there to kill Castle out of revenge, but Frank is able to convince Massera that he shouldn't throw his life away for vengeance. Tony ultimately gives in and lowers the gun, allowing Castle to walk past him. When Frank gets outside, he begins to cross the bridge from Alaric's compound and is seen by Angela, who has been waiting in a car for her lover Alaric. When she realizes that it's the Punisher and not Alaric, she believes that her lover is dead and out of revenge she drives onto the bridge to run Castle down. Frank shoots the car's engine, and the rain causes her to skid into the railing of the bride, leaving the car teetering over the edge. Angela pleads for the Punisher to save her, but Frank instead decides to follow the advice he gave to Massera, "sometimes the best thing is to just do nothing," and he walks away to leave Angela to her fate.
Review:
And here's where the wheels fell off the cart, when a different writer and artist were brought in to finish the story that Steven Grant and Mike Zeck began.
Looking back, it's hard to imagine a time when Marvel Comics valued releasing a comic on time over maintaining the consistency of a creative team, but that's exactly what happened to the first Punisher mini-series. Mike Zeck was not the quickest artist of his day, and as the series progressed you could see his artwork starting to degrade with each new issue - compare the work on issue # 4 to the beautiful artwork on issue # 1, the drop in quality is just undeniable. But that's okay, even at his worst Mike Zeck was still a fantastic artist, and from the stories I've read it sounds like the schedule on this series was brutal. The fourth issue was originally going to be the last, double-sized like the first issue, until it was expanded to five regular-sized issues instead. Was this done to give Zeck time to catch up to his deadlines? Possibly, but I can't say that's actually what happened. What did happen, unfortunately, is that Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter got cold feet about Zeck missing his deadline for the final issue, and he decided to bring in a last-minute creative team to take his place.
I honestly don't have any idea why Jo Duffy was brought on to script this issue, since the deadline problems were on Zeck's shoulders and not on Steven Grant's. For whatever reason, Duffy stepped in and scripted over Grant's plots, and thankfully she does a good job with maintaining Grant's writing style. In fact, had I not known beforehand I would have just assumed it was still Grant scripting, there's no major differences between it and what had come before. So at least at the writing end, the series seems to have reached the ending it was always intended to have, though it's an ending that leaves a little to be desired. The Punisher dismantles Alaric's operation, revealing the villain to be a coward that can't back up his tough talk, and Castle threatens Alaric into revealing the Trust's plans and members to the press...and then he just walks away with Alaric crying on the floor? Frank doesn't stay to ensure Alaric does what he says, instead he just threatens to kill him later if he doesn't; I realize the point is to show just how big of a coward Alaric really is, that he'd do whatever the Punisher tells him to do to keep from being killed, but having Frank leave with the belief that a manipulator like Alaric would follow-through is just naïve.
The remaining plotlines involving Tony Massera (mistakenly called Tony Siciliano here) and Angela Montoy are resolved in better ways than the Alaric mess. Tony gets the opportunity to kill Frank and avenge his mob boss of a father's death, but Castle's heartfelt speech about Tony and the "circle of blood" causes the young man to change his mind. Massera was established in the first issue as being a relatively good person, not a criminal like his dad, so it was satisfying to see him give up his need for vengeance, to avoid becoming like the Punisher himself. The tie-up with Angela on the last page is handled well too, with her attempt to run down Castle on the bridge resulting in her car teetering over the edge. Castle decides to just "do nothing" and leaves Angela to her fate, and while it smacks of the same naivety that colored his decision regarding Alaric, I give Frank a little more leeway here due to his frequent blindspot when it comes to women. Naturally, of course, his decision to leave Angela and Alaric alive will come back to bite him on the ass years later when Steven Grant revisits them during a later run.
And now we address the artwork by Mike Vosburg, who was one of the numerous "house style" artists that Marvel employed at the time. The dynamic flair that Zeck brought to the book is gone, replaced with a more mainstream and, frankly, boring style; there's a workmanship quality to Vosburg's work, and he does later go on to develop his own unique style, but here it just looks like a typical, run of the mill 1980s Marvel comic. It's a disappointing end to a series that had traded on Zeck's artwork as the major selling point.
"Circle of Blood" is a hugely important element of the Punisher's history, it proved that the character could not only sustain his own title but that he had it in him to become one of the company's highest selling characters. Despite its flaws, I recommend everyone to read it; just be aware that with the fifth chapter comes a jarring artistic shift.
Grade: C+
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