War of the Realms: Punisher #1: Lethal Protector

The Punisher hits familiar ground in an unfamiliar setting as he fights to protect the citizens of New York, who up until this point have been relatively faceless cannon fodder. I appreciate this ground level take on the War and love that our guide is no stranger to war. He truly does go all out and thanks to purple elf blood we get full gore! Gerry Duggan can be hit and miss for me but this is a definite grand slam in my opinion! Also had a heavy laugh at this poor bastard on the first page. There is some gallows humor but the levity of the rest of the event is pretty completely absent in this issue, appropriately.

The art by Marcelo Ferriera is pretty rock solid and the dark elves, giants and monsters might be the best I’ve seen in this event, even Dauterman’s in the phenomenally drawn main series are way more cartoonish than this dark take. Man I enjoy this. Also wanted to mention the colors by Rachelle Rosenberg, explosions and fire can be tough to texture appropriately and the colors really pop at  those and a lot of the action panels as well, which could also be attributed to dynamic line work by Ferriera and inker Roberto Poggi.