By: Jonathan Maberry (writer), Goran Parlov (art), Lee Loughridge (colors) & Cory Petit (letters)
The Story: Frank Castle is forced to do battle with a criminal mastermind who is ruling the cannibal controlled wastes of NYC.
What’s Good: How do you make a fun, non-cannon story about cannibal versions of your favorite Marvel heroes and villains getting killing by Frank Castle better? Well, it appears that you can do it by having Jonathan Maberry write it because he tosses in a few plot wrinkles here that have made this one of my current favorite miniseries.
The story has evolved quite rapidly from the first issue to where we have learned that the cannibal hordes opposing Frank Castle aren’t mindless. They have some structure and are lead by infected cannibal heroes/villains who have kept some of their mental faculties. I don’t want to spoil matters here too much, but if you’ve read Marvel comics for any period of time, the identity of who would come out on top of a cannibal gang in NYC shouldn’t be a huge surprise.
The better surprise is the motive of cannibal Spidey to seek Frank’s help with a plot device that is especially sweet if you have been reading the garbage that is Amazing Spider-Man: One Moment In Time. This issue of MU vs Punisher either shows that Joe Quesada has a healthy sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself for allowing this story OR he just wasn’t paying attention at all.
Ok… So the story has moved from merely “fun” to “really quite good”. What about the art? I am not the biggest fan of Parlov’s general style, but there are so many panels with just heaps of Marvel heroes and villains that it is fun to just pick them all out: “Oooh… There’s Madrox and Iceman. And is that… Sauron?????”
What’s Not So Good: I could have done without the armchair moralizing that we get from the priest. He gives Frank this humdinger of a, “This is a chance for your life to have meaning again, son!” speech. Spare me. This is a silly, alternate future story, so I don’t know why we need to see personal growth from Frank Castle. I am sure that everyone buying this comic is doing it because they heard that Frank does things like chopping Deadpool into ~30 pieces and burying him all over NYC to keep Deadpool from regenerating.
I’m also a bit bummed about what I’m sure the sales will be like for this clever miniseries. In an era when no comic book really sells well, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was checking in at ~20K units and that’s a shame because Maberry has created a world that he can return to in the future if he wants to.
Conclusion: I figured this would be “fun”, but it has turned out to be a pretty good story also.
Grade: B-
- Dean Stell
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Filed under: Marvel Comics Tagged: | Cory Petit, Dean Stell, Goran Parlov, Jonathan Maberry, Lee Loughridge, Marvel, Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher, MARVEL UNIVERSE VS. THE PUNISHER #3, MARVEL UNIVERSE VS. THE PUNISHER #3 reviw, Punisher, review, Spider-Man, Zombies
