Monthly (Comic) Book Club - July - The Punisher: Purgatory17912
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - July - The Punisher: Purgatory  The Punisher (1998) #1-4 Wolverine/Punisher: Revelations #1-4 Week 1 (7/4-7/10): Punisher #1-2 Week 2 (7/11-7/17): Punisher #3-4 Week 3 (7/23/-7/24): Wolverine/Punisher #1-2 Week 4 (7/25-7/31): Wolverine/Punisher #3-4 Discussion topic ideas: * Thoughts on the story or artwork * Details in the story, artwork, or presentation * References to outside events or other works of fiction * Making of/Behind the Scenes details * Editions you will be reading from * Items in your collection pertaining to this week’s selection |
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 I'm a McNugget guzzler.
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HeinzDad private msg quote post Address this user | |
| This is cool. I was putting books away today and saw my Wrightson Punisher run that I never read. I'll be in on weeks 1 and 2. | ||
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| @HeinzDad Be glad to have ya! This’ll be a re-read for me but it’s such an infamous read I thought it would be interesting to revisit |
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| Oh lord. I'll have to see if I can dig this one out. I remember reading it, then putting it away to never have to revisit it. | ||
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Quote:Originally Posted by Studley_DudleyThat was my recollection of book 1 of the Wrightson run. I’ll give it a go again. |
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So I’m reading from a custom-bound hardcover I had made up back when I was getting the whole Marvel Knights run bound. For some reason Marvel only released 3 volumes and then just stopped   The three above are the official releases and the ones below are my custom-bound books  |
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| So issue #1 begins with some narration about an alleyway having become something of a shrine to the dregs and desperate of the city. The Punisher seems to have become a kind of urban legend. He’s supposed to be dead but he still stalks the streets. Still taking out drug factories. The scene reminded me a bit of the drug lab scene from Robocop. The punisher razes the building and just walks out of the fire unscathed So far the issue isn’t too far afield from what you’d expect in a Punisher book. Then we get to the church. Two people are praying but are then ambushed by demons. It turns out the people were angels and one manages to get away but the other is killed by the Demon. We learn the demon had been banished from heaven along with Lucifer, and later banished from Hell to Earth in a human body and is now on a quest for revenge. When a woman comes home to an abusive husband but the Punisher is there to stop him, apparently having answered the woman’s prayer from the alley. They recognize each other and the encounter seems to throw Frank off a bit. I can understand Frank being surprised. He’s supposed to be dead and given his life as the Punisher, he probably doesn’t know many people very well so bumping into someone would probably be something of a shock. I was a little confused about why she was surprised. It’s not like Castle kept his identity a secret. However, she does call him Castiglione. As Castle was the name he adopted in order to serve in marines and go to Vietnam. If she knew him before he took the name Castle then it’d make sense and he does mention that they were 8 years old so that matches. But then some of the narration seems to indicate that they knew each other after Frank got back but before he became the Punisher. Unless I am misunderstanding the two wars he’s referring to. Anyways, after his encounter with Lucy Frank is trying to piece together his memories when his family appears and leads him away from the alley. Turns out they were an illusion meant to lead him to the angel that escaped the ambush. He tells Frank about the demon, Olivier, capturing territory on Earth and where to find a man that has answers to the questions plaguing Frank since his return. Frank finds Gadriel who explains that he was once an angel and that he brought Frank back to life after his death and also reveals that he was his family’s guardian angel, a task he failed monumentally. So the issue is at the same time very familiar territory for the Punisher but also very alien. At times the Punisher is portrayed more like a force of nature and from there it isn’t too far a stretch to think of him almost like ghost protecting the city. I actually kind of dig the idea of Frank being like an avenging spirit answering prayers and appearing where he is needed. What I think makes this feel very strange is how we are hit in the face with angels and demons without any real subtlety. Sure the angels appear human for all of two pages but Olivier just stands out. I think if we spent more time with the angels and demons in their human forms like the way we meet Gadriel, it would have made things fee less out of place. Heck maybe forego the traditional angel and demons look and keep them as idiosyncratic humans, like something from the movie Devil’s Advocate, would make things feel more cohesive. I think the work on the cover art by Wrightson and Jusko looks great, I’m a fan of Jusko’s paintings in general, though the guns do feel a bit over-designed and emphasizing them so much in the painting doesn’t help. The cover is nearly identical to the first splash page in the book, though in that case the coloring doesn’t emphasize the guns nearly as much and I think that decision works better. Speaking of the splash page, Wrightson also provides the interior pencils. The work is fairly solid throughout though some layouts do cram tons of frames on the page forcing Wrightson to populate them with smaller, less detailed, and less impressive characters. While I like Wrightson work, I think the inking and the digital coloring don’t make it look its best. If you think about it, Wrightson really is an inspired choice for a semi-supernatural book set in dark and dingy New York at night but they didn’t use him to his best. If they’d let Wrightson go hog wild with his intricate line work he was known for on his Swamp Thing run the book would’ve been a sight to behold. You do get more of that on the covers, which is why I really enjoy them, but the interior art isn’t among Wrightson’s best work. |
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 If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| #1 picks up the Punisher after he apparently died. I haven't read anything from the series before this one aside from the general description that Frank took on the role of head of a crime family, and maybe died at the end. Frank's memory is fuzzy so he doesn't know how he died either. So we have a bit of a mystery around what happened to Frank and how he became this supernatural force. A small part of that gets answered at the end; an angel brought Frank back at least in part because he failed at his job of being his family's guardian angel. We don't know the whole situation yet, but like @dielinfinite said, it's still in the Punisher vein. It seems like he's been put in the middle of a heaven/hell gang war, more or less. And he's still an urban legend who shows up when the bad guys' least expect it, but maybe now he does it with some help from other powers. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I understood the reference to the wars the same way you did. I think the panel said he was a friend's sister? I don't think he said "they" were 8 but that "she" was 8 (although I'd have to go back and check). Maybe I read it too quickly but I assumed she was a younger sister and Frank is older than her. As to why she doesn't know that he's the Punisher, I don't know the backstory well enough to say when his name came out in the news. If it was common knowledge it seems like it would have been a big topic in his old neighborhood though. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I think the over-detail on the guns helps to emphasize that they aren't really his guns, or probably even normal guns. He says during the drug fight that he just reaches into his coat and has what he wants, so they all must be supernatural. The glow on the cover emphasizes that too. So I didn't mind it but I know YMMV. I knew that Wrightson's name was on the book but I was surprised that he did the interiors. I actually kind of don't like the art. It's fine in places but hasn't struck me as great, and like you said there are places where the detail just goes away. I've never read one of Bernie's regular series but from the covers and prints that people have posted, I would have had my expectations way higher. I also get more of a Jusko vibe than a Bernie vibe on the covers; they have his painted quality. Maybe we'll have to pick another Wrightson series later to make it up to him. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk That would make sense. I do believe Wrightson did the pencils on the covers and Jusko painted them but I think you still get a hint of Wrightson’s style coming through and certainly closer to what you expect from him than the interiors. Yeah the guns are definitely supernatural, I just don’t think they should be the most prominent thing on the cover and in doing so makes the design feel a bit more out of place. I mentioned the splash page after Frank knocks down the door to the drug lab is very close to the the cover but the coloring doesn’t overemphasize the guns and I think that makes the composition feel less jarring. I do love the cover for the most part and my issue with the guns is only a little more than a not-pick. For what it’s worth, despite not liking the glow on the guns, I do like the lighting effect they cast on the wall |
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Speaking of covers, I should share these, too. I do like the original Wrightson/Jusko cover over the Jae Lee variant. Jae Lee is usually one of my favorite cover artists but this one lacks his typical style and just falls kind of flat. Although, I do wonder what the significance is of the different forehead brand in the Lee cover. I sold one of them and kept the other.   I really like both of these covers. The anime aesthetic may not be to everyone’s liking but I do like its application here. I especially like the detail on the second cover like the detail on Logan’s claws and seeing his eyes beneath the mask instead of the typical comic thing of just filling the eye holes with white. I’ll also note that both covers feature Frank’s supernatural weapons with an even more excessive design on the second cover. However, they are not overly-emphasized so they don’t feel so out of place, although I’m sure the stylization and the somewhat techno-futuristic look, particularly on the first cover, helps integrate them as well   |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk I guess the answer would be that she was 8 when Frank was out of Vietnam. I understood that Frank would’ve been older but I guess such a major age difference (12+ years) just didn’t cross my mind. The comic isn’t in real-time like Ennis’ MAX series but I’d assume plenty of time has passed since Vietnam. Even if Frank was in his 40s in the story she’d be in her late 20s/early 30s As for knowing he was the Punisher, I’m guessing the story is going with “she knew him as Castiglione not Castle so didn’t know it was him the whole time.” The only way that works would be if he was still know as Castiglione within a circle of acquaintances while he went by Castle to the rest of the world. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Issue 2 was low on action and high on confusion for me. Frank's first battle with demons could have been an opportunity for some cool shots or some new weapons, but we get neither. It's over in a panel or two and Frank doesn't even pull a random flamethrower like he did in #1. Where's the blessed water supersoaker, or the holy hand grenade? I also found some of the story to be nonsensical. Frank shoots Gadriel, who says that Frank must want him alive because his guns do whatever he wants. But then Gadriel says he didn't give Frank the weapons so he could kill him. Is that a general statement or did Gadriel mean that the weapons can't actually kill him? Frank shoots him again and doesn't kill him (again). The Punisher is not a guy who shoots to not kill, so maybe the guns don't kill angels? It's just confusing. Related, Frank is awfully mad at Gadriel for failing as his family's guardian angel. I can see it, but it seems too strong. Frank's whole war is on people like those who killed his family, but he doesn't extend it to those who failed to save his family, right? He didn't, and the police (whose job is to keep people safe) didn't, and superheroes didn't. Frank doesn't go after any of those people. Is it just because Gadriel expresses a feeling of personal responsibility? In a random thing I noticed that further lowers my trust in the attention to detail of the book, there's a typo in the Genesis quote by the credits. |
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| Issue 2 definitely felt like a filler issue. Issue 1 ended with Punisher angry at Gadriel and Olivier up to evil stuff and that’s pretty much where we are at the end of issue 2 with nothing much in between. We get the hint that Gadriel is hiding something but that doesn’t seem to be especially groundbreaking news. I also think you might be answering your own question slightly. You’re wondering why Punisher can’t seem to Kill Gadriel but then point out that his war hasn’t really been with those who failed to save his family. So to me it makes sense that though he may be angry at Gadriel, this being a fresh new wound, he’s not exactly lumping Gadriel in with the likes of those that did kill his family, hence he’s not actually executing him. And though the Punisher isn’t actively warring on the police and other heroes, he does treat them with quite a bit of disdain for their ineffectiveness. So given the supernatural playing field he finds himself on, shooting an angel he’s mad and not necessarily wanting him dead doesn’t necessarily feel out of place. Looking to the end of Garth Ennis’ Marvel Knights run, Punisher ends up trapping Spider-Man in a room full of (unarmed) mines, dislocates Daredevil’s shoulder, blows up Wolverine with an RPG, and detonates a C4 explosive in the Hulk’s gut, so Punisher is very much capable of inflicting harm on people that aren’t targets in his war and does so in degrees by what will hurt the specific person without wishing to kill them. The Hellstorm cameo I think is a bit wasted. I think the first time I read this I wasn’t even aware he was an existing character. Were people very psyched for him back in the 90s? I know he had his own series but it always seemed like a symptom of 90s excess than anything long-term. I agree that the battle is more than a little anti-climactic. We get four pages setting up Hellstorm, Gadriel, and Punisher for a “Lock and Load” moment going into battle and the battle itself is wrapped up in 3 frames. To a degree Frank feels like a supporting character in this issue. I get that they want to set up some intrigue in the angels’ plan for Castle and their past with him but what should probably be a suspicious double-entendre here or a panel lingering too long there is drawn out into pages that don’t convey much new information and distracts from the Punisher and thus failing to sell the audience on this new direction for the character. Give us more pages of Pubisher using his new abilities in cool ways and fewer pages of Olivier hanging out in his penthouse or punishing his minions. Let Frank be Frank. He should’ve caught and interrogated that demon and Gadriel should’ve found the two, forcing Gadriel to kill the demon before he gave up anything incriminating to Frank. That would’ve drawn as much suspicion as however many pages we spent on Gadriel and Hellstorm whispering behind Frank’s back. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite The equivalent for me would be the 2012 War Zone series. Frank takes on the Avengers, who finally come after him when Spider-Man convinces the rest that they shouldn't let a guy run around killing people any more. He battles the Avengers but it's really a delay tactic to let someone new take on the Punisher mantle. He attacks in degrees, like you said, to fit his plan. Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite So I guess the question is, did Frank really intend to not kill Gadriel? A furiously angry Punisher isn't a set phasers to stun guy to me. Maybe it will pay off or make sense later but I don't think of the Punisher as a "I'll let this slide" guy. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk I guess for me it seems like it may be a subconscious thing. Elements of the guns don’t seem to necessarily be under conscious control. It mentioned that they take the form he needs which to me indicates not necessarily what he wants. So Frank may certainly wanted to hurt Gadriel I don’t think it’s unthinkable that a part of him may not want him dead either because he does want the answers Gadriel has, he understands Gadriel didn’t kill his family, or just on a “Angels are/should be good” level |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| #3 continues to underwhelm. We mentioned disappointment with the art before, in terms of lacking action and not being Wrightson's best work. This issue continues. Bernie Wrightson drawing battles in hell sounds like it should be awesome, and I see some potential, but it is not awesome. The fight between the Stalkers and Frank (and the angels) doesn't have much flair either. Speaking of a lack of flair, Frank is not impressing me in his battle choices either. I mentioned it in last issue's post but again there's a lack of imagination for a guy who can generate any weapon he wants. No more flamethrowers? Grenades that only hurt demons? Mentally-guided throwing knives? Whatever that flaming axe thing that the demon generated was cooler and more effective than everything Frank has been doing. There are still mysteries in the plot but we're getting to the point. Olivier the demon was also Frank Costa, the mafia head that ordered Frank's family murdered. He did it with some knowledge that Frank would become the Punisher and deliver a steady stream of bodies that Olivier would turn into an army. That doesn't strike me as a necessary thing for Frank; I think everyone is on board with mafia heads being bad guys even if they aren't literal demons. Having Frank's victims be turned into an army of the damned is a potentially interesting idea but I don't know if it will really pay off in one last issue. I think about the only remaining mystery, besides why isn't the art better, is why Gadriel wants Frank in the dark about the situation. And again, why isn't Frank kicking more ass when he can make whatever weapon he wants/needs for the situation? |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| #4 finally has Frank show some imagination, as he pulls some kind of minigun and a sword. But otherwise I remained unimpressed. Why would Frank grab a sword just because another guy has an axe? He's definitely a "bring a gun to a knife fight" kind of guy. Plus, the art for the panel where the sword and axe clash is bad. Part of the handle is missing in his hands and it kind of looks like he hit the axe with the broad side of the sword. Beyond the art, I'm not impressed with the story overall. Turning the Punisher into a supernatural killer, which he almost is anyway, is an interesting idea. Putting him into essentially a turf war for hell is an interesting idea. But I don't think it was executed well. I already mentioned that having a literal demon be responsible for Frank's family's deaths seems unneeded. I also have a lot of questions about angels now that we have Gadriel's complete side of the story. I also don't see how Frank would commit suicide even when being egged on by demons, but maybe that was explained somewhat in the previous series. I guess it just didn't do it for me. Fingers crossed the next series has more going for it. The extreme anime style isn't my cup of tea, so expectations are set to low. |
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| @xkonk I think we agree on one major flaw in this series and that is that Frank is not nearly as cool as he should be. He feels like a supporting character in his own series. Instead of terrifying goons and interrogating them for information we are spoon fed exposition from angels and demons while they take baths or drink tea. I think issue 3 includes the strongest bits of Wrightson’s artwork in the series, that being Frank clawing his way out of his grave. It is very much in Wrightson’s wheelhouse however I don’t think it’s his greatest work and again the inking and colors just make it look very boring. I am not against recontextualizing the murder of Frank’s family. I’m fine with it working on two levels but it would have to be in service of a story told better than we have here. This is another major bombshell of news for Frank and it’s just kinda handed to him while he’s tied up. |
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| So issue 4 just kind of limps across the finish line. Again, most of the issue is just dumps of exposition and brief fights. Frank doesn’t even defeat Olivier himself, hell just kind of takes the opportunity to kill him. I can understand why the series has the reputation it has but I also think over time a badly written story was conflated with a bad idea. I don’t think turning Frank into a supernatural character is necessarily a bad idea. The first issue showed a little bit of promise with Frank graduating to an almost literal boogeyman for the criminal element. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough and the rest of the series doesn’t do much to sell us on this version of Frank. Instead of Frank being an even bigger badass now that he’s wielding some powers he’s little more than a gun among some lame fight scenes while the majority of the book is about angels and demons dumping exposition. I feel like the writers or maybe editorial wanted to go for what should’ve been big eye candy with angels and demons battling it out on every issue, thinking that it is inherently cool without doing anything to earn it. I think I should say that I don't think this book was exceptionally bad. It’s certainly not good but not any worse than any other mediocre comic we’ve read. What I think would have been a better approach would be to do one arc about Frank’s return. It’d feel like a traditional Punisher story for the most part but you have that undercurrent of people thinking the Punisher was dead and the sightings of him are just stories and Frank slowly realizing something has happened. Not entirely unlike Murphy slowly getting his memories back in Robocop, and specifically scenes like the gas station where the thug saying “You’re dead, we killed you!” causes him to discover he had been murdered in his previous life. As Frank tears through the criminal underworld maybe the big bad turns out to have a connection to the afterlife. Not something big and obvious like actually being a demon, but more subtle that that works for the supernatural side without feeling entirely out of place in a Punisher story. Thinking of Crow: City of Angels, maybe the big bad had a near death experience and that brief touch of the afterlife allows him to hurt Frank in a way the other goons couldn’t. This does make me want to read the FrankenCastle stories. They seem like something of a spiritual successor in turning Frank into something of a supernatural character but I think Rick Remender’s writing is generally more solid so perhaps he could do it justice. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Yeah, I agree. You can see it as an interesting concept that just wasn't pulled off. For me, the art was the most disappointing part. Someone posted a bunch of Wrightson covers in the "find stuff under $50" thread and every single one is better than everything in this series. |
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| @xkonk Definitely! Wrightson sounds like an inspired choice on paper and had his work approached the quality of his prak the book could’ve at least looked amazing. I’m not familiar enough with Wrightson’s body of work to say how this work compares to other work he’d produced around the same time. I’ve laid a lot of blame on the inks and colors, which I think give the art too clean a look for a horror title. Wrightson is known for his intricate line work and inks and none of that is really present here. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| It's Friyay, time for some lunchtime reading! Revelations 1. The issue didn't start off well for me, with Wolverine's internal monologue turning into a out-loud one-liner when he's in a room alone. That kind of thing sets a tone that I'm not really looking for in a Wolverine/Punisher book. And I won't say the issue was great but I did come around on it. The manga style is different but not bad, and the writing overall (Golden again) still isn't great but it isn't terrible (yet). The Punisher is continuing on his Heaven-powered streak and connecting with people (unclear if he's starting a relationship with Lucy or just catching up), and Wolverine has a new relationship and runs into some kind of alien threat. At the end it looks like the two will come together because of Revelation's death aura but we'll also have to see how the council plays into things. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Issue 2 also starts with a mild annoyance, stating how dangerous New York City is. NYC has a lot of crime because it has a lot of people. Looking at violent crime and adjusting per capita, it's just barely in the top 100 US cities according to the FBI. At any rate, Revelation is making a lot of people sick. Wolverine gets some of the backstory from a hologram. I can't tell if the switch between being identified as a mutant and as a morlock is intentional or not. I also can't tell if they're meant to be Morlocks from the X-Men stories. That group never struck me as technologically advanced enough to do something like this. The story gets the band together but I'm not sold on the storytelling. Wolverine's berserker rage seems manufactured to get a bit of the "good guys fight before teaming up" trope going. I guess it's hard for me to mentally go back to late-90s Wolverine, but I feel like he would also be a little more sympathetic to trying to keep Revelation alive. He understands that sometimes you kill people, of course, but he's also the guy who split the X-Men because he thought kids should have a chance to grow up as kids. Maybe that kicked in somewhere between 2000 and 2011. Overall I'm thinking that Golden is going to sink this series as he did with the first one, but there are still two issues for him to pull things together. |
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| Issue one I felt was stronger than pretty much all of the previous run. I definitely agree that the monologue turning into a one-liner was strange but otherwise I don’t think the storytelling is way off base. The Punisher’s often been criticized for his one-note nature. It’s not wholly undeserved but I do appreciate the attempt at growing him a little. Even if he’s not in a romantic relationship with Lucy, it’s nice seeing Frank trying to socialize and have an actual life and even fighting his urges to simply kill every criminal outright. We’ve seen where Frank is before this but I’m not sure where Wolverine is coming from. He seems to have his bone claws, so post Fatal Attractions but I’m not familiar with Wolverine’s journey in the five years after that. I’m not even sure he’s in the X-Men at this point. Even if the anime style isn’t one’s cup of tea, I think here it shows a lot more passion for the work than the art in the last run. I think it’s more visually interesting and there’s a lot of nice detail throughout. Something I thought was sorely lacking in the last run. I actually think Frank’s guns look pretty cool with the detail they show at the start of the issue and I think they even look different when he’s holding them in the council chambers. |
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| I actually like the way the story is developing. It’s only 4 issues so I’m not expecting Watchmen here but I like the idea of the council pushing Frank to do their bidding, Frank resisting but understanding that sometimes things do align. I’d definitely like to see that explored more, though since this is the last series with this iteration of Frank, I know we won’t. At least they leave good potential instead of sinking the idea with a bad execution later on. I like how they’ve setup the “villain.” Essentially a mutant that emits a death aura whose powers grew beyond her control that had to be put into suspended animation until a solution could be found. All the while she’s trapped in a dream formed by her religious beliefs and the guilt of having inadvertently killed her parents. She’s imagined herself in hell for years and now freed she feels she’s afraid of being sent back and still sees those around her in hellish terms. The setup works for me. Again, we see more varied use of the Punisher’s new weapons. When he first goes down in the subway he’s carrying something like a rifle and elsewhere is using different kinds of pistols. I agree that it’s a bit strange, if not an outright plot hole, that the Morlocks have the technology to create the highly advanced sentry robots but for me it isn’t more than a mild annoyance really. I also don’t think the mutant/morlock thing is a mistake. It’s the holographic message that identifies Wolverine as a mutant while it is the malfunctioning security drones that list Wolverine as an unidentified Morlock and attack him. Additionally, by this point I believe the Morlocks had been retconned as failed experiments by Dark Beast (of the Age of Apocalypse timeline) when he was transported to the past of the 616 universe so maybe Morlocks are somewhat distinct from mutants as a whole. As far as stating that New York is dangerous, it’s certainly based more on public and media perception fueled by the spike in crime in New York in the 70s through early 90s. By ‘98 crime rates were in decline but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a few years for that perception to change. That said, this is also the Marvel universe where New York had enough crime to fuel something like 3 simultaneous ongoing Punisher series in the 90s, on top of all the other Marvel series set in New York at the time. So again, you might find it annoying but I don’t think it’s egregious enough to be worth mentioning. I think you might also be making too much about Wolverine’s willingness to kill Revelation. You make it sound like Wolverine is totally on board with that solution and that he’s ready to go through with it but that’s not really what we’ve seen. In their encounter Wolverine is very much trying to resolve things peacefully with Revelation and looks to want to find her some help (probably with the X-Men). After he’s snapped out of his rage by the Punisher (I agree it feels a bit forced but for what it lasts I again don’t feel it’s so egregious that it brings the book down in a meaningful way) he does mention things may get messy and that killing her might be the only way to help her but it’s not portrayed as if its the only solution he’s open to. If anything, I feel Wolverine is portrayed exactly how you seem to expect him to behave. He’s sympathetic and wants to bring Revelation to people that can help her but also understands, especially after she attacks him, that her psychological damage might be so extensive that she might resist help so much and at the same time endanger so many others that euthanasia might be their only viable solution. To some degree I kind of feel like you’re trying to nitpick reasons to dislike the series. Yes the points you bring up are valid but I also don’t agree that they’re significant enough to suggest that we’re at the edge of of a cliff and we’re just going over the edge in the final two issues. I can agree that after the first series to not expect this to become some forgotten masterpiece but from what I’ve read of the series so far and the severity of the points you’ve brought up I don’t feel the series is destined for an inevitable collapse. I do agree that there is potential for the series get worse and fail the landing but that’s more the potential I see in any project to stumble across the finish line and not that it is the logical trajectory or conclusion of what we’ve read so far. Then again, I’m also the one that loves the film Prometheus despite the its issues so maybe I’m being overly forgiving 🤷♂️ |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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xkonk private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I agree pretty much with all of this. I was optimistic when I finished #1 in terms of being a step in the right direction from the previous series. I think you're right that Wolverine wasn't with the team at this point. His healing factor is up to snuff though so it's after he recovered from having the adamantium removed. |
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| Post 28 • IP flag post | ||
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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xkonk private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite That's a bit I wasn't aware of. Hooray for learning! Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite It's more of a personal pet peeve, and you're right that when the series came out rates were higher. As more of a recent thing, it bugs me when people talk about how dangerous NYC is, or Chicago is, or most places. Any given person in Buffalo is more likely to experience violent crime than someone in NYC. Albuquerque has the highest violent crime rate in the US. Portland Oregon has the 7th highest rate in the US. It's almost never the cities you hear about. It's also certainly true that 616 New York might be a ridiculously dangerous city. Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite This one is just another personal point. I much prefer the redemptive Wolverine stories where he's trying to do better and give others the options he didn't have. The ones where he's just hacking and slashing bad guys can also be good but that's my preference. And it's a little odd that he has to tell Frank Castle of all people that they might have to kill someone. |
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| Post 29 • IP flag post | ||
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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xkonk private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I wouldn't say I'm looking for it, although you're right that's how it's coming across. On the other hand I haven't seen much else to comment on; the first two issues are fine. If most of the content tops out at 'fine' and the rest are little things that nag at me, then I don't have much to talk about besides the nagging. I do think the art is solid, and as mentioned think it's better so far than the previous series (which is a low bar). Has there been a high point for you so far? Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite Well now I see the problem  I liked Prometheus ok as much as I like horror movies (not my genre overall) but I absolutely could not get past the scientists being complete idiots. Like, the biologist goes up to the weird alien thing that looks a lot like a snake and tries to pet it. Poor decision-making is a theme of the series, so I get it, but that's the main thing I remember from that movie. |
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