Marvel hasn’t been publishing comics I’m actually interested in reading for some time now though occasionally they’ll hit upon a title that will grab me attention - like Jason Aaron’s return to The Punisher. If you haven’t read it, Aaron’s Punisher MAX run from over ten years ago is superb - easily one of the best Punisher titles there’s ever been and holds up on re-readings too.
Unfortunately, like most of Marvel and Jason Aaron’s output lately, The King of Killers isn’t that return to form I’d hoped it to be. The Hand (a ninja organisation often featured in Daredevil, and, recently, headed up by Daredevil too) makes Frank their new High Slayer - the Fist of the Hand (but isn’t the fist also the hand and vice versa…?) - in return for Frank’s deepest wishes. Frank’s new mission? Kill Ares, the… actual god of war!?
Let’s address the big talking point about this series first: the Punisher logo. Here’s what Frank’s sporting in this book - out with the iconic skull, in with the… whatever this is:
The scuttlebutt I heard was that this was in response to some white supremacists co-opting the skull logo and Marvel wanting to distance themselves from any such groups. Which is plain silly - nobody is really going to think Marvel or the Punisher are white supremacists just because some jackasses decided to use a trademarked image that’s been around for nearly 50 years.
But if that is the real reason then they’ve successfully managed to ensure that no-one else will ever use the Punisher’s logo again because the supposedly-replacement one? Well, you can see it above. It’s so embarrassing!
I hope I’m right and that it’s only for this storyline though. Frank wears the skull logo in some scenes, he keeps hold of the armour with it on, and it seems to be part of his package deal of being the High Slayer, which I expect is a temporary role, so, once he drops the Hand, he’ll probably go back to the original, way cooler logo.
Aaron is joined on this book by two really good artists: Captain America artist Jesus Saiz, who draws the present-day storyline, and Outcast artist Paul Azaceta draws the flashback/childhood scenes. I had no problems with the art, although Saiz’s style is seemingly morphing into Ariel Olivetti’s, or even latter-day Richard Corben, which was surprising to see. Oh yeah, and the Beast, the Hand’s god, looks unintentionally funny - like Steppenwolf from Zack Snyder’s Justice League moved into a Cinnabon and ate his way out!
Aaron’s story really did nothing for me. The original interpretation of the character went that the Punisher was born that day when his family was gunned down in the park; Garth Ennis’ vision pushed the timeline back to Vietnam where Frank’s real nature emerged; Aaron takes it back even further, positing that Frank was the Punisher as a kid. Fine. Not really that impressive a take, and the scenes of a kid Frank doing Punisher-esque stuff wasn’t interesting either.
I appreciate that Aaron’s trying to do something new with the character but making Frank a killing machine with a sword instead of a gun isn’t that exciting a development. It mainly comes off as contrived, like when Daredevil was made head of the Hand himself. I also don’t like when Frank’s given superpowers like he is here - ok, how else would he be a potential threat to a literal god, but it still sucks - because that’s not what makes the character great; his street-level ingenuity and non-superpowered stories are compelling. Give him powers and he and his stories become another trite costume drama of rubbish in an endless parade of dull garbage, all part of the ever-forgettable Marvel assembly line (the less said about his stint as the Cosmic Ghost Rider, the better).
It’s just a boring read. The childhood stuff was underwhelming and flat, the present-day scenes with the Hand were repetitive and slow, the motivations silly, and the whole thing was a disappointing chore to slog through. Jason Aaron’s Marvel comics were once must-reads but he hasn’t been that guy in some time now and, unfortunately, Punisher, Volume 1: The King of Killers, Book One is another one, in a too-long line of books, that isn’t worth bothering with.
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