The Marvel Noir concept was two great tastes that taste great together. Stellar Marvel characters and noir grittier than a sand sandwich, hardboiled like the egg of whatever lays coconuts. Yum. The Punisher fits snug in a noir setting, especially when he finds no shortage of high profile targets during an era of enforcers. Its pre-WWII Manhattan and mobster Dutch Schultz is feeling the pinch from rivals Capone and Luciano, prosecutor Thomas Dewey and some guy with a skull mask (see what they did there?) taking out his guys. Might this killer of killers also be the son of one Frank Castelione Sr., WWI veteran who once refused to pay Schultz protection money? Frank Tieri creates a Punisher with a little less restraint and pits him against Shultzs hitmen, noir versions of Casteliones rogues gallery, Barracuda, Jigsaw and the Russian. The fact that I said three men was a rogues gallery tells you everything you need to know about the character. The fact that one of those men has gigantic knockers is hilarious. There are some twists and turns along the way that offer a nice diversion from formula and the art complements the mood. Its a realistic tale with the added factor of historic events to give it another layer of intrigue. What would the Punisher do if he came to form when the bad guys hid in plain sight? Hed peel back the caps of every gangster he could find, like some type of hat-stealing gremlin. Hits: The mask is a pants-wetting level of intimidating. Frank appears to be death incarnate. Frank Sr. taking out Nazis and fighting the freakish Russian on a train, only to castrate him with a grenade down the pants. What does a deadly, Russian soldier do when he gets castrated and nearly blown up? He gets angry. And boobs. Also boobs.
