AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL: BLACK WIDOW/PUNISHER

Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher [Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; Blu-ray: $19.99, DVD: $14,99] was released in March of this year as a direct-to-video anime. I got the movie via my local library system.

The basic plot is uncomplicated: the Punisher is tracking down and slaughtering terrorists putting high-tech weapons on the streets he protects. SHIELD is involved because the weapons are stolen SHIELD technology. The Punisher’s goals and those of SHIELD aren’t really in sync. Frank Castle battles the Black Widow, loses, and ends up in SHIELD custody. Castle and the Widow agree to work together to stop the terrorists, but it’s an uneasy alliance.

The movie was made by Madhouse, Inc., a Japanese anime company. The story is by Marjorie Liu, a New York Times best-selling writer who has also written for Marvel’s X-Men comics. The screenplay was by Mitsutaka Hirota, who has written for such animated properties as Pokemon and the X-Men.

The good and the bad of this feature:

The Punisher still doesn’t mix well with traditional Marvel super-heroes, though he and the Widow aren’t bad together. When the two first meet and fight, he’s shooting with seemingly lethal intent at the Widow. That seemed wrong to me, especially considering later scenes when Frank agonizes over having killed innocents.

The Widow is overly flirtatious through the movie and saddled with a cheesy “lost love” romance sub-plot. The resolution of that sub-plot is simplistic.

But...

The voice acting is excellent with Jennifer Carpenter as Natasha, Brian Bloom as Castle, Eric Bauza as Amadeus Cho, Matthew Mercer as Iron Man and Hawkeye and Fred Tatasciore doing his usual terrific job as the Hulk. The animation is dramatic and dynamic, creating a constant (if grim) world for the characters. The stakes for SHIELD and the world become very high very quickly, which justifies neat guest appearances by Captain Marvel and other Avengers. We also get some fun guest turns by villains such as Baron Zemo, Graviton, the Griffin and others. Overall, the film delivers a satisfying story and conclusion. I recommend it.

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I’m still weeks away from full-length and regular blogging, but, as time permits, I’ll post short bloggy things like this one. I’ll be back soon (hopefully) with more stuff.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

THANKSGIVING 2014

I'm thankful for my wonderful family, many friends and many readers.

I'm thankful for this blog and the amazing forum it offers me.

I'm thankful for my life in comics, the ups and the downs.

Regular blogging will resume in a few weeks as I finish my 2014 commitments.

I see 2015 as the "Year of My Bucket List" in which I work on the many ideas and stories on my long bucket list of things I want to write before I get the bucket.

I also see 2015 as the "Year of the Road Trip" as, starting in February, I will be making two public appearances almost every month. Watch for details.

Please feel free to e-mail me...

If you want to hire me for paying gigs...

If you want me to appear at your convention or other event...

If you are an artist who wants to work with me on a project...

If you want to send me review items for this blog...

If you want me to autograph your Isabella-written items via mail...

Or, for pretty much any other reason.

Have a great Thanksgiving. I'll be back soon with more stuff.

Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #83

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder, I have holiday shopping suggestions for you, including a great collection of Spider-Man newspaper strip stories and How to Survive a Sharknado!

TONY'S TIPS #82

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder...A Voice in the Dark, Trees and more Original Sin from Marvel.

REGULAR BLOGGING WILL RESUME IN DECEMBER

If you've been following my Facebook page, you know that the past several weeks have been a parade of expensive and time-consuming home and plumbing repairs. This has put me terribly behind schedule on a number of fronts. With my upcoming appearance at the Grand Rapids Comic-Con (Friday through Sunday, November 21-23, 2014, at the DeltaPlex, 2500 Turner Ave. NW) and more household work to be done before Thanksgiving, I'm not going to have any spare time for blogging. I'm sure I'll be posting some short items during these two weeks, but my full-scale blogging won't return until Monday, December 1. Thanks for your patience.

THE PUNISHER 2014

I was there for the birth of the Punisher or, at least, some parts of it. I might not have been there at the precise moment when Gerry Conway and John Romita smacked Frank Castle’s butt to encourage his first breath - I’m amazed the kid didn’t shoot them on the spot - but I saw some of the post-birth cleaning up before the character,  swaddled in black leather, was put into Papa Gerry’s arms and, from there, introduced to the Marvel Universe in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 [February, 1974].

It would have been sometime in mid-1973 or so. I was working in the Marvel Comics offices on the British weeklies and other projects.I walked into John’s office and saw him tinkering with a drawing of the Punisher.

Gerry had come up with the idea and design of the new  character he originally called the Assassin before editor-in-chief Roy Thomas suggested usurping the name of the robot used by Galactus several years earlier. Gerry’s original design had a smallish skull’s head on his breast, which John expanded until it took up the whole front of the Punisher’s shirt. Ross Andru would be the first to draw the Punisher in an actual comic book.

When I walked into John’s office, he was drawing Frank’s face. At his side was one of the early Mack Bolan novels by Don Pendleton. The paperback action series about the Vietnam-era Green Beret who came home to the murder-suicide of his father and sister and took up arms against the Mafia, who, with good reason, he blamed for the killings. The series was the inspiration for the Punisher and the lead character’s rugged good looks likewise inspired the features of the Punisher.

I was intrigued by that Mack Bolan paperback, which also inspired several similar adventure series. The proliferation of such heroes  was not unlike the growth of the pulp-magazine heroes four decades prior. I bought the first several Bolan books and, over a weekend,read them obsessively. I would read well over a hundred of them in the ensuing years before marriage, parenthood, job responsibilities and, ultimately, the repetitious nature of the books brought an end to my obsession.

I liked the Punisher, this new not-quite-hero, from the start, but he was always an awkward fit for the Marvel Universe. However much his targets might have deserved killing, he was a murderer in the eyes of the law. Every time the heroes worked with him or let him escape, it diminished those heroes. Whenever they would attempt to capture him and he escaped despite of their powers, it diminished them. The character regularly stretched the willing suspension of disbelief so necessary to super-hero comics. Add the tendencies of some writers to portray the Punisher as a lunatic or monster...and Frank Castle would become even more of an uneasy travelers through the fantastical Marvel Universe.

The dubious morality of a “hero” who kills aside, the Punisher has always worked best for me when furthest away from the rest of the Marvel Universe. When you throw in the fantastic, you get bat-shit insanity like the Punisher teaming up with the Avengers or becoming some sort of heavenly hitman or even getting dismembered and being revived as a “Frankencastle” monster. Shy of being cut into pieces, he’s lost a finger here and an eye there, but those injuries have been either forgotten or took place in some alternate continuity.It gets too confusing for me and even Wikipedia isn’t of much help in sussing it all out.

This brings us to the newest series: The Punisher by writer Nathan Edmondson and artist Mitch Gerads.  Edmondson first showed up a few years ago with comic books published by Image. Gerads, who seems to be another relative comics newcomer, worked on some of those comics with Edmondson. Their respective styles fit the Punisher well, so I have no complaints in that regard.

SPOILERS AHEAD
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Having read the first 11 issues of this new series [$3.99 each], I liked where it started. Castle is tracking the Dos Soles drug gang and ends up in Los Angeles. It’s a good idea to keep the Punisher as far away from the New York City super-heroes as possible.

The Punisher action is what one would expect and it works well to a point. Complicating his activities is a government-sanctioned hit squad called - sacrilege - the Howling Commandoes. I’m not a fan of this sort of intrigue/villainy because the evil government routine has become such a cliche. I’m not a fan of it here, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker for me.

The Los Angeles cast includes the owner of a coffee shop and a police officer developing a crush on Frank without realizing who he is. These quiet moments are a nice contrast to the violence.

The Dos Soles get ambitious and bring in a super-weapon. This new series gets less enjoyable after that. With this weapon, which is not a bad idea per se, we also get A.I.M., the Taskmaster, Electro and the Black Widow. Though the Widow is probably one of the very few Marvel heroes who sort of works in the Punisher’s more mundane world, the rest sent the story off the rails for me.

This is what I mean when I say the Punisher is best when he’s not involved with the Marvel Universe. Electro should be able to turn Castle into ashes with ease. When the Punisher has an opportunity to put a rubber bullet into Electro’s eye and kill or, at the very least, maim him, he doesn’t do it. The characters aren’t themselves in this encounter.

The story picks up again when the surviving Dos Santos attack Los Angeles at a time when the Punisher isn’t in town. The city, which had seen crime drop as a result of Frank’s residence, quickly gets worse than it was before he came. Desperate police officers start bending and breaking the law to stem the tide of criminal violence. That’s interesting stuff.

The bottom line? Flawed though it is, The Punisher is a series I’ll keep reading in the hopes that the Marvel Universe will again fade into its distant background. Whether you would enjoy it or not will likely depend on how you prefer your Frank Castle. At least Frank isn’t slaughtering in the name of God or worrying about whether or not his body-part stitches will come undone.

Regular blogging will resume on December 1..

© 2014 Tony Isabella

THE SHADOW #87: THE POOLTEX TANGLE AND DEATH TURRETS

The Shadow #87: The Pooltex Tangle & Death Turrets [Sanctum Books;$14.95] features novels by Theodore Tinsley and Walter B. Gibson of The Shadow as a master escape artist. These full-length novels are  inspired by and a tribute to the legendary Harry Houdini.

The Pooltex Tangle is by Theodore Tinsley writing as Maxwell Grant.  It first appeared in The Shadow Magazine for the October 1, 1937. From the back cover:

Can The Shadow recover a stolen invention that will change the course of a future war?

Death Turrets is by Walter B. Gibson as Maxwell Grant.  It’s from the November 1, 1937 issue of The Shadow Magazine. From the back cover:

In his true identity of Kent Allard, the Dark Avenger attempts to thwart the murderous plots of a serial killer!

In addition to the novels, The Shadow #87 also features a new essay by Will Murray that focuses on Gibson’s relationship with Houdini.Gibson, the president of the Philadelphia Assembly of the Society of American Magicians in his pre-Shadow days, knew Houdini and washired to write books on magic for him. Though Houdini died before this venture began, Gibson would, working with the Houdini estate,write Houdini’s Magic and Houdini’s Escapes.

Rounding out this volume are “Memories of Houdini” by Gibson and a short piece on Bill Lawlor, who posed as The Shadow for the photo cover of The Shadow Magazine for November 1, 1937.

As with the other Sanctum Books series - Doc Savage, The Whisperer and others - these Shadow adventures are entertaining journeys into the heroic fiction of the pulp era. More Sanctum Books news is on the way.

© 2014 Tony Isabella