Punisher: Soviet (a review)

I really need to read Ennis’ Punisher run. It’s up there with Preacher and The Boys as far as popularity and quality from what I can tell. I’m just really bad at sticking to longer series…. Fortunately for me, a Punisher book by Ennis was released in 2019 that features a contained story outside of that run. That counts, right? (Right?)

Punisher: Soviet is a six-issue limited series published by Marvel under the MAX imprint. The artists on this book are penciler Jacen Burrows (Crossed, Neonomicon), inker Guillermo Ortego (some of Grayson and Lobo), and colorist Nolan Woodard. As I understand it, this book is supposed to be a return to form as well as a love-letter to the previously mentioned Ennis run.

I’ll let the die-hard fans be the judge on that claim.

Our story opens with Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, coming across something odd on his latest murder spree: someone is killing his targets before he gets to them. The police and even criminals all think it’s his work but it’s not. I mean, he’s not complaining, the crooks are dead, but it’s still a weird coincidence. On top of that his target, a Russian mob boss named Pronchenko, is suddenly transitioning to “legit” work and somehow got an I.Q. boost. Questions keep piling up until he crashes a nightclub massacre and meets the person responsible for all the killings: a random dude.