December 2019

Garth Ennis’s return to The Punisher is always welcome. The Punisher stories I have enjoyed the most have come from Ennis. In this opening issue, I am not quite sure where Ennis is taking the character or what the story is about, beyond him getting involved in a skirmish with a bunch of Russians. It opens with Frank Castle investigating a well-executed hit, admiring the work, and proceeding with trying to figure out who did it. We get a well-paced, thought-narrated story from Frank while he gets into trouble.

When we last left off, Mr. Thunderbolt had the H-Dial and granted powers to all the citizens of Metropolis. Powerless to stop it, the Operator presents Miguel with another, cyan-colored, H-Dial. Sam Humphries builds a nice conclusion to this arc with callbacks to the first issue, such as touching on Miguel’s vulnerabilities and his run-in with Superman. It is that emotional center that allows Humphries to let Miguel find the strength he needs to keep the promise made to himself and the city. We are left at the end of the issue with the reveal that multiple H-Dials exist.

The final issue of Life Story. I have to wonder if Chip Zdarsky was partially inspired to write this series since we are at the end of the decade, the 10s, to which this issue is dedicated. A little bit of a spoiler, we are treated to the last adventure of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. There is a bit of a call back to a previous issue’s iteration of Kraven the Hunter here, though primarily we are given this alternate universe’s take on Miles Morales and the dying Doctor Octopus storyline from Dan Slott.

To recap the events from the last issue, Peter Parker had traded places with his clone Ben Reily to allow him to take over the mantle of Spider-Man and the identity of Peter Parker. Unbeknownst to Ben, Peter had fooled him into thinking he was the original Peter Parker for the sole purpose of allowing the actual Peter to retire to a life with MJ and his children.

N.K. Jemisin sets up a compelling story right away by introducing a new character, Green Lantern Sojourner Mullein, in a sector of space that is the farthest away from anything we have ever seen. On page one, Jemisin dumps us immediately into a murder mystery in a world that hasn’t had a murder in over 500 years. This results in a solid issue that does a lot to world build and sucks the reader in without wasting pages on an origin story. At some point, I can imagine we will learn more about how Mullein became a Lantern.

When Frank Miller misses, he misses by light-years. I don’t even know if editorial was really involved on this project at all. Surprising if not, since Mark Doyle is a strong editor with a great track record. I suspect this may have been a case of, “Hey, it’s a legend. Let him tell the story that he wants to tell.” That story is a meandering hot train wreck.