This story arc begins on Monster Island, where we meet Monster Special Force.
They’re a monster-hunting group whose mission is to kill all monsters so that Tokyo never gets razed by one ever again.
They should be heroes because, I mean, that’s a reasonable goal. But because of what will happen to Punisher, they’ll end up being the villains.
When we last saw Punisher, he was dead.
Cut into pieces by Daken.
The Legion of Monsters are living in New York, fighting off Osborn’s troops.
They find all the bits and Doctor Morbius sews him together into a Frankenstein monster.
Part of the subplot is that Morbius used a shard from the Bloodstone to resurrect Frank. It will become important later.
Once he is awake, they ask Punisher for his help protecting the surviving monsters from the Monster Hunters.
Frank says no at first. Partly because he hates what he has become.
He has to eat mice to live, for example. And has to be on constant drugs. For a guy who spent his life fighting drug dealers, this is an irony that is not lost on Castle.
But Living Mummy takes him to the underground Monster Metropolis, where Frankencastle sees how peaceful they are. When the Hunters arrive and begin slaughtering them, Frank is compelled to help.
What follows is nothing short of awesome.
Artist Tony Moore. Fantastic. Dan Brereton also does painted flashback sequences featuring Ulysses Bloodstone.
The sequences offer an origin for a character named Dr. Hellsgaard, who created the tech used by the Monster Special Force.
Turns out, he’s been anti-monster for over a century.
Hellsgard doesn’t survive this story. He’s a head-in-a-bottle and Frank kills him.
Remender writes solid one-liners for Frank.
The flashbacks also will be a platform for what happens in the second part of this story in issues #17-21.
Hellsgaard’s death marks the end of this first story arc.
This is the kind of Steve Gerberish madness that Marvel stopped doing in the late 1980s when Frank Miller forced everyone to get all dark and serious and no fun. Obviously, this comic was instantly polarizing–but I fall into the camp that believes it’s one of the best Punisher stories of all time.
Agreed, the artwork is great (and isn’t that what pulls you into a comic anyway)? It’s why I never read the Watchman comic book back in day – hated the art style.