Not Secret Invasion

I may choose to comment on Secret Invasion #5 later, or perhaps not, either way once again blogging does change things as bendis has got on with it.

Nope instead I'm going to talk about a couple of good titles that aren't SI tie ins.

First up is Punisher, which comes to the end of Garth Ennis' superlative run. The origins of this story, Valley Forge, Valley Forge, go back to one of his early Max stories, and a permanent minor antagonist, a cadre of US military generals who used the punisher to try and get a Russian bio-weapon. They've been gunning for him ever since and most of the plots (Including the Barracuda arc) stemmed from their actions. Well this story they hire a group of special forces to capture the punisher, knowing he won't kill soldiers, and suffice to say by the end of the story the board is wiped clean and the punisher is left once again free from baggage for another writer to take over. I was impressed with this story using excerpts from a book written by the brother of one of the soldiers killed at firebase Valley Forge (Frank Castles posting in 'nam, as seen in Born) initially it looks like a book about Vietnam which will ultimately blame the punisher for being the only survivor of that base, instead as a twist it becomes a platform for Ennis to take a pop at the reasoning for starting the Vietnam war and causing so much death. Whoever the poor blighter is who will take over Punisher, they have some huge shoes to fill. Good luck.

Second is True Believers, released a couple of weeks ago. Why oh why oh why have marvel decided to launch this quirky little series during a huge event, when event fatigue is guaranteed to limit the number of people who will pick up a wee limited series containing a grand total of no-one well known. Its a shame because its a good idea, the True believers are a group of metahuman bloggers who expose wrongdoing at the highest levels. Issue 1 just introduced us to Payback, the de-facto leader and showed the True believers in action breaking up an illegal all girl fight ring run by some highly placed people. Next issue I believe they're pulling up Reed Richards on a DUI. Its a quirky interesting idea, has solid art and some neat writing, and I'm a sucker for these little nooks in the Marvel universe (Like my earlier enthusiasm for the Damage Control LS and Loners) sadly this one will probably get buried under Secret Invasion, a real shame.