Punisher Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Circle of Blood

Punisher Epic Collection

by Steven Grant (Writer), Mike Zeck, Jo Duffy (Writer)

The Punisher goes solo! After years making life complicated for Spider-Man, Daredevil and more, the Marvel Universe's deadliest vigilante fires his way into his own series - beginning behind bars! Find out exactly who Frank Castle is as he makes his way back out of prison - and renews his bloody war on crime! Gangsters, drug dealers and other lowlifes beware! These are the formative solo adventures that defined the world of the Punisher - establishing his alliance with Microchip, rivalry with Jigsaw and more! From taking on terrorists to massacring the mob to attacking an assassins' guild, the Punisher's mission never ends - but when he crosses paths with the Man Without Fear, will their renewed grudge match turn deadly? COLLECTING: PUNISHER (1986) 1-5, PUNISHER (1987) 1-10, DAREDEVIL (1964) 257, MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL: PUNISHER - ASSASSIN'S GUILD

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Superheroes, Crime

504 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2018

About the author

Steven Grant is an American comic book writer best known for his 1985–1986 Marvel Comics mini-series The Punisher with artist Mike Zeck and for his creator-owned character Whisper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_...

Reviews

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Punisher Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Circle of Blood—long-ass fucking title—is just okay. Honestly, it's kind of wild the Punisher even lasted as long as he did, because this is basically the same damn story copy-pasted in almost every issue.

The five-part mini? Solid. At least that felt like one big, interesting story. But once you hit the actual series (issues #1–10), it's just: bad guy shows up, Punisher finds him, kills him, walks off like nothing happened. Over and over.

Some of the chases and shootouts are fun, sure, but this is standard-ass action comic stuff, no real heart, no real soul. Just bang bang, onto the next. I’m sticking with it for now, mostly because I’m planning a big Punisher video day. Otherwise, I’d probably dip.

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Circle of Blood" was really good.

The ten issues were also good, but a bit samey after a while. Most of the stories were: Punisher investigates bad guy - Punisher infiltrates bad guy's compound - Punisher blows the hell out of everything and everyone at the compound.

"Assassin's Guild" was a bit dialog heavy for me to really enjoy it too much.

[Max Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hefty four hundred pages volume consists of three distinct parts. The first one is the original 1986 limited series. Punisher starts out being led by the guards in a prison. He was caught earlier and now has to pay the price. Of course, he won't stay in the prison for very long, helped by a mysterious cabal of do-gooders called the Trust. This is an excellent start for the character, high octane action highlighted by the stylish Mike Zeck/Scott Beatty art. By the way, the book includes a lot of the pencilled pages in the end, they look just as good or arguably even better in black and white. Steven Grant's Punisher depicted here is like an 80s action movie hero, a Chuck Norris you might say. I would recommend this book just for this part, but the other ones aren't bad either.



The second large part is the first ten issues of the "unlimited" run (amusingly, they proclaim that on the cover). Pencilled by Klaus Janson and, later, Whilce Portacio, it has great movies, I mean, stories like the Punisher going after the Doomsday cult and Japanese ninjas in cahoots with the nefarious Wall Street traders. Did I say ninjas? I actually meant businessmen, they were ruthlessly murdering the stock exchange together. I didn't notice that in later portrayals but Mike Baron's Punisher is almost like Richard Stark's Parker at times, calculating, preparing, doing the legwork, and casing the joint with fake IDs and correct slang ready. Janson's art lends to that especially.



The third part is the Assassin's Guild novel, also available standalone. This one has a very distinct Jorge Zaffino art, whom I admire from his still mostly undigitized Terror Inc. run. A group of ninja assassins (yes, more ninjas, please, they go well with the Punisher) now works with Castle to off the leader of a group of sinister lawyers. And that Lupin joke at the start never gets old.



To sum it up, all the individual parts of the volume are both distinct enough providing some variety, and mesh well together to recommend this book for purchase. I'm keen to see how Mike Baron's run proceeds from here on and I'm firmly behind this depiction of the character.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly recommended for fans of the eighties action movies, the likes of Rambo and Die Hard, the highlight being the original Circle of Blood limited series written by Steven Grant.

[Eric Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one is innocent

Love this collection. The Mike Zeck issues make it 5 stars alone. The early Punisher is great and I love seeing his crossover with DD.

[Krzysztof Grabowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jakiś czas temu Egmont zbombardował polski rynek tytułami z serii Amazing Spider-Man. Epic Collection. Miałem szczęście i dosłownie na dniach nabyłem aż trzy tytuły za dobrą cenę. Jak typowy Polak pomyślałem co zrobię z zaoszczędzonymi pieniędzmi... (jak to co!? wydam!). Mój wzrok padł na inną serię, z której mam już całą masę pozycji (Punisher MAX), więc wypadałoby zobaczyć jak to było kiedyś. Punisher w końcu to zasłużona postać, która stale i niezmiennie niweluje ilość ścierwa w świecie Marvela. Sądząc jednak po liczbie trupów, Frank wykosił ludność jakiegoś małego państewka...

I tu nie robi nic innego. Strzela, czasami pyta, czasami ma wątpliwości, ale i tak w końcu ktoś tam padnie trupem lub zginie nieszczęśliwie gdzieś obok bohatera. Nie na darmo jednym z rozpoczynających zeszytów jest ten, który opowiada o jednej z żelaznych historii w całym życiorysie antybohatera. Tam gdzie Castle, tam będzie rozlew krwi i nic nie jest tego w stanie zmienić.

Raz Castle trafi do więzienia, ale ma w tym cel, a używa określonych środków. Paru więźniów zazna tego na własnej skórze. Jednak mury nie utrzymają Franka zbyt długo i niedługo trafi on na ślad pewnego charyzmatycznego dowódcy quasi-sekty, która planuje utworzyć własną oazę, odrębną od amerykańskiego kraju. Jak to bywa, rzeczony przywódca to niezłe ziółko, który ma sporo za uszami. Tylko, że też ma pewne talenty, jak moc leczenia czy perswazji nad słabszymi umysłami. Na plus jeszcze daję historię z pewnym chłopakiem, którego ojciec jest mafiozo i przypadkiem trafia na Punishera...

Najsłabszy fragment to chyba końcowa Gildia Zabójców, która wymęczyła mnie niepomiernie, a która wnosi do serii pewien azjatycki powiew. Niestety nie starcza to na dobrą historię. Zaskoczył mnie fakt, iż jedyny gościnny występ, czyli pojawienie się Daredevila też nie mogę uznać za udany. W tym wypadku będziemy mieli tą samą historię tylko z dwóch punktów widzenia.

Ta epicka kolekcja ma już swoje lata, bo najstarsze zawarte tu komiksu sięgają późnych lat 80. Pewne fragmenty tego zbiorku wyglądają bardzo znośnie, aczkolwiek większość pachnie już kurzem, a kreska choć urocza dla konesera, dla niedzielnego czytelnika komiksu może być traumatycznym przeżyciem.

To fajny zbiór, który uzupełni braki w wiedzy o Punisherze, ale nie jest to wiedza obowiązkowa. Dużo lepiej sięgnąć po inne pozycje z tego samego szyldu w ramach Marvel Classic, a jest tego sporo. Dla innych "Krąg Krwi" będzie sentymentalnym powrotem do przeszłości. I to im głównie polecę ten tytuł.

[Mariano · Rating 4 out of 5]

MIKE ZECK + KLAUS JANSON + JORGE ZAFFINO + GUEST ISSUE FROM JOHN ROMITA JR'S DAREDEVIL HOLY CRAP WHAT A LINEUP FOR AN EPIC. What? Whilce Portacio also there? Don't know what you talking about.

ANYWAY great collection of classic 80s action thrillers. Gangsters, cults, gangsters, murderers, gangsters, a great variety of bad guys that our old pal Frank Castle guns down without an inch of remorse.

The stories are fun, though, and each of them has its own twist, even if you get lost on all the names of the bosses and the bosses' bosses, and by the end, you don't really remember who's who and what they did but does it really matter?

Collected here are Circle of Blood, the first miniseries (written by Steve Grant) with which Marvel "tested the market" to check if the readers were ready for so much violence. Spoiler: they were. The gem here is Mike Zeck's art, especially his covers. Extra points for John Beatty's inks. Fun fact: initially this was going to be a four-issue miniseries and at some point decided to throw an issue five, but they didn't update all the covers, so some issues say "four issues miniseries". Aaaah, those crazy eighties...

Then we have the first 10 issues of the regular series, written by Mike Baron. And the first 5 issues showcase PEAK Klaus Janson. STUNNING. I love 80's Janson so much. This alone is worth the cover price.

Then there are two issues with art by David Ross BUT the first one (with an amazing cover from Mike Mignola) is inked by Kevin Nowlan and 100% looks like Nowlan's art, so clearly good ol' Ross was delivering really rough pencils. A cool and welcomed surprise, since Nowlan is one of our favorite Batman artists (I'm not even going to argue that).

The last three issues are drawn by Whilce Portacio or something idk.

So, moving on, the GEM of this volume is the graphic novel Assassin's Guild with art by (I'm waving my Argentinian flag right now) the great Jorge Zaffino. I would love SO MUCH for Marvel to put out a collection of Marvel Graphic Novel in its original size.

Highly recommended, reads like a breeze.

[Gaute Hjartåker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea.

I had a hard time finishing this one. This hard-boiled Chuck Norris 80s action vigilante stuff just isn’t for me I guess. I really don’t care about any of the characters here, including Frank Castle himself. He’s just a cold-blooded murderer, and a royal a$$hole to boot… Not sure what the appeal is.

Punisher goes up against mob bosses, drug cartels and religious zealots accompanied by his constant pretentious hard-boiled voice-over. “Tony wants to kill me when he can. Revenge, I understand.” Oohh, who’s a big bad boy? You’re a big bad boy! (It reminds me of the voice-over in Kraven’s Last Hunt btw.. is it a late 80s thing, this gritty chopped way of speaking?)

On the positive side, the storytelling is mostly clear and brisk, and the artwork is good, especially Klaus Janson. But the stories mostly just leave me cold. None of the villains here are remotely interesting, and their motivations are never engaging.

This was my first Punisher volume, and it will probably be my last. I know this material has a lot of fans, but for me it just didn’t work. If I want hard-boiled Marvel crime, I’ll just stick with Miller Daredevil.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume of the Epic collection of The Punishers adventures is a mixed bag. It opens and ends in very high quality and has a middle of ok quality.

The opening saga which contains the five issue mini series that was Frank Castles very first solo series is very good. Great art from Zeck & Beatty and a good solid adventure.
Then you feel like they jumped into a series before they had a good idea of what they wanted to do with him. The stories are ok but they are not great. Baron has a good handle on the character but I'm not sure The Punisher was ready for a continuing series at this moment.
Luckily the book finishes of with a cracking Graphic Novel where Castle meets an Assassin's Guild
that is located in New York

I enjoyed this collection but it certainly does feel like they were not quite sure how to do a regular series with the character.

[Romulus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Początek samodzielnych przygód Punishera. Druga połowa lat 80-tych, Punisher jest jeszcze takim typowym „dzieckiem” reaganowskiej Ameryki, w nurcie z nieco przebrzmiałym już Harrym Callahanem. Na głębię i dramat w wykonaniu Gartha Ennisa przyjdzie jeszcze czas. Frank Castle jest prosty w swojej motywacji co jest w jakiś sposób niewinne. :) Może w kolejnych częściach będę miał okazję przypomnieć sobie historie z komiksów, które ukazywały się w Polsce w czasach mojego dzieciństwa/młodości w latach 90-tych.

[Brannigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a love hate collection. It has Circle of Blood which I already have in another collection. The first 10 issues of the on going Punisher series which is amazing. Then Assassin’s Guild an original graphic novel. Assassin’s Guild was so so. Good story bad art. This collection while great is only for the fans that need one or more of the three sections of this book. Hopefully the next epic collection doesn’t double up on the issues.

[Doug Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might be a bit generous giving this a five star, but I think it was good enough to justify it. The circle of blood story and the assassins guild story, which bookended this volume, were the absolute standout stories. Everything else in between was solid but a bit repetitive and wasn't much of a standout. Solid book overall with a few really high moments though for sure.

[Al Berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Steven Grant mini-series is interesting, the Jo Duffy miniseries is excellent, the issues of Mike Baron from the main series are ridiculous cliched silliness. Art varied throughout as many different artists.

[Steve Howells · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good punisher collection.

[Jack Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily my favorite comic character but in this book it’s not all great. Problem is that there was clearly an unwillingness in marvel’s part in the early 80s to commit to the violence that was needed with a character like punisher. And they flip flop between issues. I’d say 75 percent of this book is great. But every other issue there is a clear difference with how they want punisher to act. One issue will have no blood and punisher will only kill henchmen and talk about how he wants to be non lethal. Then the next issue there will be bloody brutal stabbings and gun violence as there should be. It’s overall great pure 80s marvel but I feel like the only real interpretation of punisher that matters is what the character became in the early 2000s and this is only nice window dressing. Overall really fun though I don’t mean to sound negative.

[Mhorg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art could have been better

Mike Zeck and Jorge Zaffino are the best artists in this collection. The rest looks really unfinished. The stories, like any monthly, run the gamut from good to bad with Jo Duffys Assassin's Guild the best in the collection.