Writer: Brian Bendis Artists: Bill Sienkiewicz Publisher: Marvel
Plot: We learn why the Punisher was sent to prison.
Strong writing earmarks Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. The Punisher and Daredevil haven't been this interesting since Frank Miller abandoned them. Mr. Bendis understands the point of the Punisher. He cannot carry his own series. He is a supporting character who offers contrast to the character of the hero. The Punisher isn't a hero. He has no redeeming qualities.
Where Mr. Miller laid the groundwork for Daredevil's foundation, Mr. Bendis builds on it. The scenes where Matt Murdock uses his hypersenses and training to create an image as certain as that only seen through the eye are memorable, and it's here where Bill Sienkiewicz signs his work as a professional artist who understands the persistence of vision.
These characters are not the Marvel characters with which you are familiar. Karen for instance is alive, and I say, thank goodness. I don't need make-believe characters contracting dread diseases for which there is no cure. Comic books for me are meant as an escape. I want realism to be taken into consideration, but I also want to believe that Reed Richard the most brilliant man in the Marvel Universe can not only create a flying bathtub but also find the bane of of a real life biological nightmare.
In a less controversial move, Mr. Bendis shatters the friendship shared by Spidey and Daredevil that has been a mainstay in the Marvel Universe for some forty years. He reveals that Daredevil does not think much of our friendly-neighborhood wall-crawler, but he does not do this simply to telegraph the freshness of the Ultimate Marvel line. He gives a reason for the animosity, and who knows in succeeding issues, DD may in fact develop respect for "That little idiot."
