Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Howard Chaykin
Publisher: Marvel
$2.99

Review by Frank Davis

Matt Fraction’s Punisher War Journal has been one of Marvel’s best reads since it premiered out of Civil War. In this series, you get Punisher stories that are very different in tone and style to others featuring the Punisher, and whatever else published by Marvel in general. With the addition of Howard Chaykin as the interior artist, the style and quality have been brought up to a very high standard and the first chapter of the long awaited Jigsaw arc delivers an opening story that changes the way people will view Frank Castle’s greatest foe.

The story opens with a pawn shop owner being strapped to a chair and a man in a suit talking to him about very random things that make no sense. Whilst this happens two cops clean out an evidence locker filled with guns. The stories then intersect and you see Ian - the former police officer thinking he is the Punisher - his shrink (also in Punisher garb) assisting him in his mayhem and Jigsaw, revealing himself to the audience; and an important piece of how Frank Castle lost his family, and how that relates to the cat-and-mouse game that Punisher and Jigsaw play.

Fraction and Chaykin are a perfect team in this series. Fraction delivers a tale that does not have Frank Castle in the story, but is a presence in every page. Jigsaw and his cabal are informed and become the ‘Funhouse Mirror’ to Castle’s mission and deliver with great skill why they are dangerous. Most writers would try and deliver base villainy, but Fraction humanizes Jigsaw and company, and gives them a reason for their grudges.

Howard Chaykin has been drawing a lot of Marvel books as of late but, for the most part, the books he has illustrated have not fit his art style. His layouts have been a bit restrained and his figure work looked uncomfortable, but with his work on War Journal, Chaykin has gotten out of his ‘drawing superheroes’ phase; and in drawing a series with a more realistic tone, Chaykin has allowed himself to work with the full range of his production talent to deliver work that is on par with American Flagg. Backgrounds are filled with detail, the anatomy is realistic and the style and forward motion is very prevalent. The return to artistic form makes this reader very happy.

Overall, Punisher War Journal continues to deliver the high levels of comedy, action and twisted bad behavior one comes to expect form Matt Fraction’s work. The first chapter of Jigsaw is a single issue that is a high water mark for both Fraction and Chaykin fans, and all of them should make the effort to go and seek it out.