Space Madness: Space Punisher #2 Review

I missed the first issue of Space Punisher for a few reasons, the biggest of which being that it was a book called Space Punisher.

Seriously: if all you know about the book is that it’s called Space Punisher, why would you buy it? At face value, it sounds like someone decided to fire the 616 Universe Frank Castle into space so he could try to kill the Guardians of The Galaxy or something, probably in the service of trying to get someone to give a tin shit about the Guardians of The Galaxy before Marvel Studios spends a hundred million bucks making a movie about them. It wasn’t until I saw Space Punisher writer Frank Tieri talking about the book at the Amazing Spider-Man panel at SDCC that I understood that this was an Elseworlds-style book, about an entirely different version of Frank Castle, who happened to be a starship captain. “Think Buck Rogers if Buck Rogers really screwed up,” Tieri said at the panel.

So I decided to give Space Punisher #2 a day in court, and sure enough: it’s about a version of The Punisher who happens to be in space. But the space setting is really the only thing different in the story, which is simultaneously a strength to the story, as well as its biggest problem.