Marvel Comics appears to have cancelled their latest Punisher series that replaced Frank Castle with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Joe Garrison.
Punisher #1 Cover art by Rod Reis (2023), Marvel Comics
The series has not been solicitated by the publisher in three months and the last published issue, Punisher #4 debuted at the end of February.
The solicitations for March, which came out at the end of December, do not have any Punisher titles listed.
The solicitation for April does include the series’ first trade paperback that collects issues 1-4 albeit the solicitation reveals it won’t actually arrive until May.
Finally, the most recent solicitation that dropped at the end of February for products shipping in May does not include the series.
Punisher #1 Cover art by Salvador Larroca (2023), Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics originally announced the series back at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023. In their blog post announcing the series, they claimed the book would be “an all-new ongoing comic series!”
However, given these solicitations it looks like the series has been cancelled after just four issues.
Punisher #2 Cover art by Marco Mastrazzo (2023), Marvel Comics
It’s not surprising the series was cancelled after four issues. While the debut issue placed 11th on ICv2’s ComicHub point-of-sale sales chart for comics sold by units in November, it quickly fell down the list.
By December, the series’ second issue did not even chart on their Top 50 Comics list. Similarly, the third and fourth issues did not chart in January or February.
Punisher #4 cover art by Dan Jurgens (2024), Marvel Comics
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It’s also not surprising that the comic fell off the sales charts so quickly. Back in August, the series’ writer David Pepose informed CBR he would be reimagining a number of villains for his run.
He relayed, “Without spoiling too much, my goals for the Punisher are to reimagine and revamp some very cool preexisting villains from across the Marvel Universe while also giving him some brand-new bad guys to call his own.”
“It’s not to say that Joe won’t be killing some very deserving people, but as he’ll be the first to tell you, there are some punishments that are far worse than death,” he added.
Punisher #1 (2023), Marvel Comics
Pepose also revealed that Garrison would be reporting to a female, “Triple-A is Joe’s handler from his S.H.I.E.L.D. days, and she serves as the Woman in the Chair for Joe’s missions as he seeks to avenge his family. Triple-A follows in the footsteps that Microchip did once upon a time.”
“Not only does she outfit Joe with his weaponry as his Q, but she also provides him with breaking intel that lets readers get to follow along with all the cool bad guys we’re throwing into the mix,” he explained. “But more importantly, Triple-A allows us to have a degree of warmth and humor that Joe’s mission might not otherwise allow us to have.”
Triple-A in Punisher #1 (2023), Marvel Comics
On top of this Wes from Thinking Critical and his co-host Dok explained why readers quickly abandoned the series.
Dok said, “They didn’t bother to create any personality, any uniqueness, any anything for Joe Garrison. They just literally made a cardboard cutout to wear a costume. Because it’s not about to try and replace Frank Castle. It’s about taking Frank Castle and something that we like away from us.”
He added, “They have race-swapped Detective Soap. They have race and gender-swapped Microchip. There was no personality to them either. … Hell, even his villain is just dollar store version of Jigsaw that’s not Jigsaw and Jigsaw is now, I guess, an organization. There was nothing unique here. Every single thing was hollowed out and worn as a skin suit to slap on something else.”
What do you make of Marvel Comics cancelling their Punisher series in less than a year?
Marvel Comics appears to have cancelled their latest Punisher series that replaced Frank Castle with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Joe Garrison. The series has not Read More