Daredevil/The Punisher: Seventh Circle, Chapter One is the first in a four-issue limited series written by Charles Soule with pencils and inks by Szymon Kudranski. I hadn't heard of Kudranski, so I checked out some of the artwork on his blog, where I found gobs of his most impressive work. Charles Soule I knew from a number of DC and Marvel titles, plus his own title, Strongman. Oh, and did I mention that this is about Daredevil and the Punisher, two of Marvel's best characters? Needless to say, I began this title with the highest of expectations.
Daredevil as Matt Murdoch is the good guy here, a prosecutor in the Sergey Antonov case. Antonov is a rough customer, and he's being transferred from New York to Texas in hopes of getting an impartial jury, but the Punisher, Frank Castle, has other plans. He takes a shot at Antonov from the rooftops, but Murdoch's enhanced hearing allows him to foil the assassination, at least for now.
This is a pure action title so far, but it leaves us with some questions. Who is Sergey Antonov? What did he do to make the Punisher so angry at him? And will he survive his extradition to Texas? See, Daredevil and the Punisher are two sides of the same coin. They both stand for law and justice, but Daredevil sees justice through the eyes of America's sometimes convoluted legal system, while the Punisher sees justice through his own eyes. Daredevil believes in the system; the Punisher doesn't. Daredevil has a club; the Punisher has a rifle.
One of the highlights of this title is the coloring by Jim Charalampidis. This is a dark comic featuring three superheroes in black costumes with a black van and black asphalt, yet Charalampidis leaves no ambiguity between which black is which black. The letterer is VC's Clayton Cowles. I believe I've written about him before, but I like his style, using all caps dialogue and upper-case/lower-case narration by Daredevil. It's a really fantastic title, and I'm looking forward to Chapter Two coming out in late June.
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