Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace #1 – Garth Ennis, Writer; Garry Brown, Artist; Lee Loughridge, Colorist
Ray – 5/10
Ray: Garth Ennis and DC books are a very odd fit. He’s found his niche at Marvel with Punisher, where he wrote some of the character’s best books of all time. But besides the hilariously profane Hitman, most of his DC work tends to be poor fits for the characters. While not nearly as gross as the just-concluded Batman: Reptilian, this oversized one-shot falls into many of the same problems. Timed to tie into John Cena’s hilarious Peacemaker TV series, I think it might actually have the opposite effect—because this issue makes Peacemaker not into the ridiculous idiot he is in the show, but into a sociopath who essentially feels like if Punisher became Captain America. As Christopher Smith meets with an agent of the government who might have the power to end his long career in the military, he shares his life story with her. The fact that it begins with a graphic murder-suicide in which his parents kill three children sets the tone.
Dark comics are fine. Some of my favorite comics, like the recently concluded Die or Gideon Falls, are incredibly bleak. But that’s not this. This comic just immerses us in misery and violence to show us a character who has had such a hard life that it turned them into a gun aimed in the right direction. The Punisher element of his character mainly comes from the fact that his MO seems to be arranging for the death of corrupt military members in the middle of completing his missions—and there are a lot of those out there. There are some good action scenes here, and some genuinely intense scenes. It’s not a terrible comic from a craft perspective, but it’s so relentlessly bleak at times—particularly in one scene where Peacemaker is addressing the graveyard—that I’m not really sure who it’s for. This is just a one-shot that doesn’t tie into anything, and that might be for the best—this Peacemaker doesn’t feel like he belongs in the DCU.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
