When superstar writer Jason Aaron was announced as the new writer on the "mature content" Punisher Max title, I got excited. Thirteen issues in, though, and I'm underwhelmed. We got a Kingpin storyline, a Bullseye storyline, and now a Prison/Vietnam storyline. From that you can already tell that Aaron isn't breaking new ground. In this issue, part two of "Frank," The Punisher is in jail and remembering his past when he got back from Vietnam and had to seamlessly fit back into regular life. He got a job at a slaughterhouse and didn't mind when the prick inspector got his hand caught in a grinder. In prison, a tough dude called The Big Jesus seems to be attempting a plot to kill Frank. The issue feels like an action-less issue of Jason Aaron's Scalped; it's meditative, trying to be dark but emotional. Scalped is fresh, though. We've seen all of this before in The Punisher. Even the forced, over-the-top violence doesn't mesh with the emotional core of what Aaron is trying to work in. The art, by Preacher's Steve Dillon, is quality stuff, but all of his characters do look alike, and for some reason The Punisher doesn't look right; too weird looking, too off-key. If you do want to read a fresh, fun, extremely wild book by Aaron, pick up Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine. It's so fucking good...what I had hoped this would have been. *1/2
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