Basement X

Magnificent f'ing story.

Long Cold Dark kicks off the return of Barracuda and Valley Forge, Valley Forge sees Castle tying up all loose ends with the corrupted Generals who initiated Operation Barbossa that involved infiltrating a Russian Lab in Siberia to acquire a virus from a little girl.

The only flaw in two great stories was the horrific art. It was unintelligible in some areas. I had a hard time trying understand some of the panels that I just skipped em.

More later.

Were there two distinct artists?

Howard Chaykin as one? I'm not a fan of Howard Chaykin art unless it's attached to a comedy book. Didn't feel he suited the Punisher Max stuff, especially with the regular artists of Punisher having a less cartoonish, exaggerated physique look.

Chaykin did one storyline and Goran Parlov did another one. I can't recall who did which story but it hardly matters as both them weren't that great. If nothing else, I felt Dougie Braithwaite, who did the pencils for Mother Russia storyline, would've been perfect for the final storyline where Frank goes against the generals from the Mother Russia story.

With Ennis ending his run on Punisher MAX, I've also dropped the series with the 5th HC.

I stuck on for the first arc of Swerinzinkiskniski (pretty sure I've spelt his name wrong). Wasn't bad, but just wasn't Ennis.

Having finished his Punisher MAX, I feel this was Ennis' second best run. I originally had high hopes for The Boys, but 3 volumes in, it already doesn't stand up well against Punisher or Preacher.