No matter the publisher, no matter the artist (and Ennis had worked with both the best and the most mediocre the direct market has to offer). Westlake thrillers once he hit his stride – Garth's work just has a groove to it that keeps it readable. Even a work as minor as, say, Red Team has more forward momentum and thematic resonance to it than 99% of the things in the direct market.
Ennis knows how to think up a story, how to break it into a script, how to execute his ideas.
At this stage of his career, three decades in (and having done nothing else since the age of 18), Ennis' storytelling instincts are strong enough that he can never quite fuck up in the same way other professionals manage to. Still, even though Ennis is basically using The Punisher brand as an excuse to indulge in his Soviet war stories proclivities Punisher: Soviet turns out to be a hell of a ride, and very much in the vein of previous works from Ennis like 303, World of Tanks: Citadel and Battlefields: Night Witches. From story beats alone it’s the type of thing I would expect to see in a tale uploaded by a Russian teenager unto yet here it is, black and white and red on paper. Valery is so badass the Russian mob is actually convinced he’s the Punisher (hence the pair's initial meet-cute). A hard-as-nails soldier who can confide in Frank Castle - knowing the two share some invisible soldiery connection. You see, this is the story of the one man the Punisher respects. Stepanovich is a former Soviet soldier who’s out for revenge against the officer who sold him and his men out.
He’s just a witness, an Ishmael, to the story of Valery Stepanovich. Were it not for the fact that is a real comic-book series, with familiar names on the cover, including the ever-prolific Garth Ennis and the better-than-ever Jacen Burrows, I would suspect this story of being a piece of fanfiction. The recently completed Punisher: Soviet (the first issue of which was already reviewed on The Comics Journal by Matt Seneca) is a weird series. Features Back in USSR – Garth Ennis’ Soviet Tales
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