Daniel Way is in the awkward position of being a writer seemingly far more popular with Marvel than he is with the readership. 

In the past, Marvel has occasionally become besotted with writers who they continued to use in the face of near-overwhelming audience disapproval - Chuck Austen and Ron Zimmerman being two of the more obvious examples.  Way isn't quite in that league.  Editors love him, and have put him on the faintly ridiculous Ten Terrific list.  (Although isn't it nice to see new talent like Joss Whedon being promoted?)  Readers... just don't much seem to care.  He's been around for a good few years now, but still hasn't produced anything that could be described as a breakthrough hit.  On the other hand, his CV includes a few high-profile bombs, such as the unfortunate recent Venom series.

His previous collaboration with Steve Dillon was a Bullseye miniseries and, in many ways, better than you might expect.  It had a nicely constructed plot, some amusing twists, and some interesting ideas about the character.  On the other hand, it also had a string of largely irrelevant flashbacks (which, to be fair, was probably in the remit from the start), and it was structured around a spectacularly un-visual series of conversations between three people in a room.  Way's recent Wolverine arc, the House of M crossover, had a similar structure.

All of which has generally contributed to my impression of Daniel Way.  Talented, to be sure.  But too slow.  Too talky.  Not visual enough.  Not really suited to this medium.  Oh, and tends to write stories which aren't actually about the advertised lead characters.

Punisher vs Bullseye is, I suspect, partly the result of Marvel wanting to do a sequel to Bullseye: Greatest Hits, but realising that it didn't actually sell very well.  So here's the Punisher to provide some star power.  Since Bullseye is a hitman, it won't come as any surprise to learn that the story involves the mob hiring Bullseye to kill the Punisher.  The good news is that there's more to the book than that; the bad news is that "more" doesn't actually involve the lead characters.  Half of the first issue is two mob characters, one with a wacky transvestite gimmick straight out of Garth Ennis' black comedy issues, talking about the plot.  The Punisher turns up in four panels of a flashback; Bullseye is there right at the end.  But basically, once again, Way is writing stories about supporting characters whom he seems to find far more interesting than the supposed stars of the story.

To be fair, this is an old standby for writers who can't actually change anything about the lead characters.  And the mobsters are, in fact, quite interesting characters.  They're also slightly amusing, in a Garth Ennis Lite sort of a way.  But I'm getting the sinking feeling I get with a lot of Daniel Way stories - "Oh look, here's a brand name character I can nail my unrelated story onto." 

Dillon is a good match for Way, because he's one of the handful of artists so skilled in body language and facial expression that he can actually make these lengthy conversation scenes - five straight pages of two characters in a room! - somewhat interesting to look at.  He's also cornered the market in sympathetic, beaten-down losers.  But overall, it's a story that reminds of me of many things that I've never liked about Way's work, combined with a dash of stuff that worked much better when Garth Ennis did it.  All told, the issue leaves me more excited about the prospect of re-reading some of Ennis' earlier Punisher stories than about further issues of this.

Rating: B-

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