While it’s not a big week for me, it is a fun one, so let’s highlight my buys, recommendations, and curiosities from this fun slate in another edition of The Pull.

Comic of the Week: Die: Loaded #5

I’ve mentioned this before, but going into Die: Loaded, I sort of believed I knew what I was getting into. It’s Die, Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ Image Comics series about a group of people lost in the RPG world of one of their creation, but, you know, again! Instead, this series has found Gillen doing what Gillen does and reinventing the concept while building on it at the same time. In a way, this series reminds me now of the magic trick Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard pulled off in The Power Fantasy, where it isn’t as much a sequel as a second chance from another perspective. That results in a much richer read, and one that I have, at least so far, enjoyed more than the first Die series. We’ll see where it goes, but the team is doing great things here, and it’s interesting to see the subtle ways Hans has improved between projects.

Trade/Graphic Novel of the Week: The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank – Marvel Premier Collection

If you read this comic, you will believe a man can punch a bear.

This comic felt like a moment when it came out, both because The Punisher was coming off one weird as hell stretch (two words for you: angel guns) and because it was so immediately, obviously incredible. Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon delivered not just an instant classic Punisher story in the 12 issues collected in this Marvel Premier Collection release, but arguably one of the greatest evergreen Marvel comics ever made. Is that at least in part because Frank Castle does in fact deck a polar bear in it? Maybe. But it rules. I mean, there’s a reason Jon Bernthal wrote a foreword to this, beyond the fact that he himself plays The Punisher.

Game recognizes game, and Welcome Back, Frank has game.