Not so Astonishing
Marvel's attempt to revive the anthology series Astonishing Tales sort of fizzles early on.
The lead story here is a Wolverine/Punisher team up, set in Madripoor. Considering the last comic I read set in Madripoor was the awesome Wolverine/Captain America/Black Widow team up, Madripoor Knights, which had a great storyline and excellent martial arts action, I was really looking forward to this story.
The story was O.K., kind of like a buddy action flick, but Daredevil despite being pictured with the other two on the cover does not actually appear in this story. The art was interesting, with a watercolor like effect by IroBot, but this (automated?) colorist had an annoying tendency to put specular highlights on everyone's nose, making them look clown-like.
The second story, involving Iron Man 2020 had just the opposite problem. The artwork had a bit of a cartoony manga look to it, but the shading was far better - excellent in fact. The story was also a standard action one, this time sci-fi rather than martial arts, but it had occasional things that I found annoying - like S.H.I.E.L.D. of the future just happens to be led by a woman who coincidentally has an eyepatch over her left eye - just like Nick Fury; a tense action moment is totally disrupted with a reference to the TV show South Park, etc.
The third story is a Daredevil story with laconic dialogue, featuring the hero rescuing a boy from a devil cult. Normally I love this kind of story - all action, little talk - but if you're going to rely solely on the artwork to tell the tale, you need to make sure you have clear visual communication, and smooth panel transitions. Unfortunately, the stylized, Bill Sienkiewicz influenced art makes things confusing and frustrating at times.
The final story is a terrible attempt at humor with Cannonball and Sunspot making a knock off of the film The Wedding Crashers to entertain Mojo. Every single joke falls flat. It will leave you groaning. How Fred Hembeck can get away with essentially the same superhero spoofs and corny jokes, I don't know, but somehow he does, and nobody else really can.