It's been some time since we went over places The Punisher goes in LA in writer Nathan Edmondson's run of the series. The Punisher being outside of LA the most likely reason. The Punisher is back and all of LA is at war with the Dos Soles gang. That doesn't stop the Howling Commandos from stopping their attack on old skull chest. Instead of helping the people of LA the US Military unit decided to kidnap innocent civilians, the remains of The Punisher's family, then shack up at one of the most well known hotels in LA, the JW Marriott Los Angeles. Now they lie in wait watching the city burn and truly being a-holes that couldn't give a damn about an entire city burning around them.
Kudos to Nathan for almost killing the team behind the Fantastic Four movie at the start of the comic. There's no need as Fox is killing the project with the most bat-sh*t insane marketing campaign ever of nothing at Comic-Con and no marketing whatsoever.
The coffin, that's what I like to refer to the JW Marriott Los Angeles, and is a nice name for what's going to happen to the Howling Commandos, is a venerable eye-sore of the city that you can't miss. This co-owned building is also the The Ritz-Carlton. Yes, they share the same hotel, but not the same check-in, leading to many people entering the wrong way to get to their section of the hybrid hotel.To get even more confusing the hotels floors are divided as such: the JW Marriott hotel is on floors 3 through 21, the Ritz-Carlton hotel is on floors 22 through 26. Floors 27 through 52 are apartments held by the ultra wealthy of LA by the Ritz Carlton. Stories of college kids who have rich parents staying for their years abroad in LA supposedly stay on the top floors with other heavy-hitters.
The hotel is used very often as it's walking distance to both the LA Convention Center, Nokia Theater and the Staples Center and centered in LA's ugly attempt at Time Square, LA Live.
Some of it's amenities include a helicopter pad on the roof, jumbo screen on the outside, pool on the roof, ballroom and plenty of spaces to hold conferences. I myself have gone their numerous times for reasons including a Japanese play, checking in for film festivals and testing out video games for E3.
There's been many controversies about the cost and money used for the hotel. One has been the money invested by foreigners recently via the EB-5 visa program that's been found to have fraud and bad oversight.To have it constructed the city of LA entered a deal with it not collecting certain taxes until 2035, yeah 2035. Something like $270 million was saved for the company that built it. That doesn't even go over the other deals cut on behalf of the building, let's just say the people of LA aren't getting a fair cut of it's income in taxes.
The hotel itself has some problems from past experience including slow elevators when many are in attendance and some rooms have dreadfully low ceilings with odd ornament that can easily hit your head.
Will it survive The Punisher checking into it? We'll have to wait until next issue.
