The Punisher

I've always been a fan of the Punisher, even in the mid eighties, when they tried to turn him into some sort of spandex wearing psuedo-hero, he was cool. I have to say some of the best stories I've read were in the Punisher War Journal back in the late eighties, early nineties, usually one shot stories were he has a mission, goes out, kills someone, and carries on.

Somewhere in the mid nineties the writing lost it's way they even had a short run where Frank became a mob boss himself and supplied mob 'protection' to a neighborhood, what kind of crapola was that? I honestly thought that the entire franchise had hit the dumper at that point. Mr Castle had to sit in a file for a few years waiting for a renew, one that cam in the early part of this decade with the help of Garth Ennis.

Now I've talked about Ennis before, he's a great writer, but I think in this case he's actually accomplished a bit of a legacy. He took the Punisher and made him into what he is meant to be, a viscous, marginally sociopathic, killing machine who is determined to kill in the name of his dead family until he himself killed. Ennis manages to put all the brutality of both the Punisher and the people he deals with into those pieces of ink stained paper that leaves you feeling a little horrified and sorry for this essentially soulless killer.

Now the point of all this not to expound the brilliance of Garth Ennis but to instead recommend the new Punisher comics out. The current main Marvel series is a bit superheroish for my taste, they're good stores, but the Punisher is not a superhero. But if you head on over to the Max series you'll see what the Punisher is all about. What has actually amazed me is the fact that the Ennis stopped writing at issue#60 and the series, now almost a year later at #71, has actually remained readable.

It must be difficult to follow in the footsteps of a name like Garth Ennis but an admirable job is being done. The story lines are fairly brutal, although the actual writing is getting a little more comic oriented; the last run kind of cheaped out in my opinion, when Frank is saved at the last minutes by the very people trying to kill him. All in all it's good and I'm really looking forward to the next storyline, but then who doesn't enjoy watching inbred cannibalistic bayou hillbillies getting their asses kicked? Side note here, can you imagine living in a world where the phrase "inbred cannibalistic bayou hillbillies" has no meaning? I for one don't want to!

2 things I'd like to recommend right now:

#1: Get out there and buy the Trade paperbacks entailing the Ennis run of the Punisher, great stories.

#2: If you're looking to start buying a new comic, go look for Frank Castle The Punisher. It's a MAX series currently starting a new storyline, good jumping on point and well worth the read.

In a nutshell, if you liked the last Punisher movie, the only one to get the Punisher right, you'll love these books.