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A little over 3 years ago in 1996, I walked away from Marvel, and in spite, said
I'd never read Marvel again. I was angry with the treatment of the few
Marvel titles I still read, Ghost Rider was just getting over used and
ruined, that whole Onslaught mess that ruined Fantastic Four for me, and
Punisher wasn't what he was anymore, he was becoming too "Superheroey".
That's when I dropped it, I walked away, I went to DC mainly, and
independents, for over 3 years I didn't touch a new Marvel comic, I was
convinced I never would. I'm probably the last comic book geek on earth
that hasn't read Kevin Smith's Daredevil run.
From what I was told hanging around the comic book store, things got a lot
worse before they got better. Ghost Rider's readership went down so much
they didn't bother printing the last issue. Somehow Punisher died, and
became a demon killing zombie or some such nonsense. I'm told Fantastic
Four got better, but I was disillusioned. That's when I heard the news,
Garth Ennis was going to write Punisher.
Garth Ennis, writer/creator of Hitman, and Preacher, a sick S.O.B. by most
accounts. The man who wrote Hitman puking on Batman's boots, the man who
wrote about a one eyed preacher looking for God to kick his ass into going
back to heaven, the man that's written more gore then Stephen King probably
has. I heard he was throwing out the demon hunter crap and getting back to
what The Punisher was, a serial killing sociopath. He'd be writing a 12
issue maxi-series returning Frank Castle to his roots.
So after much thought, I decided, I would *gasp* buy a Marvel comic. I
went to the comic book store expecting to buy 2 Marvel comics that day "The
Punisher #1", and the reprinted "The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"
also written by Garth Ennis. I was disappointed to find "TPKtMU" was
delayed a week.
Anyhow, on to The Punisher #1. When I saw it, the first thing I noticed was
it's amazing cover art, it really served it's purpose of drawing you in. You
open to a panel one, page one, and already see corpses, something that you
see a lot of in this issue. In this issue, Garth Ennis firmly establishes
the tone for this maxi, brutal. You will get a lot in this issue, the
carnage is a given, you see Frank giving a guy a chance to straighten
himself out, you get a glimpse of Frank's supporting cast, a quick, short,
reasonable explanation for the whole lame demon killer thing, humor, a
realistic looking arsenal, machine gunning, grenading, knifing, shot
gunning, and good ol' fashion hands on approach, I count 17 casualties and
it's only issue 1! Despite the high body count within the issue, it
surprisingly sounds reasonable in context. Garth Ennis has, so far,
accomplished bringing back the good ol' Punisher I used to know and er, um
read regularly.
Looking to the future, Garth Ennis promises "Creative use of a flamethrower
in issue #3", more violence, mean ass villains, and a lot more machine
gunning. If he can keep the pace up that he has in issue one, I believe this
will be, as hyped "THE book of 2000". I recommend this book highly, really
highly, and probably have, during the year, a mid series review when issue
#6 comes out, and an ending review of the series at well, the end. And on
that note . . .
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