The Punisher: Up Is Down & Black Is White

Note:[I] You can consider this thread as my attempt to drum up talk of the Punisher series in general. Your praises, your grievances, whatever; I just felt the urge to wonder aloud if issue 19 is going to go where I'm thinking it will.[/I]

This storyline concerning the return of Nicky Cavella kicks off w/ number #19, and I'm interested because the idea of Cavella returning and apparently doing something so fucked up that it squeezes the heart of the "emotionless" titular character was intriguing to me.

Considering how Ennis portrays the character, I couldn't think of one damn thing that would put the Punisher in any kind of "emotional turmoil", not one thing that would quantify as "crossing the line" on Cavella's part, then I saw the cover to #19 pt.1.

It places the tombstone of Castle's family firmly and ominously in the background, which caused me to instantly state: "Oh shit, he's gonna dig them up!"
Ennis, while very talented, can fall into the pit of predictability sometimes, so my simple swag (scientific wild ass guess), may not be that far off.

Provided I've hit the nail on the head, and taking into consideriation Ennis' rep as a master of carnage, you kind of have to wonder how Cavella's going to get it, and how badly.

The Belt-Whipping; best. Fury. moment. ever.

I copied it directly from another site, for some reason I can't fix it here.

One tries to avoid Ennis, the other tries to avoid Corben, both live in the land of Fucked-Up Taste!

Nothing but love & respect for Corben & Ennis.

Just picked this up Wednesday, pretty much exactly what I thought down to the final page. There were some surprises though, the best among them being the return of the sadomasochistic Agent O'Brien.

Disagree. Ennis doesn't have to use profanity to tell a good Punisher story, the MK run proved that, but the characters that inhabit the Punisher's world are no more "potty-mouthed" than their real life counter parts, and Ennis has choosen to have fun with it. I did actually consider dropping the original MK run around the 30 issue mark because I could tell that Ennis was getting bored with it, turning in stories about psychotic midgets, sewer dwelling cannibals, and having Elektra drop by at one point (which annoyed me the most, considering how much I hate that character). MAX has been no more of a mixed bag than any other mainstream comic out there, with it's high points (In The Beginning, Mother Russia) and it's low points (Kitchen Irish, a pale, predictable story, w/ a good, sobering ending).

Now, w/ the character firmly impressed upon my brain, I'm more than certain that I won't be dropping this title until Ennis leaves; I just feel that he owns this character, he owns him like no one has before, and probably ever will.

On Richard Corben: Great artist, and one that isn't one of the legends of the industry for nothing. I had an art teacher once tell me that you can't judge art unless you "understand it", I grew to agree with that sentiment to a certain extent, and I also happen to "get" Corben. He can do realistic proportions & "proper anatomy" just as well as anyone else, the man is a pro, but that really isn't his style. If it's just the style that bothers someone, then that's their opinion, and that works for me, but that in no way shape or form, makes Richard Corben a bad artist.

I almost feel sorry for Cavella.

#20 I never thought I'd see the day when Marvel would print images of gleeful patricide and an incestuous fatty fuckfest, I love Ennis.

Don't have to remind me, I picked up The Cell and #21 yesterday. Ennis is preparing to leave, there has been no official announcement yet, but I can feel it in my gut. Marvel comics is cancelling the entire MAX line and moving the only two titles (Marvel's best stuff IMHO) to Marvel Knights to increase sales; yep, Ennis is going to leave, and that will leave me with only one Marvel title in my box, The Ultimates.

For anyone who hasn't read The Cell, read it, best Punisher story since Ennis' own "Born", and further proof that Ennis may be wrapping up his 5yrs with the character in one big bloody bang.
#21? Again, Castle getting even scarier and more intense than ever before, this is among the reddest pages that Marvel has ever published.

I'm going to miss this, not for any simple brained gore-hound reason, just the fact that Ennis took the essential blandness of a B-list character and turned him into one of Marvel's heavy hitters w/out hardly changing a thing, except the *quality* of the storytelling.

Glad you dug it, and just so you know, my earlier presumptions on Ennis' departure may have been premature. Though Supreme Power is sadly going to the MK imprint, The Punisher looks as if he'll be around a while, and Ennis has stated in a recent interview that after his Ghost Rider mini, he'll be looking to do a MAX ongoing starring, drum roll please...Nick Fury.

Zombie Punisher, case closed.

"Twilight Zone" or "Slasher Horror"? I don't see the point in trying to sanitize the adventures of a mass murderer.

I'm not going to argue about the pro's and cons of Ennis' tenure on the title (I obviously happen to believe that the pro's far outweigh the cons), but the Punisher was totally B-list, sliding (more like tumbling) into the C-list, and then all but off the map before Ennis stepped in and gave the character the brass pair that Marvel denied him for 30 years.


Anyhoo, about the arc, good stuff. As I noted above I generally feel that Ennis is predictable writer, he's an exceptional writer, but fairly predictable; that said, the end of this arc still held a few surprises for me.

O'Brien living, I was certain that she was going to die. The way Cavella died; far less twisted than I imagined it would be, but it is consistent with how Ennis handles the titular character. Finally, Frank's last few lines that seem to elude to plans for suicide.

(Desslar) "I'm not familiar with that storyline."

A year or two before "Welcome Back Frank", The Punisher was turned into an avenging angel...literally. Armed with demon-killing weaponry, he was charged with the dubious task of cleaning up "God's mistakes". This is how far the character fell and this was Marvel's immensely sad attempt to renew interest in a tapped out B-lister. If you read WBF, Ennis acknowledged and then completely discarded that whole awful period in two sentences.


"Mass murderer is rather a harsh label for Frank, isn't it? More like executioner."

No, it's not, and are you using "executioner" as some kind of P.C. alternative to mass murderer?


"Anyway, it's not about sanitizing things, it's about keeping things vaguely realistic. I recall one Ennis issue in which there was this wacko guy who slept under a massive mound of corpses in the sewers. This is so incredibly disgusting and unreal that it really belongs in a horror story. I prefer to keep Punisher a gritty crime mag that doesn't stretch reality TOO far. Pumping dozens of villains with lead every issue is fine."

Punisher MAX is "vaguely realistic", certainly morseo than "battle vans" and the whole "Black Punisher" debacle. The Marvel Knights series was all about gallows humor and absurdity (a world where villains like The Russian and the sewer cannibal could exist), MAX is all about bleakness, and misanthropy.

"The Punisher may have been in trouble whe Ennis took over (I was out of the country at the time), but he had already made the A list in the late 80s. And he had a big pair in those days too. They couldn't show a lot of blood, but there was plenty of death."

A few good stories were told in the 80's, but it strikes me as being appropriate that Ennis and Marvel has put this character out of the reach of kids (about as much as they can anyway). Even if the storytelling in the 80's was hollow and left little to be desired, the Punisher has, purely by nature of the characer, always been a total psychopath.

I've said it before, the coolest thing about Ennis on this title isn't the blood and carnage, it's that he turned a weakness into a strength; he took a one-dimensional character, and asked the scary question: "Why is he so one-dimensional?" Born proved to be the scary answer, the perfect kiss-off to the MK series and the perfect lead in to the MAX series.