Dont I know your face?

Sometimes in comics the artists need a reference point on what to base the characters on. In Punisher Max, Ennis went as far as stealing the faces from famous actors which Im sure is stored in a vault at Marvel somewhere.

cue the credits!

 Clint Eastwood

 

 

 

 

John Wayne

 

 

Al Pacino

 

Christopher Walken
 

Samule L Jackson

 

Pete Postlethwaite

Morgan Freeman

Tony Sirico

TH-TH-THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

Up Is Down Black Is White

by Garth Ennis and Leandro Fernandez

*warning this whole thing is one long spoiler

  

Now on to my probably my favourite book of all time, Up Is Down Black Is White, I know this book so well I haven’t even bothered reading it before I did this review.

The story starts with Frank doing a routine gang bust/slaughter afterwards he goes to a diner to have some food and he finds someone has dug up his family and pissed on their skeletons via CNN, who seem to have the thing on 24 hour repeat. while this happening O'Brien (last seen in the beginning being shot and horny) is enjoying her jail time when 3 prison lesbians  try to frame her for a prison guards death because she won’t go down on them so she has to escape. meanwhile we find out that it was Nicky Cavella (also from in the beginning) who has set the whole thing up so he can be the Godfather of the mob, as you can imagine Frank isn’t too happy and goes on a killing spree of the underworld so massive it makes the Rwandan genocide look like a picnic for the elderly. so he goes from gang to gang only leaving one survivor with the message to the police if they don’t rebury his family then he will just keep killing and they cave faster than a priest at an all boys school because they are getting so much shit from the press and criminals who are shitting themselves that they will be next. When the his family are reburied Castle goes after Cavella who is waiting with a hit squad including Rawlins from Mother Russia who has been told to kill Castle on the orders of that general who Fury kicked the shit out of other. Just as Rawlins is about to shoot the Punisher,O’Brien ambushes him and shoots Cavella in the chest, causing the Punisher to snap out the funk he's in and letting him make a getaway, so she rescues frank and kidnaps Rawlins (what a woman) taking him back to Roth’s so she can torture him for every bit of black market info they can get out of him. They take care of Cavella after being ambushed by Pittsy's little brother I mean sister and warn him not to go near Rawlins because even in his half dead state he's still dangerous. It all ends nicely with Rawlins killing Roth and escaping, O’Brien going on the run and Cavella dying a slow painful death in a forest allowing Frank to get closure on the whole thing and go back to killing at his normal speed.

Just a dream



I hadn’t really gotten into The Punisher at this point in my life so I had no idea what I was picking up when I was browsing through the random issues at the comic book store, but I got to the end of issue two and that speech kicked in, the one where he's killed all the gangsters and he turns his guns on the innocence with the line "if my world ends so does yours" that one line changed how I viewed not just comic book heroes but heroes in general. Heroes can kill, not only can they kill they can torture you, and it’s weird this concept isn’t a new one we've just been conditioned to think that heroes have that line they should never cross, all our saints and historical figures all their victories and notoriety is bathed in the blood of the people they murdered and killed all in the name of our country, we just gave them some disturbed notion of honour because well do you really want to see the men that enslaved nations as bad people. History remembers them as good that all that matters. We view these characters like angels holier than holy they can do no wrong, and this guy just turns the whole thing on its head, it breaks convention at its very heart. It was just a complete shock to me, like that first time you watch the ending of Fight Club with the sky scrapers crumbling to the ground, it was like time slowed down panel by panel in these two pages and your just sitting there in shock at what you've witnessed. Wolverine might be damaged but these was always a line he never dreamed of crossing because at his heart no matter how much he wanted to be an animal he would never give into it, Frank Castle on the other hand is that monster, that darkness, it’s so much a part of him he can barely even see the light he just knows it these guiding him.



The way Fernandez and Ennis have dragged you into someones darkest personal hell and still have you connecting to Frank is just something to behold, watching a character that far gone, the way he is compulsed to do and carry out the kill even though he knows it will end badly for him. He know there will be serious consequences but he needs to do it, there’s something in that you can relate to, how many times have you did something that you know will fuck you over but you do it anyway? It’s like its saying something brutally honest about human nature, some dark impulse where you have to make to prove your point even at the expense of something you love or your health, like walking away from a relationship, it hurts like fuck but it’s just something you have to do. In this case what happens to Castle was like opening a meat grinder on to the world, and it wasn’t going to stop till it was fed, writhing on the floor choking on its own bile and vomit.

what the hell did I drink last night?



What happens to Cavella also brings up some great issues of whether someone is born a psychopath or can be groomed to be like it, all the horrifying crap in his childhood is brutally realised in this, there’s the old argument that child abuse creates mental health issues but before any of that has even happened he's already murdered his whole family guided by his monster of an aunt who pretty much kills any chance of a childhood he had, does it excuse all the forcing a man to eat his sons or digging up a family and pissing on them? probably not no matter how much sympathy you want to give them but it was interesting having at least some reasoning behind his behaviour rather than just making him a flat out two dimensional psycho.

This book is full of strong women Pittsy’s sister makes less of an impact than her brother but he was going to be a hard act to follow, she's very well drawn and you can tell they had a specific person in mind when Fernandez drew her if I didn’t know any better I swear he drew one of the girls I went to school with (hence the reason I didn’t get laid a lot in my teenage years Crufts wouldn’t take them for being too dog like) she has a dominating presence and a face that says 'I will rip off your balls because you don’t have any' it’s a good analogy because she is just a dog on a leash waiting Cavella’s command to attack anything he clicks his fingers at, you get the feeling she could have had more of a story but dies before she gets beyond the love sick puppy routine, which is a shame I wouldn’t have minded an issue where her and barracuda team up.

Another strong woman Obrien is just a powerhouse in this, the way she’s the only one in the whole book she seems to have her head straight apart from the fact she acts like a love sick school girl with a wet on for the punisher, she does do the whole sensitive thing but it’s a good reflection of how fucked up the punishers world is, there’s a sadness in her, a wish fulfilment that things could have been different for them but at the same time resigns herself to the fact there is no other way of life for people like her or Castle.

worst threesome ever



As with most of the MAX series the art is a highlight but Fernandez truly out does himself in this book, the whole thing is almost played out in black and white, giving the effect that your reading the whole thing from a darkened room and the few shades of light you do get normally come from a gun shot. There are lots of detailed close ups of characters grimacing the only time you ever see anyone smile in this is when they have done something evil, you can see clearly what each person is thinking that you could get by without dialogue.

I could talk about this book all day if you give me the chance, every page, panel and word is as near perfect as you’re ever going to get in any comic you will ever read, if that isn’t enough for you to pick it up you've obviously been fucking your aunty.

Mother Russia

by Garth Ennis and Doug Braithwaite



On to one of my favourites Mother Russia. Nick Fury offers Frank the names and whereabouts of every major criminal in the US if he does a job for him, it involves taking a bio weapon from Russia that can wipe out a human body in a second unfortunately its been injected into a little girl who happens to be in a nuclear silo, so frank journeys to Russia with an action man boy scout whose only job is to complete the mission, which needless to say doesn’t really work out for him, on the bright sides franks almost starts world war 3 to get her out by setting off one of the nukes. By the time he gets her back it’s out of her system and the US generals want to have him arrested because they couldn’t get their weapon. It’s a great laugh.

It feels shorter than the others in the series but that doesn’t mean it has less impact, this is the first one I read with my mouth open, there’s an underlying intensity to it that’s burning in the background.

For the last time Im not the fucking Kingpin,

I will have your balls for this Braithwaite

 

 

The other stories featuring Rawlins really feeds into the government conspiracy stories that everyone seemed to have after 9/11 so you can imagine it actually happening (there’s defiantly a few of you who actually believe that it is happening with the CIA). the whole set up of an Arab American convincing a bunch of religious zealots to kill themselves doesn’t actually sound that farfetched and although you barely see Rawlins it’s an horrifyingly fucked up sight to see someone pull that off, just because that’s the way the world is right now and I’m sure the book made a lot of people wonder 'what if...'

Zakharov is great as the bored Rambo villain general who like Fury, still holds the utmost respect from the soviet but is stuck behind a desk unable to actually do anything, which basically means he's been put out to pasture. He seems to be the only one in the whole of the Russian army that even has a clue what’s actually happening especially when he's dealing with another officer who takes it on face value arguing with Zakharov on everything.

The scene that really touches me is where Frank is losing consciousness after getting the shit kicked out of him by the pygmy, he can feel himself slipping but that darkness in his soul drags him back and at that moment he would do anything to protect that little girl, it’s really touching, to have someone who is so hardcore in his ways to almost soften, it’s almost like he becomes human again instead of the rampant killing machine he has made himself.

To be honesty this whole book is worth reading just for Fury, he's been perfectly realised by Ennis in this book and the man is a classic shit kicker, there’s a presence he commands when around other soldiers who consider him a legend so much so when the MP's are told to arrest them you get the feeling they'd rather take on a pit-bull naked covered bacon than even think about it. To watch him at work is like watching a force of nature you can tell he knows 15 different ways to fuck you up and that’s just through him talking. The fear in the other general’s eyes as their ringleader was being beaten into submission is just a sight to behold, my only complaint about this book is there wasn’t a full page when Fury lays into him, it has just as much impact as any of the gruesome deaths that are in this series.

beaten like a 5 star bitch

 

It’s hard to explain why it’s one of my favourites, despite all its complexities like a possible nuclear war, a bio weapon that can kill in an instance and any number of conspiracy theories you can come up it’s a very basic story and I suppose that’s it secret, it doesn’t need the 101 villain or the millions of guns when it comes down to its just about a man who wants to protect a little girl and that’s something wether you’re a father or not you can identify with.

well I’m going to go fuck every hooker in new York before some asshole bans that too, see you in Up Is Down Black Is White.

Music Of The Punisher

To mix it up a little bit I'll be doing segments on the Punisher in other media. this week its music and my top 3 Punisher Songs.

Holy Wars...Punishment Due by MegaDeth

The Punisher inspired the second part of this classic metal song with lyrics

 "you killed my wife and my baby,
   with hopes to enslave me,
  First mistake last mistake"

You really cant get more Punisher if you tried, the way the guitars kick it is just fucking awesome and you can really start to head bang, for some reason Mustain stopped being a fan claiming he got too commercial, dunno what that's about maybe he got pissed off at Frank using energy weapons in the Spiderman cartoon. I'd also add Good Morning Black Friday as it definitely fits the comics due to it being about somebody starting of numb then going on a killing spree, sound familiar?

Warzone by Rob Zombie

This is on the sound track to the best full length Punisher movie so far Punisher Warzone.

"Yeah, I spot a crack nearer on a jigsaw face
Blood and knuckles roar on a muzzle flash
Another day in hell and she's the same
The skull will punish all that will survive"

It starts with great thumping drums that slowly builds into the classic Zombie guitar riffs. Zombie sounds like he actually gets the characters and the comic, which is a refreshing change because the movies have been complete shite (at least the makers of Warzone tried god bless em)
Its got it all jigsaw face, the skull,  you cant kill me, what more do you want that's going to scream its about the Punisher.


Dark In Here by Alien Ant Farm

I know your probably shocked I'm choosing something that isn't thrash metal but this song holds a special place in Punishers history being that's its at the end credits of the best super hero game ever (Yes the Punishers game was better fuck you Batman, Arkham Asylum was boring as shit)

 "Everything descends,
And my head is dark.
I will not depend,
On anything at all"

The song might be a bit weepy but for some reason after all that torture and killing its a welcome relief, I suppose the amusing credit sequence helped too but I the fact I couldn't stop myself humming it after I played it 6 years later means it leaves a lasting impact you rarely get from most credits.

So there you go, if you think I've left anything out or disagree please leave a comment.
 

kitchen Irish

Story by Garth Ennis art by Leandro Fernandez

 

 

*contains major spoilers and one instance of racist language 

Back by popular demand, I say popular demand I have 2 people hungry for these reviews but at least it makes me feel wanted. On with the review.

A bomb goes off across the road in a bar that Frank happens to be relaxing in, miraculously he survives thanks to being cocooned the other body parts of the bomb blast victims, but the aftermath sets him off to find the people that did it. As luck would have it Yorkie (making a successful transaction from the mainstream marvel universe) contacts Frank to tells him it’s the work of Finn Cooley and his nephew Peter Cooley members of the IRA, it’s not all business however and Yorkie brings along Andy Lorimer the son of one of Peters victims as a favour to his dead friend.

They easily find Cooley who is being toasted at a local bar for being a 'hero' and Cooley thinks nothing of sacrificing his dear nephew so he can make a clean getaway from Castle who nails the little prick with a bullet in each of his legs, of course the kids a pussy who spills the beans the second he thinks he might suffer pain. He tells the story of Nesbitt the godfather figure of the Irish mob who leaves in his dying breath leaves 10 million to his adopted children Tommy Tonner who leads the westies, Eamon and Polly the river rats, Maginty the mad dreadlocked bastard and Cooley, they each get a part of a code that completed will grant them access to the will but they figure if they can kill each other they will get the full 10 million  so Frank and Yorkie sets it up so they’re all in one place and lets starts killing, they all manage to get away and the sudden euphoria of them escaping a war zone in New York makes them all sentimental towards each other and they all agree they were better of just splitting the money, unfortunately for them Nesbitt was a bastard and....well I won’t spoil the ending for you.



This book is a strange one as it feels more like a sequel to business as usual than any book in the MAX series, there’s nothing that connects it to the final book unlike the others in this series that have recurring elements and characters besides Yorkie, because of this it feels like the odd one out but that in no way takes away from the great story telling.There’s so many characters and they all have a great story, it’s amazing Ennis actually managed to squeeze them all and develope them the way he has. The only real problem with this is that castle almost feels like a bit player in how own story there’s a definite shift from being purely about castle story to trying to tell the back story of every character.

Because of the way it’s drawn the whole thing plays out in slow motion and the aftermath is just horrific,in the opening pages there’s a waitress whose last dying moments involves having no arms from the elbow down and gagging on a mouthful of broken glass and its a great contast for the next part where Frank has to restart a bomb victims heart by placing his hand through the guys open rib cage and manually massaging his heart to keep him alive, for whatever reason it’s important to Frank that this guy does not die, maybe he sees himself in this guy but it’s one of the few acts of kindness that the you ever see him perform, so it’s a major thing when you do see it.

 

why so fucking serouse ye cunts

The art in this book is brilliantly realized as always, specifically the design of Finn Cooley’s face who has no skin on it due to a failed bomb attack on a British target, its visceral and every time you see him you feel repulsed on some level, there’s a definite feeling that it’s a physical representation of all the evil this man is seeping out, it’s ironic because he just comes across as a pissed off thug and its probably the most normal of all the villains in the max series. It doesn’t stop him from having the best scenes in the book, like when he escapes the punisher and tells his friend he is tired of being a slave to the system he's spent so long following, he ends up shouting "I WILL BE NO ONES NIGGER" it’s then revealed he's in a  bar full of African Americans. It's in no way ment as racist but it’s a classic gag at the end of a very realistic conversation you can imagine these guys having. and the scene where castle rips off his face with his in a desperation move of survival is fucking hideous.

Another stand out arc is the scenes with Napper and Maginty. You have the old order being pushed back into work because if he doesn’t do as he's told his grand child will die. Napper used to make people disappear for the westies and is a bit of a legend Maginty uses him to hack up tonner as a message to the rest, because Maginty is a sick fuck he forces the Napper’s grand kid to watch him work. You can’t help but feel for Napper, here’s a guy who actually managed to make something for himself and move on with his life when he gets dragged back into it he is in hell and you can see it in every panel, he hates what he did and the last thing he ever wanted is to be reminded of it, you are cheering for him when he snaps, Maginty is just an evil fuck using the old excuse he had to be that way because of his upbringing and the brutal racism he received in Ireland, but there’s no charisma to this guy either he's just nasty for the sake of it ironically he is probably most like Nesbitt out of all the characters because of how much of a bastard he is.

 

The only interesting thing about the river rats is there may or may not be an incest angle i.e. over protective brother but they hold no real interest and Tonner is just cannon fodder for Maginty.

 I said no trainers

 

 

Ennis has done alot on the subject of the IRA and this is another story of the futility of their existence, he has done other stories such as The Magnificent Kev trilogy and Downtown where the Punisher ends up in Belfast, but this one is noticeable in the way the even the member of the IRA are tired of it and are reduced to just being in it for the money but at the same time know no other way of living, perhaps that makes them victims of their own stupidity. Yorkies conversation with Peter about how his cause is nothing but a selfish act and he is only causing suffereing to his country when all they want to do is get on with their lives is thought provoking. Its a great book end to these stories that are still having a very real impact on people living there today.

All in all Kitchen Irish delivers in every thing it sets out to do, so go on pick up a copy its a good craic.

 

In The Beginning

                                                   Story by Garth Ennis Art by Lewis Larosa and Tom Palmer


*contains major spoiler*

Since this series will be done chronologically the next in the series is In The Beginning, by far the best introduction book to any character you will ever read. From the very outset this book is gold, the use of the dark colours gels perfectly with Ennis’s even darker humour, the Punisher narrating to the reader his origin and intentions, in this case he decides to turn up at 100 year old mafia bosses birthday with an M60 and lay waste to the birthday guest who happen to be most of what’s left of the mafia in America. Unbeknownst to him he's being watched by the CIA who plans on using him as a weapon led by Frank’s old ally from the 90's comic Microchip. the mafia aren’t too happy that most of their people have been axed so they send their own team after him lead by Nicky Cavella (a major character in a future book) so frank turns up at the funeral of the people he's killed at the birthday party to finish the mafia off allowing microchip to follow him back to his hideout with his CIA team, including Kathryn O'Brien who is so screwed up she wants nothing more from poor frank than to tie him to a bed and kill him with sex.

 While microchip has Frank he tries to convince him that he should join. Of coarse Cavella finds out where the CIA are holding frank by cutting the balls off of one of the CIA agents and the two teams kill each other letting frank escape with microchip and killing one of Cavella’s men Pittsy in one of the most brutal ways you will ever seen in any comic (at least for most comics)

                                                                

Its one of those heart in mouth moments

 

 

 

My main reason for enjoying this book is when you strip away the gore and strong language, it fits in perfectly with the mainstream Punisher books from the marvel universe. I understand at that time there hadn’t been a punisher book for a while and if you didn’t realise what you were reading you would have pissed yourself at the contents.

Half the panels in this book contain shots of people with their brains hanging out and smiling, like they haven’t even realised they've died all the while you have their friends surrounding them watching it, contorted in fear and shock at what they’re watching realising that they’re probably next, it makes you wonder what it must be like to try and force yourself to fight against an enemy you know will kill you, it’s only yourself preservation that tells you to carry on and shoot back, you never think of this when you play a first person shooter or watch an action movie they are just faceless targets that deserve to die with no second thoughts. And this is just in the first few pages.
    
Another notable scene is the conversation between Microchip and Castle. Its set in a darkened room giving a claustrophobic intense feel to it, every single panel a close up of each characters face, I would say it’s a battle of wits but from the start Castle is a man of stone unwilling to move in his conviction of his mission giving no quarter to Microchip. The pinnacle of this scene is Frank telling micro the story of a neighbour who came to visit frank after he lost his wife and kids to give his condolences in the process revealing he left his own wife and family for another woman causing Frank to almost beat the man to death saying he deserved to be punished. This moment more than probably anything else is where the Punisher is born you can see him snapping and whatever’s left of his humanity goes from colour to black and white. It would have been a very delicate time for him when he would have still been trying to figure out what your going to do next, like most people that have ever lost someone and to see someone throw all that away. The blinding fury that would over take you would come out of your system eventually, in the Punisher's case he uses this as the beginning of his philosophy.

                                                                        

                                                      Punishment Due



I have to end this on the Pittsy as he's well fucking nuts to put it politely. Inspired by Joe Pesci and Paulie from the sopranos he's one of those characters who lights up the book every time you see him because he's doing something brutally insane, be it trying to smash a pool cue over a woman’s head who accidentally pokes him with her cue or cutting the balls off of one of his victims in fact in his first scene he actually says fuck ten times in one page in a great scene when he's ordering seafood. The fight scene between him and castle is more like a horror movie than any fight actually set in reality, no matter how many times frank puts him down he gets right back up and goes at him like a pit-bull from hell.

All in all a great book that delivers on every level as a comic book fan and a punisher fan and if you don’t like it, in the words of Pittsy "You, shut the fuck up"

Born

  

                                                    Written by Garth Ennis
                                                    Art by Darick Robertson



  *polite notice! this review contains major spoilers


I'll start off by doing Punisher Born or Punisher Zero to give it its unofficial title. Set in Vietnam it sets out to show you what made the Punisher the unstoppable killing machine he is today as well as show the atrocities of war.If you've seen any great Vietnam movie you'll feel right at home in this book, the art is beautifully grim and you can easily imagine Martin Sheen from Apocalypse now or Private Joker in Franks squad and it’s no coincidence that Born follows inner dialogue of Steve Goodwin the other protagonist he does the typical thing of being the readers eyes in this he has hopes and dreams and horror at his surroundings he thinks if that the Punisher is the best shot at surviving his tour even though he is horrified by Castles actions, one example is Frank murders a rapist who's in his squad instead of reporting it he keeps quiet because he knows he has to sacrifice some of his own morality to survive.

 Castle is on his third tour, by this point by the time he gets to Valley Forge he has all the skills he needs for his mission. As expected he's in his element can turn any base round and although he isn't running the base he's in the background making sure things work so his soldiers can fight. In the beginning  he ensures none of his troops die, of coarse by the end like any great horror movie they all die one by one but at least it fun watching.

This personally is my least favourite Punisher book as it tries to imply that Frank has made a deal with the devil to sacrifice his family so he can keep killing and for a character and book series that so grounded in reality it’s like a spit in the face to the fans, yeah the whole premise that one guy can spend years on the run, with the authorities not stopping him and who seems to suck up bullet wounds is a bit far fetched but the Garth Ennis's writing is so good you naturally just believe in the character. Born is the exception to this.

  It was at this point Frank got sick of the 'your momma so fat' game

This story isn’t what they advertised, they seemed to imply that you would get to see the Punisher slowly turn into the man who goes on to mass murder his way through the criminal underworld if anything by the time you see him in this he's even more insane,for example you see him murdering people for bad decision making, there is almost no conscience in him only his black and white philosophy which is a bit of a shock when you read the later books in the series, but at least those actions could be justified as they are mostly forgivable either through self preservation or the people he kills are truly evil not just stupid.

By the end you are no closer to understanding why he is the way he is than you are before you started reading, if you want that deeper understanding of the character your better off reading The Tyger (which I'll cover later) where you see him as a kid, that's not say its a bad war story it's great at showing the insanity of war and how it doesn't take much for a man to turn into an animal, the feeling you get is Frank is already at that point before he was even in the army.

 

 

 

                                                       Punishers wife and kids
                   

If I'm honest I would have given this book a miss if it didn't have tie in with some of the other books in the series, just start with the far superior In The Beginning then by the end if your interested go back and read it, you wont be missing anything.