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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To be enjoyed with a completely clear conscience, December 25, 2004
This review is from: The Punisher Vol. 1: Welcome Back, Frank (Paperback)
Welcome Back, Frank is an appropriate title for this edition. Garth Ennis restores The Punisher to his former greatness. No more spiritual redemption nonsense. No more hypnotic spells or amnesia to turn him into a madman. This epic depicts the essence of Frank Castle: an urban vigilante who kills evil men and women.
While Ennis does bring his black humour from DC's Hitman to The Punisher, he does not, however, use the heavy satirical kind of in-your-face dialogue found in Preacher. Ennis wastes no time with the reintroduction of The Punisher in this trade paperback. In a sadistic but basic fashion, Frank Castle sends the message throughout the criminal world that he is back and playing for keeps. Enough to even make the Sopranos and the Corleones tremble in their shoes!
To flesh out Frank Castle as a character would be a monumental waste of effort on behalf of the writer. The Punisher is one dimensional and that is all there is to him. Scripting him otherwise would transform him into a poor man's Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey (Death Wish). Instead, Ennis creates a supporting cast around The Punisher that consist of outcasts, losers and loners within his environment. He gets the reader to accept these social rejects' oddities and eccentricities since we have all come across a few of them in varying degrees. From Joan the mousy recluse, Detective Soap to The Elite, they all form part of an extension of Ennis' societal critiques and clever human insight.
However, the book is not about The Punisher integrating within his new neighbourhood or making new friends. This is a story where murder, mayhem and mutilation takes precedence over all. The fight scenes posses all the fast delivery of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill while the action contains the high octane intensity of a John Woo blockbuster film. Sporting against the likes of Ma Gnucci's mob as well as a psychotic Russian enforcer, Ennis' penchant for over-the-top violence makes for some memorable comic book moments. Castle makes them pay the price for dealing out human suffering that can only be described as Monty Python meets Snake Pliskin!
Handling the pencils is Ennis' long-time collaborator, Steve Dillon. Just as he does so perfectly well on Preacher, Dillon delivers visual that make dialogue and narration almost unnecessary. His clean, sturdy style and realistic renderings gives Ennis the leverage to use the characters' specific facial expressions to tell their story rather than clog up the panel with useless narration or word balloons a la Busiek to convey their state of mind.
Dillon effectively uses irregular panel designs that vary slightly in size that gives the script's momentum a cinematic flow. Credit also goes to inker Jimmy Palmiotti for making Dillon's art as stunning as it is. Palmiotti adds a depth to the pencils that once again reinforces his reputation as one of the best inkers in the industry.
The Punisher is a book to be enjoyed with a completely clear conscience. Excess violence, ironic humour and a slight dose of social commentary is what you will find with Welcome Back Frank.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Frank's Back and He's Coming to Getcha, July 2, 2001
This review is from: The Punisher Vol. 1: Welcome Back, Frank (Paperback)
...I have been an old Punisher, but I admit, not a big time fan. I knew his origins, his MO and what made the character tick. I had heard that he died and was then brought back to life when the Marvel Knights imprint first started. His comeback, however, was not just right. Angels? Divine guns coming out of his hands? I'd buy the guns from the hands bit, but actually having them be divine? This was not the character that made his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man 129 in February 1974. Though he still possessed the basic trait of the original, this Frank Castle lacked the attitude and drive of who he really was. It didn't take long for him to grab his bearings though. Helmed by the creative team of Garth Ennis (who really is a cleverly insane British fellow) and Steve Dillon (a solemn artist that has a calm way to his art), the Punisher came back in a very strong sense of the manner. The great TPB collects, the hard to find, amazingly best-selling mini series that takes the Punisher back to his roots and truly establishes him to the status that he has achieved throughout the years in the Marvel Universe. The TPB is a quick read of a grim story, that pits the Punisher against the Gnucci family headed by Ma Gnucci herself. The most appealing of the charcater of old was his weaponry. Chuck Dixon excelled in the use of real weapons and surveillance methods to knot things down. Garth is something else altogether. He just loves creating ways where Frank gets his way through the bad guys. These ways are so creatively horrid and unthinkable that they just leave you in awe and a little bit scared that a real person, in the form of Garth Ennis, that can think of such things is actually living among us. You actually admire Ennis's genius in that department. It was also commendable the way he tells us about the story and that the meaning of it is simply to entertain. Anyone who reads will definitely be entertained, no matter. Garth takes us through a wild ride and just never lets go. It takes us through a page of the Punisher's life after his comeback from death, but doesn't indulge us too much with an origins storyline. Ennis shows us how people surrounding the Punisher react to his character. From the positive to the negative and what Frank actually does in both presenting situatiions. The last page of the TPB actually made me go "Whoah!!" It's so unexpected. It's so unbelieveable. It's just so punishable. Now let's not forget the art. If the art was drawn by anyone else, I don't think the story would have been a success. I mean, house hold names like Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, or Marc Silvestri would have ruined the story if they had drawn the comic. What this story needed was the human touch, not a posey feel to it and Dillon is the right man for the job. His art is crisp and leaves you admiring it for a number of times. He really excels in creating facial expressions. Dillon works excellently with Ennis with scenes shift from one to another. Both the story and the art cannot be just left behind after one read, you're going to have come back to it again and again. A Punisher movie should be thought of by Hollywood. Two crazy yahoos like Ennis and Dillon can provide the story and storyboard to guarantee the capture the essence of the character and make for a successful flick just like the miniseries and TPB were.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top writer brings Punisher back from the dead!, September 4, 2001
This review is from: The Punisher Vol. 1: Welcome Back, Frank (Paperback)
For a while, 'The Punisher' was a character in Marvel comics that really hit rock bottom with fans. In the 80's, the character had gained prominance with it's harsh, violent gun-toting look at vigilantism, but in the late 90's things weren't so good. Bounced from one boring, out-dated story to the next, Punisher was wasted. That was until Marvel decided to reboot the series and allow the awesome team of writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon to helm a 12 issue mini-series. The two had worked on amazing titles like Hitman and the acclaimed Preacher series, and just as Marvel had hoped, brought the same magic to the pages of 'The Punisher'. Collected in this trade paperback, this 12 issue story is a fun, exciting story that reminds fans why they so enjoyed the original Punisher stories to begin with.
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