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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To be enjoyed with a completely clear conscience, December 25, 2004
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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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Punisher comic out there--heck, THE best comic out there, December 7, 2005
The team of mad genious writer, Garth Ennis(Preacher Hellblazer), and Ennis's partner in crime, artist Steve Dillon(Preacher) have created yet another masterpeice. What a great way to bring the Punisher title back to the top! This hardcover graphic novel collects the Marvel Knights 12-issue Maxi series and the out of print Punisher kills the Marvel Universe, also by Garth Ennis.
First of all, let's talk about the story, Frank Castle aka the Punisher have been gone awhile and the criminal scum needs a wake-up call, and here it comes. Frank's first target is the mob boss Ma Gnucci. But to get to her, the Punisher needs to thin out her army of thugs first. As Frank slices through the Gnucci family like a knife through butter, Ma Gnucci starts to panic and even got the NYPD to help her bring down the Punisher. So who gets the impossible job of bringing the Punisher down? Detective Martin Soap, the unluckiest cop in the department. Soap teams up with another loser cop who have been given the job of bringing down Ma Gnucci and they hope to hit two birds with one stone. Also, three copy-cat vigilates, apparently following in the Punisher's footsteps gets onto Franks hitlist, as he will deal with them at the end of the book. As more and more of her soldiers get murdered by the Punisher, Ma Gnucci sends the only man who can take on the Punisher, the goofy yet deadly, the Russian. The fight scene between the Punisher and the Russian is one of the best fights scenes ever, and definitely the funniest. A trademark of Garth Ennis is a funny and sometimes bizzare(especially on Preacher)plot and interesting characters, and he doesn't dissappoint me here. The supporting cast includes Frank's neighbors, Mr. Bumpo, Spacker Dave, and Joan. Mr. Bumpo likes to eat, but he's not too fat, well he's... oh I dunno.....600 pounds?! And Spacker Dave is a teenage fratboy type character with an assortment of various peircings on his face and seems to spend all of his time on the front porch of the apartment building. Joan is a shy, lonely girl who seems like she might kinda have a crush on ol' Frankie, she's pretty but not too showy, her hair is a little above her shoulders, and she doesn't where any make-up. And the three copy-cat vigilantes I talked about earlier, one is a Catholic priest who calls hilself the Holy, and when people came to cofess about their sins like killing and dealing drugs, he was enraged and started killin them with an axe. The second one is called Mr. Payback, a man with an arsenal of guns targeting the rich bissiness leaders to payback for their corporate crimes. And the last one calls himself Elite, he kills the drug dealers, and killers, and even some guy sellin hotdogs, as long as they were doing it in his neighborhood, he kills them. The usual violence, blood, and humor from Ennis, a great read.
Now let's not forget the superb artwork by artist Steve Dillon, Ennis's partner from Preacher(also a great comic book, much more violent and bizzare than this though). I'd like to point out Dillon's amazing ability to draw detailed faces and depict facial expression. He does a great job here also in depicting the graphic violence. Dillon draws the best Punisher in my opinion.
"Punisher kills the Marvel Universe" is a what-if story written by Garth Ennis, this story does not happen in the Marvel Universe. What if it wasn't mobsters that killed Frank's family, what if it was superhumans like the X-men or Avengers? Well Garth Ennis answers that in this what-if story, as Frank takes on the entire Marvel Universe, all mutants, whether villian or hero. It's a good story, but a short one and is not penciled by Steve Dillon. The art by the artist who pencilled "PKMU" was so-so, but I'd rather Steve Dillon pencil it. "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe" is only collected in the hardcover version of this book, not in the paperback version, the paperback only has the 12-issue Maxi series, "Welcome Back, Frank", which to me is enough, but "PKMU" is a nice bonus.
This is a great read, violent, bloody, funny, and a great supporting cast, what more can a reader ask for? Whether you're an Ennis fan, Dillon fan, Punisher fan, or just a reader looking for a great comic to read, this is the book you want, I enjoyed it alot, and I'm sure you will too. And, I'd like to thank Ennis and Dillon for bringing back the Punisher, and I'd also like to say, welcome back Frank.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top writer brings Punisher back from the dead!, September 5, 2001
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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