True Punishment is Living With the Pain.

"PunisherMax" #12 from MAX Comics (an imprint of Marvel Comics)

Ever found it hard caring about Frank Castle? Mr. Punishment? Or maybe you've never heard of the Marvel Comics superhero The Punisher: Vietnam veteran watches his entire family shot to death for accidentally witnessing a mafia assassination, Castle vows vengeance and becomes a Batman-like avenging demon of a man. The difference between Bruce Wayne and Frank Castle is that Wayne refuses to murder people under any circumstances and Castle has no such reservations. For better or for worse.

The title for the new story-arc that started in this issue of "PunisherMAX" is simply "Frank" and writer Jason Aaron is presenting a somewhat different version of the character here. The Punisher's origins have been covered pretty extensively by Garth Ennis, the man who revitalized the character about a decade ago in the mini-series "Punisher: Born". But Ennis' "Born" was the story of Castle's time 'in-country' and very little work has been done, to this writer's knowledge, with the period between returning from Southeast Asia and his destined vows to death and violence. We get to see a bit of it in smart flashbacks and hear Frank Castle describe it in his own words in this issue.

Aaron's (@jasonaaron) writing is razor sharp, Steve Dillon's art does its usual job of making hollowed-eyed faces communicate so much sadness, and Matt Hollingsworth's (@MDHollingsworth) colors really bring strong overtones to the scenes both in the present and in the past, with divergent 'cool' and 'warm' tones to differentiate them.

This story opens soon after the events of the last issue in which the Marvel MAX universe version of the villain Bullseye has just completely destroyed the Punisher. Broken his limbs and bruised his body, shattered his spirit, and got him arrested. Somehow Bullseye brought the memories of the family he lost pouring back into Frank's mind. And that's the real torture:

"The pain of death is hollow. After all, dying you only gotta do once. ... But the pain of living just goes on and on. ... It's the living that scares me. Always has been."

Holy crap. Intense and disturbing. War turned Frank into a monster hiding just below the surface, waiting for an excuse.

All this is revealed and laid out for us while Frank lays barely alive in a prison hospital ward, awaiting the gangs of cons who's friends he's killed to come in the night. When they do... man I don't want to spoil that moment. Too good. I rarely do this, but you should read it for yourself. Gasp-worthy and hilarious.

I was truly blown away by this material and I'm making a safe bet that you will be too. The entire issue is a tight machine of a character analysis. If you're a Punisher fan, if you're an Aaron fan, or simply if you can stomach some serious violence and seriously disturbing concepts related to trauma and war you must do yourself the favor of looking for the twelfth issue of "PunisherMAX".

~ @JonGorga

Oh and P.S.? The cover by Dave Johnson brilliantly turns the symbol of the Punisher, the elongated skull, into the key that locks him in...

Punished.

Twice in the month of November, Marvel revamped the Punisher. Twice.

Now, that sounds absurd- and it is (although, you could see it happening, the way things turn around at the Big Two), but when you realize that it was in two totally different books with two totally different continuities, well, then I suppose it makes a little more sense.

What's so interesting about these books (Punishermax #1 and Punisher #11) is that they take the character in such totally different directions- stylistically, thematically, artistically, etc. The first is a revamp of Marvel's long-running Punisher ongoing published through their adult MAX imprint, starting with a new number one. Having never followed the book before, I can't tell you what has changed besides the title, but I can tell you there's a damn good reason its published under the MAX banner. This book is violent as all hell, which I suppose plays to Steve Dillon's strengths, but there you go.

Dillon's art is, I think, a good place to start: has there ever been a more perfect artist to draw the Punisher? It's been said that his art is a little too goofy for this incredibly serious sort of book, but I wonder if that may be the point- you take this absurd level of violence (and, just think about this for a second, at one point in this issue Wilson Fisk pops a guys eyeballs out by squeezing the dude's head) and you combine with this grim n' gritty anti-hero and you can either take yourself too seriously and end up doing a bad Garth Ennis impersonation (which, I imagine, is why no one has done particularly well with the character in the last few years) or you can make it seem just as ridiculous as it is- not playfully ridiculous, mind you, just flat out ridiculous. Dillon's art walks this line perfectly, I think- it's just absurd enough to make the reader knows that it's absurd, but realistic enough that I actually cringed about a dozen times throughout the course of the issue. This makes sense, since the only other book that did that to me on a regular basis was, well, Preacher.

Jason Aaron, too, seems to be just the right guy for this character. He seems to get what makes him compelling and what makes him dangerous, and he gets the moral ambiguity that this book should have just right- the Punisher, ostensibly the good guy, is out for revenge- killing, murdering, torturing, doing not good things to not good people. Wilson Fisk, soon to be a paper Kingpin and nominally a bad guy, doing what he does so that he can make a life for his wife and son. Aaron's a smart guy, and he's writing a smart book- again, which is just what this book needs to be. Otherwise, the violence would go from senseless to gratutiously so, and what is a fantastic book would cease to hold any interest for me.

Rick Remender's revamp, on the other hand, is pretty much just silly (something that Jon predicated way back when). The plot goes something like this- bug eyed yellow guys save the remnants of Frank Castle from H.A.M.M.E.R, Man-Thing beats up on some Osborn cronies, Morbius puts the Punisher back together, Punisher throws a series of tantrums.

OK, it's more complicated than that, but where Jason Aaron impressed me with nuance and grace, Remender reveals that he has no concepts of the terms.

Which isn't to say that the book is bad- it's not. In fact, it's actually a lot of fun. It's not a high-concept story, and it knows it's not high-concept. I get the distinct feeling that someone said to someone else, "wouldn't it be cool if we took the Punisher and turned him into Frankenstein?" and that the idea just snowballed from there. It also happens that it's kind of like candy- nice, but sugary sweet and when it's gone, it's gone.

That the art is so unabashadly goofy doesn't help either. I think Marvel may have overcompensated here a little bit- I mean, really this art is often just silly. Frank Castle's Frankenexpressions are good for a laugh, but even those just help enforce the seemingly throw away nature of the story. Clearly, there's something at stake for the monsters who bring Castle back to life, but there's not really anything at stake for me.

Still, if you're looking for some fun with a bizarre idea, Punisher #11 should be right up your alley. If you're looking for really good comics, though? Check out Punishermax #1- you can't go wrong.