Back Issue Hunt: Punisher MAX by Garth Ennis

Back in 2004 the Punisher was relaunched (I think this is volume 6) after Garth Ennis' and (mostly) Steve Dillon succesful run. The new Punisher book was launched as a MAX book, a marvel imprint for "mature" audience. Garth Ennis used the liberty the imprint provided to write maybe the best run in the character.

The first thing you observe is the violence. We're talking about hardcore stuff, shown with details. The characters that mostly appear here have ties to the military, the secret services and the IRA in one story. The themes used are indeed mature, as they have much to do with the war on terror, sexual slavery, even corporate fraud, and let's not forget your "typical" mafiosi.

The whole run consists of 60 issues, three one shots ("The Cell", "The End", "The Tyger") and two minis ("Born", "Barracuda"). And it's worth it. When you start reading "Born", the mini series that explored Frank Castles adventures in Vietnam, you see the horror of the war, the unreasonable violence and a man in his fantasy lan

d, knowing that it will soon end. "Born" establishes in a way that Frank was kind of a loony before the incident with his family in Central Park, and is a great introduction to what will follow.

It's really hard to pick a favorite story cause it's one of those rare times that even the worst of the bunch is great. But if I had to pick one maybe I would say "The Slavers", a story about sexual slavery. It's maybe the most touching story of all, the one that makes you think about it

for quite some time. It's by the way maybe the most violent but as it is writen you feel very sympathetic about the Punisher and sometimes you may feel that you would do the same.

End of the line Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX is a war story, about a man traumatized by a war that should have never happened.

Unfortunatly all the other writers who tried to follow Ennis (an imposible task in this occasion) missed the point and just wrote the most violent stories they could. The book ends with issue #75 and has also produced an annual and 4 or 5 more one shots. They are not bad stories any way you see them but they are not even close to what Ennis was doing, he really understood the character.

I don't have words to describe how great this run is. If you are an art persn, you can see the talent of artists like Lewis Larosa, Leonardo Gernandez, Doug Braithwaite, Goran Parlov, Richard Corben and others. There were several people that didn't like this cause it was too violent for their tastes, and some others who didn't want to face some hard truths that the stories are dealing with, or didn't want to see govermant and army officials act in the worst ways possible. Their loss. I believe that those who read this blog will not have a problem with that. Enjoy.