Don’t be fooled by Punisher: Naked Kill, which poses as a humorous take on the Punisher MAX ethos, but is in fact an indictment of its readers. One review I read of this issue dismisses it as “third-rate…Garth Ennis” and “nothing but cheap violence.” This reaction dismisses the bitter pill hidden in the silly violence. Indeed, at first blush, the writer seems to be jamming a classic Ennis six story arc tightly into one issue, but he is actually accusing the genre. Jonathan Mayberry is new to this title, but his sense of irony and intelligent subtext within subtext character work make him the most competent writer picking up Garth’s reigns. This series has suffered greatly since his departure, and this issue serves as a retrospective and commentary on the glory days of Punisher MAX.
Laurence Campbell takes on the art for this issue, and he has gotten a lot better since his tepid work on the Punisher MAX arc Girl in White Dresses. Campbell has a much better handle on expression and action, and his gritty style is well suited for the character. Most notably Tim Bradstreet delivers another cover for the series after leaving the series with Ennis. The cover is good, but I suspect it was an extra cover from the Valley Forge, Valley Forge arc, since Castle is holding weapons identical to the issue #57 cover, the only difference the absence of a gas mask. Still, Bradstreet remains one of my favorite comic artists of all time, and even recycled material is still very welcome, as is his return to this character.
Naked Kill is about pornography, torture porn to be exact, and the eastern Slavic girls (shades of the fan favorite arc Slavers) brought in to be killed by Eleventhree, referring to his un-aroused length and girth. In the opening scene, Frank Castle tears through a group of men watching the latest video with double Uzi’s, and says that men watching girls being abused makes him “embarrassed to have a dick.” When one of the survivors tries to barter with Castle for information he comments that he’s not “here to swap Pokemon cards.” This dialogue is great, in the vein of what this series used to be.
More importantly, this opening scene setter is all about the confluence of pornography and violence. The survivor who strikes a deal, loser janitor Dirtbox, represents the reader in clear terms. The uneven partnership is all an effort to get the Punisher onto the set of the latest torture porn video, in the ridiculously fortified Daedalus tower (a Greek term referring to moving pictures according to Wikipedia, good touch I suppose). The tower is unbelievable, like the situation, but is a quick plot device to strip Frank of his weapons, place impossible odds in front of him, and give a reason to show Castle’s full body cavity search (of questionable comedic value, worth a chuckle to me at least).
The story is irrelevant as you might expect, more serving to demonstrate Castle’s killing ingenuity, dispatching the guards with office supplies. Of course he finds a convenient armory, giving him guns blazing action for the last act. The ending doesn’t so much push suspension of disbelief as to act as if believability wasn’t even a consideration. This is a story about the Punisher’s fierce protection of the innocent, particularly women. This is also a story about the Punisher’s brutal-to-a-fault violence. Most importantly though, this is a story about the violence displayed as a form of pornography.
Dirtbox, admitted sociopath, loves pornography, and also loves watching the Punisher kill his victims, egging him on and congratulating him at every murder, each one more brutal than the last. Dirtbox says “you are the ass-kicking, eye-popping, ball-breaking, back-snappin’ Punisher.” He is us, the readers, greeting each violent act with eager enthusiasm. Mayberry sends the message that getting entertainment from human suffering, even if it is deserved, is mental masturbation, another form of voyeuristic perversion; in short, we, the readers are Dirtbox. Maybe he has a point. In any case, it’s authentic writing and an original critique on the Punisher. I really like Mayberry, he is unafraid to push boundaries.
