Punisher MAX #75 – review

Punisher MAX is like an old friend you don’t like anymore.  You keep investing in the relationship, but the magic is gone, and remembering all of the great times you used to have only makes the situation that much more awkward.  After three story arcs that spit and flailed against encroaching mediocrity, the series is being capped off with this double-sized 75^th issue and rebooted with Punisher MAX #1 in November.  I spent over 5 damn dollars on this and was only reminded of how great this comic USED to be.  The only hope derived from this schlock is the preview of the rebooted series featuring Marvel Knights Punisher alum Steve Dillon, and fresh writer Jason Aaron, who has been getting a lot of support from fans of the series.  The only short story in the set of five that amounts to anything is “Father’s Day,” by veteran Punisher MAX artist Goran Parlov and writer Peter Milligan.  Everything else borders, and often crosses the line into, awfulness, whether by slipshod writing, bad art, or very often both. 

The first story is “Dolls,” by novelist Tom Piccirilli and artist Laurence Campbell, returning from a few MAX specials and the “Girls in White Dresses” arc.  Campbell has a gritty style that suited the series, but that lack of detail led to confusion (is that Jigsaw or the Punisher; just who is fighting whom?) in the White Dresses issues.  He has cleaned up his line work a lot for this issue, and his trademark ominous framing comes into good use.  The story is pure fluff, though, and I couldn’t help but notice that a rifle had a silencer sound effect, but no silencer was drawn onto the weapon.  This is important, because the Punisher props his rifle on an innocent father’s shoulder to steady his aim, and would have made the poor man completely deaf for the sake of justice.  The story’s lesson of never letting your children out of sight is tacked on.  Campbell gets kudos for ominous, well-thought-out staging and panel layout, considering the painfully bad script he is working from.

Next up, “Gateway” by Greg Hurwitz (misspelled in the credits page), who wrote the aforementioned White Dresses arc, serves up a warmed-over Punisher excerpt, but the atrocious art by Das Pastoras, who recently helmed the Wolverine: Switchback one-shot, was worse.  The art is jarringly awkward, 70s mustaches applied willy-nilly to subway passengers, Robert Crumb style facial expressions, and a disturbing similarity between the Punisher and the assassin who kills his family.  The story is very chronologically creaky as well, even a cameo by Yorkie Mitchell failing to yield any dividends.  Yorkie debriefs Frank on the crime while Frank is obviously unconscious in the hospital.  Apparently Frank gets out of the hospital and recovers from his multiple bullet wounds quickly, because he sits at his table observing the remains of an unfinished family breakfast, from the day of the shooting.  No moldy toast here, though, just revenge by shotgun, awkward anatomy, and some extreme (somewhat impressive) perspective work to compensate.    

Third, and the worst of the bunch, is “Ghoul,” by veteran Punisher writer Duane Swierczynski, and Laurence Campbell stand-in Tomm Coker.  This is the worst of the bunch because it violates even the Punisher’s deathly code of ethics.  Sure, the Punisher might be pissed you’re selling memorabilia from his family’s massacre.  However, the Punisher wouldn’t cut your frakkin’ finger off with garden sheers for the offense, and certainly not if you were a former policeman.  Swierczynski wrote the best of the post-Ennis MAX arcs, “Six Hours to Kill.”  It had no resolution, but it was a good read, and showed a real understanding of the character.  This story tears down the known values of the character, and turns him into a creepy psychopath, who de-fingers a Commissioner Gordon look-alike.  This one definitely leaves a bad taste.

“Father’s Day” is the clear winner of the pack, written by Peter Milligan and drawn by heavy hitter Goran Parlov.  Parlov’s talent was wasted on the “Welcome to the Bayou” arc, which started off strong, but then threw the story away on unbelievably bad dreck.  You could almost see Parlov’s disdain for the script in his sloppy pencils on that one, but he’s back to form for this short.  “Father’s Day” is really a capstone look back at the Ennis glory days of Punisher MAX.  Some reviews claimed the art is recycled, but it is new, looking at classic climaxes in a different angle.  The writing works because it is so spare, and the juxtaposition of his daughter’s musings and his acts of violence works.  This is a great reflective look into the psyche of the character, and shows what this whole issue should have been:  a look back at a great series as the main character walks perpetually into the inky black abyss. 

“Smallest Bits” is written by Charlie Huston and drawn by Ken Lashley.  It is shockingly bad, both in the text and the art.  The story could best be described as the lyrics to a Disturbed song put in the B-sides bin.  The art commits some of the worst sins of mid-90s Image comics (*cough* Rob Liefeld *cough*).  The drawings feel rushed and schizophrenic, the character models inconsistent.  Only read this if interested in Punisher motivational lines, which you could use while lifting weights maybe, or cleaning your gun collection, or perhaps just planning revenge in general.  Not the worst offender, but damn near it.  

What an awful way to send out a once-great comic book.  Garth Ennis had something to say, a theme if you will, in his 60-issue run.  This was a book that took risks, even for the MAX imprint.  Give me the days when Leandro Fernandez was doing incredible panel work, when Tim Bradstreet drew every cover in lush detail, and Goran Parlov captured the violence with simple cartoon realism.   Give me the comic that dared to have the Punisher assassinate Afghan warlords from an Islamic prayer minaret, and point out their sexual abuse of young girls.  Ennis was focused on the military industrial complex, the machine that created Frank Castle, and the consistent parallel lines and lies between Vietnam and Iraq.  Ennis stripped away the moral pastiche from Frank Castle, and explored his psychotic and delusional mind in an honest way, not turning him into some apple-pie American hero as Marvel tried to do for so long.  In the last of the Ennis issues, Castle punishes those who he feels are most directly guilty for mountains of suffering in the world, by killing eight head generals of the armed forces.  That is a climax, resolution, and catharsis rolled in one.  This issue is the opposite of that. 

That said, the rebooted series starts next month, and the sample offered here seems to be on the right track.  The series can use a steady writer, and the theme is shifting from military geo-politics to the criminal underworld.  Bringing in the Kingpin and Bullseye can work for this new series, and Dillon has upped his art for the more adult setting.  Anyhow, they can’t do worse than the lame-ass shit they’ve been putting out lately.