Blood, guts, guns and grit- that’s what you can expect in your average Punisher comic book from Marvel comics. However, under the company’s MAX imprint, Frank Castle just got a whole lot bloodier, gutsier and grittier, with more guns present than ever before.
Add in some foul language, suggestive sexual themes, the mafia and Irish terrorists and you have the first 12 issues of the Punisher MAX series, which is easily the best set of tales involving the character today. Written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Lewis LaRosa and Leandro Fernandez, with covers by Tim Broadstreet, this is the one collection every Punisher fan should own and every comic book fan should read.
Great action scenes are customary in every Punisher comic and all 12 issues in this hardcover collection are full of shootouts, explosions and death. However, not to be undervalued here are two excellent stories that show Frank Castle as more than a gun-crazy lunatic bent on revenge; they show him as a man that fights because he has nothing else to live for.
The way Ennis shows Castle to the reader is not very different from the way he has in other trades, such as ‘Welcome Back, Frank,†but the way the characters around him are showcased make this the most polished and deep Punisher story ever told. Unlike other tales in the Punisher universe, the characters here are more than just eventual corpses for Castle to consume. Instead, you have a cast of criminals, cops and innocent people that matter, making them viable and creating an emotional connection between them and the reader. While in the end, you know some of them are destined to a fate they can’t avoid, none die exactly the way you originally thought, proving that Castle is an old dog that still has a fair amount of tricks up his sleeves.
Powered by Ennis’ writing, these stories were already something special, but thanks to the artwork of LaRosa and Fernandez, this trade has it all. Depicting Castle as a bit older and worn out physically and emotionally, they go hand in hand with Ennis’ writing and make the tale a memorable one. With so much action and a nice variation in the size of the panels, the art flows marvelously and is descriptive as the stellar writing. While Broadstreet’s covers don’t look much like the comic, they are great-looking in their own right and are the cherry on top of what is testament to the ability of all four of the people majorly involved in this project.
All in all, while Marvel’s MAX imprint and the Punisher is obviously a match made in heaven, Ennis and the artistic team behind “Punisher MAX Vol. One†makes sure first 12 issues of the series set the bar as high as possible.
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