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Post by fanboystranger on May 21, 2014 10:01:42 GMT -5
As I mentioned earler in the thread, I'm not the biggest Punisher fan, but I have to admit I get a perverse thrill out of the best of his stories because his view of the world and its social ills is so different from mine. Ultimately, any Punisher story is just cutting the Gordian Knot, the simplest solution to the complex social problems can create crime. Ennis' MAX run worked for me because the people he set Frank against were utterly irredeemable (for the most part), so that simplistic solution worked as a catharsis for everyday atrocity. Mike Baron, while not as extreme, got that, too-- his Punisher stories were mostly thoughtful and philosphically engaging as well as entertaining. Setting aside that Frank is an outlaw and a murderer, I think Jack Bauer is a good comparison. Jack cuts through the bureaucratic apparatus (and ineptness) that hampers his effectiveness in order to get his job done. (Not this season as he's still on the run.) There's a certain release in characters that can cut through the bonds that hold society together in order to effect a solution. It actually helps hold those bonds together, people willing to live vicariously throught their fiction. But I also don't think there's a lot of good Punisher stories because too many want to have their cake and eat it, too. Especially in the '90s, where Frank had gel bullets and the like to make him seem more heroic. At best, he is the lesser of two evils. |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 21, 2014 13:43:54 GMT -5
In the case of scum like this those things just get in the way. So since Castle tortures people, victimizes them, is a mass murderer, uses stolen property for his personal agenda, has likely funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into terrorist accounts buying armaments on the black market, and generally breaks the law all the time simply because he can, does he qualify as "scum" who should be put down by someone who has he power to do so? Good for the goose good for the gander kind of thing.... -M Frank buys what he can through legal channels (funded, of course, by busting money launderers and drug deals), he has military contacts to help him out ("Drag a gunshot man aboard a Huey and thirty years later he won't give a **** what the media calls you") and he pilfers the rest from his prey. He breaks the law but so what? The law is irrelevant. Breaking the law doesn't make you a bad person, obeying the law doesn't make you a good person. Frank breaks the law to do the right thing, he kills the people that have to die. |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 21, 2014 14:11:34 GMT -5
Have they ever done a storyline where Frank accidently killed an innocent person? Maybe the young child of a gangster? Or a bystander, someone who had nothing to do with the perp he was targeting? Or maybe he got some wrong information from one of his informants and he tortured and killed the wrong guy.
That would be an interesting story.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 21, 2014 14:20:53 GMT -5
Have they ever done a storyline where Frank accidently killed an innocent person? Maybe the young child of a gangster? Or a bystander, someone who had nothing to do with the perp he was targeting? Or maybe he got some wrong information from one of his informants and he tortured and killed the wrong guy. That would be an interesting story. In a non-Ennis MAX story he accidentally killed a child. He was going to kill himself but realized it could have been a ploy to make him do so. He checked it out and found the girl was killed with a.22 caliber round instead of his usual .45s, proving his innocence. My biggest problem with the War Zone movie is that Frank kills an undercover officer and doesn't commit suicide. The only way the character works is if he is hyper-competent enough to not make that mistake (in Welcome Back Frank he kills an imitator because his collateral damage killed someone; since Frank's own family was killed in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out he takes that pretty seriously) and if he does make that mistake he is commited enough to his mission that he will Punish himself. |
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Post by foxley on May 21, 2014 16:36:46 GMT -5
Have they ever done a storyline where Frank accidently killed an innocent person? Maybe the young child of a gangster? Or a bystander, someone who had nothing to do with the perp he was targeting? Or maybe he got some wrong information from one of his informants and he tortured and killed the wrong guy. That would be an interesting story. In a non-Ennis MAX story he accidentally killed a child. He was going to kill himself but realized it could have been a ploy to make him do so. He checked it out and found the girl was killed with a.22 caliber round instead of his usual .45s, proving his innocence. My biggest problem with the War Zone movie is that Frank kills an undercover officer and doesn't commit suicide. The only way the character works is if he is hyper-competent enough to not make that mistake (in Welcome Back Frank he kills an imitator because his collateral damage killed someone; since Frank's own family was killed in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out he takes that pretty seriously) and if he does make that mistake he is commited enough to his mission that he will Punish himself. I think that is one of the things that bugs me about the Punisher (although this thread is helping to crystalise why the character does not appeal to me). Given the sheer amount of shots he throws around, often in crowded urban environments, it beggars belief that a stray round has never collected an innocent bystander. This exaggerates his hyper-competence to the point of infallibility. Surely this removes some of the tension surrounding the character? Similar to the way that writers gradually expanded Wolverine's healing factor so that no wound could ever be considered a threat to him, no matter how serious it was. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 21, 2014 16:56:08 GMT -5
In a non-Ennis MAX story he accidentally killed a child. He was going to kill himself but realized it could have been a ploy to make him do so. He checked it out and found the girl was killed with a.22 caliber round instead of his usual .45s, proving his innocence. My biggest problem with the War Zone movie is that Frank kills an undercover officer and doesn't commit suicide. The only way the character works is if he is hyper-competent enough to not make that mistake (in Welcome Back Frank he kills an imitator because his collateral damage killed someone; since Frank's own family was killed in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out he takes that pretty seriously) and if he does make that mistake he is commited enough to his mission that he will Punish himself. I think that is one of the things that bugs me about the Punisher (although this thread is helping to crystalise why the character does not appeal to me). Given the sheer amount of shots he throws around, often in crowded urban environments, it beggars belief that a stray round has never collected an innocent bystander. This exaggerates his hyper-competence to the point of infallibility. Surely this removes some of the tension surrounding the character? Similar to the way that writers gradually expanded Wolverine's healing factor so that no wound could ever be considered a threat to him, no matter how serious it was. And yet you're willing to accept the belief of no casualties in the superhero smackdowns you read? No human suffering from Hulk rampages,Superman crashing into buildings and nobody doing the dirtnap? What books are you reading where its realistically obvious innocents never get hurt? |
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Post by foxley on May 21, 2014 17:08:41 GMT -5
There are stories where this happens (I can think of Batman stories where someone has died due to a stray shot fired by a villain during a fight with Batman).
But, to answer your question, yes I am willing to accept this as a genre convention of the superhero story.
However, people have been praising the Punisher for his 'realism' and saying how he works best when isolated from the 'superhero silliness' and is all gritty and realistic.
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Post by fanboystranger on May 21, 2014 17:22:08 GMT -5
I don't consider the Punisher even remotely realistic. He doesn't work well around superheroes because, quite frankly, most superheroes should be able to take him down easily. The only superheroes he works well in justaposition with are Daredevil and Spider-Man, and that's because he's an uneasy ally at best.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 21, 2014 17:35:51 GMT -5
There are stories where this happens (I can think of Batman stories where someone has died due to a stray shot fired by a villain during a fight with Batman). But, to answer your question, yes I am willing to accept this as a genre convention of the superhero story. However, people have been praising the Punisher for his 'realism' and saying how he works best when isolated from the 'superhero silliness' and is all gritty and realistic. We all know that "realistic" in fiction just means "less ridiculous than the rest." Even at his most realistic the Punisher is hugely impossible. But relative to other comic books, particularly action comic books from Marvel and DC, he skews realistic (at least in the MAX version). The writers who write the character well make sure to emphasize that he minimizes risk of collateral damage through careful planning. For instance, in Punisher MAX #1 he assaults a mafia birthday party. He knows he just can't walk in and start shooting wildly or he'll hit the innocent family members. So he walks in, kills the boss and walks out, luring the men into the yard where he can gun them down with an M60. In the beginning of the next issue he shows up at the funeral, finds the group of men talking about the future of the family and takes them out with an RPG. Very rarely in the series does he actually walk out into a street and open up a blaze of gunfire. In The Slavers he spends a fair bit of time actually trying to figure out how he should operate, since he not only has to locate the brothel but has to operate without harming the girls inside. His solution was to drug their dinner, break in when everyone was unconscious and execute the crooks while sending the girls to a shelter. When he does fight in the open streets it's usually someone attacking him. There are only three times in the series where he deviates from his rules. The first is in Mother Russia, where Nick Fury enlists him to do an extraction in Russia and he initiates a brutal bar fight and kills a civilian, also killing hordes of soldiers later on. The second is in Up Is Down, Black Is White, where the exhumation and desecration of his family's remains send him straight into mania and he almost opens fire on a crowded restaurant. The second is in Barracuda, where he bombs a boat to take up some corrupt executives but Ennis never accounts for the fact that there is a press conference being held on the boa |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2014 19:02:05 GMT -5
However, people have been praising the Punisher for his 'realism' and saying how he works best when isolated from the 'superhero silliness' and is all gritty and realistic. There is that realistic edge....here Frank gets the lowdown from his doc...  In spite of sometimes being strapped like a mofo with a M16A2, a M203 grenade launcher, M1911A1, a Colt .45 pistol w/ laser sight, survival knife, a class IV kevlar vest which can stop rifle & armor piercing rounds via ceramic plate and 4 frag grenades...Frank is just your average old man with health issues. |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 22, 2014 1:56:35 GMT -5
Aaron's run also has Kingpin notice that Frank wasn't as thorough in his investigation and is starting to lose his edge, even before the beating that makes Frank see the doctor. A far cry from Ennis' near-invulnerably (which may or may not be supernaturally enhanced).
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Post by foxley on May 22, 2014 2:25:29 GMT -5
There are stories where this happens (I can think of Batman stories where someone has died due to a stray shot fired by a villain during a fight with Batman). But, to answer your question, yes I am willing to accept this as a genre convention of the superhero story. However, people have been praising the Punisher for his 'realism' and saying how he works best when isolated from the 'superhero silliness' and is all gritty and realistic. We all know that "realistic" in fiction just means "less ridiculous than the rest." Even at his most realistic the Punisher is hugely impossible. But relative to other comic books, particularly action comic books from Marvel and DC, he skews realistic (at least in the MAX version). The writers who write the character well make sure to emphasize that he minimizes risk of collateral damage through careful planning. For instance, in Punisher MAX #1 he assaults a mafia birthday party. He knows he just can't walk in and start shooting wildly or he'll hit the innocent family members. So he walks in, kills the boss and walks out, luring the men into the yard where he can gun them down with an M60. In the beginning of the next issue he shows up at the funeral, finds the group of men talking about the future of the family and takes them out with an RPG. Very rarely in the series does he actually walk out into a street and open up a blaze of gunfire. In The Slavers he spends a fair bit of time actually trying to figure out how he should operate, since he not only has to locate the brothel but has to operate without harming the girls inside. His solution was to drug their dinner, break in when everyone was unconscious and execute the crooks while sending the girls to a shelter. When he does fight in the open streets it's usually someone attacking him. There are only three times in the series where he deviates from his rules. The first is in Mother Russia, where Nick Fury enlists him to do an extraction in Russia and he initiates a brutal bar fight and kills a civilian, also killing hordes of soldiers later on. The second is in Up Is Down, Black Is White, where the exhumation and desecration of his family's remains send him straight into mania and he almost opens fire on a crowded restaurant. The second is in Barracuda, where he bombs a boat to take up some corrupt executives but Ennis never accounts for the fact that there is a press conference being held on the boa Thanks for that. It makes things a bit clearer. I am most used to the Punisher series of the late 80s/early 90s, and his guest appearances in other Marvel books, where 'kick in the door and open up with a fully automatic weapon' was standard operating procedure. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on May 22, 2014 6:46:43 GMT -5
I understand the feeling that the Punisher would work better in his own universe, but that's been done many times (see any Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie from the 70's)and I've always like the idea that the Punisher is the "black sheep" of the superhero family. I'd be fascinated to read Steve Ditko's opinion of the character. I'm assuming he'd consider him a villain.
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Post by foxley on May 22, 2014 8:11:25 GMT -5
I understand the feeling that the Punisher would work better in his own universe, but that's been done many times (see any Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie from the 70's)and I've always like the idea that the Punisher is the "black sheep" of the superhero family. I'd be fascinated to read Steve Ditko's opinion of the character. I'm assuming he'd consider him a villain. A hero surely. A moral absolutist who views the world in black-and-white and who believes that if you do wrong then you forfeit your right to live. That sounds like a perfect summation of Ditko "hero" to me. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2014 11:02:56 GMT -5
I understand the feeling that the Punisher would work better in his own universe, but that's been done many times (see any Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie from the 70's)and I've always like the idea that the Punisher is the "black sheep" of the superhero family. I'd be fascinated to read Steve Ditko's opinion of the character. I'm assuming he'd consider him a villain. Is Ditko the guy who refuses to give interviews? I'm wondering if I'd really consider his opinion relevant.... |
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