Tripwire Reviews Punisher: Welcome Back Frank

Being Frank

Tripwire’s contributing writer Laurence Boyce takes a look at Marvel’s Punisher: Welcome Back Frank out now as a Marvel select edition…

Punisher: Welcome Back Frank
Writer: Garth Ennis
Penciller: Steve Dillon
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colours: Chris Sotomayor
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Wes Abbott
Published by Marvel

It always seemed strange that The Punisher struck such a chord with Marvel fandom after being introduced within the pages of Spider-Man. In a universe of such outré characters and colourful personalities, he always seemed somewhat bland. Sure the skull symbol was striking, but he was little more than a vigilante within a world of costumed heroes. With all the universe shaking drama of Celestials and Secret Wars going on around him, Frank Castle was spending his time on Mafia hitmen and drug traffickers.

But that was maybe the point. The character gained his own title – and pretty dedicated following – in the mid-80s, a time of great change for mainstream comics. Gritty realism was the in-thing and The Punisher fit the bill to a tee. With the tragic backstory of a dead family and the trauma of Vietnam all rolling around Castle’s psyche, his Manichean task to kill all the bad guys provided a harsh but often engaging character that put the rest of the Marvel Universe into sharp relief.

But it could only last so long, and the character was losing ground and by 2001 The Punisher had become a literal angel of death, making his mission to wipe the streets of crime a supernatural one. Needless to say, the overt fantastical elements never suited the character well and The Punisher reign of terror seemed to be over.

Enter Garth Ennis.

Not long after the end of his superlative and genre defining work Preacher, Ennis managed to get his hands on The Punisher and brings him back into the depths of the Marvel Universe. Welcome Back Frank.

The Gnucci crime family is rather perturbed to discover that The Punisher is back. Now completely on his own, living incognito in a rundown apartment, his mission has gone back to being a simple one. Kill everyone off with excessive force. As the twisted matriarch Ma Gnucci sends all he resources after Castle, Castle continues his relentless mission as various bad guys get offed in often brutal ways – and Ma Gnucci also finds himself a direct subject of his wrath.

While the underworld is being set on fire by Castle, the NYPD sets up a two person taskforce to capture The Punisher. Detective Martin Soap – whose entire career is defined by screwing up – gets what seems is a cushy and important job. Until it becomes very clear that the taskforce is being deliberately set up to fail. And let’s not forget about the three copycat criminals who have seen The Punisher ‘work’ and take it upon themselves to continue his mission.

All these elements come to a head, as Castle – despite his loner instincts – must protect those with whom he shares an apartment building and provide a suitably bloody conclusion.

Those who are familiar with Preacher will find themselves in some familiar territory with Welcome Back Frank. Apart from the distinctive artwork from the still missed Steve Dillon, that blends a gory harshness with a wide eyed cartoonish tone, there’s the air of insouciance that permeated Preacher. In his 2001 introduction, Ennis states “…that’s what I’m going for with this series. Entertainment. Plain and simple. Not a complex analysis of the causes of crime.” There’s always a sense of humour, the ridiculous, the over the top. From some (sometimes literal) gallows humour to the fate of one character who meets a polar bear, there’s consistent over the top violence and darkness but it’s always undercut with such an air of impertinence that ‘entertainment’ is always the watchword.

In many ways the general ambience in at odds with the character of The Punisher. He’d always cut something of a po-faced presence and – as such – so did many of the stories in which he appeared. The joke here is that his character is still very much like that, which accentuates much of the craziness that goes on around him. His relentless grimness becomes almost endearing and anchors the insanity that’s woven throughout the rest of the story (though an appearance by Daredevil drags the story into more serious territory, at least for a few moments).

In many ways, Welcome Back Frank is a triumphant return for a character who had lost his way, keeping many of The Punisher’s beats while ushering him into a different comic book era. Since its original publication, The Punisher has been reconfigured more from Ennis’ ‘Max’ run which, in the wake of 9/11, rejected the insouciance and was incredibly dark and nasty to the modern day in which Castle feels more at home within the Marvel Universe as whole. Two decades on, Welcome Back Frank is still incredibly entertaining with Ennis seemingly having few f**ks to give.

This is the Marvel Select Edition, which comes complete Tim Bradstreet’s realistically rendered covers (which, while stunning, seem somewhat at odds with the material), some variant covers and Garth Ennis ‘Punisher Manifesto’, his original proposal for the series which is very interesting to explore Ennis’ early thought processes.

Punisher: Welcome Back Frank (Marvel Select Edition) is published by Marvel and is priced at £24.99