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Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Punisher is the only Marvel book I read regularly, so I must step in and spreg about poo poo.
Punisher War Zone (the film) was appropriately violent but otherwise a big stupid mess with a very stupid script. Who would take a kid who's being hunted by the mob to go play and run around in A New York subway tunnel, really? Oh I know, the poo poo-stupid characters in that film. That and Maginty's dialoge was enough to push that film from being just cheesy and ugly to :ughh: levels of stupid. That actor sounded like an Australian with a brain injury, not an Irishman. There are more flaws to go on about, but those define the film for me. Wayne Knight was the only thing I liked about War Zone, mostly because in my mind, he was still playing Newman.

As for the comics, I'm in agreement with everyone who likes the Max books. They just fit the character, and thier quality has been consistantly high.

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Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead

Mister Roboto posted:

Ironically, that might be one thing that WOULD get to Frank, as even though he's a mechanical killer, children seem to bring out his buried soft side.

My favorite part of Ennis' series is when Frank is completely beaten by the Mongolian, an even faster and more effective killer. And just as Frank's passing out, the bad guy makes a fatal mistake and hits a little girl...

Brings a tear to my eye, it does, especially when Frank proceeds to beat him to death with his leg.

Didn't beat him to death with his leg, he grabbed the little guy by the leg and slammed him against metal furniture till his head was pulped and the leg was nearly detached. It was awsome.

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Too many times Frank is called a monster or something similar in this thread, that's incorrect. Frank is simply a predator, higher on the food chain than most others, doing what comes naturally to someone of his unique status. Born and Tiger inferred it was his destiny to be a killer. An inevitable, immutable destiny, not something he does for enjoyment. A monster would do what Frank does for fun, like Bullseye and Barracuda.

He is not a monster, he is necessary. Like wolves or spiders, in the context of his comic, Frank maintains a balance.

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Sure he's tragic and can't function normally and such, but he still has a niche. He is the counter to the mobsters and slavers and outright psychopaths like Bullseye, Barracuda and less flashy but no less horrible guys like Cavella, Rawlins and that CIA fucker what was working with Micro. And those Generals. That little Max universe needs Frank around to kill it's worst people. They will keep coming, nature abhoring a vacuum as it were, and Frank will keep killing them. Circle of life.

Again, a predator-prey dynamic. The predator is a soldier waging an unending, ultimately unwinnable war, the prey are the worst, most harmful people the writers can come up with. A world with Frank still killing and moping is better than one where Cavella, Rawlins or the generals are still alive. Law enforcement in that reality is too impotent or corrupt to properly deal with them. The Punisher's world needs him. Deserves him, like so much Dark Knight.

Frank doesn't directly help others, but in destroying those mentioned above, he makes his world better. More balanced and just.

The end of the current arc will likely demonstrate as much. Do you really think crazy as balls Bullseye is right about Frank? I don't. It's a con.

To clarify, I don't read any other marvel books currently, so none of this is based on the 616 stuff. Just Max.

Millions of Crows fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Jul 16, 2011

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead

Lurdiak posted:

I couldn't disagree more with basically everything in that article.

I'm a big fan of the Punisher Max comic, but I am 100% serious when I say that I don't like the man. I sympathize, I understand, usually I root for him because the people he's facing are monsters, but I don't like him, and I often find myself wishing for the bad guy to get away because they don't deserve what he's going to inflict on them. But that's part of the appeal of the books.

Frank's enemies deserve everything he inflicts on them. Hence the title Punisher. All of them do something that merits punishment. Generally Frank does to them what they have done to many others. Consider suffering and death as commodities that gets moved around. Frank repackages it and gives it to those that need it. Cavella and the Slavers were the best example for that particular conciet.

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Those others don't need to be supervillians to deserve a visit from Frank.

quote:

At no point do people's basic human rights get revoked just because they did something evil.
We have a justice system that does exactly that, to varying degrees, and plenty of historical examples. Recently Bin Laden got his right to live revoked by the US military for doing something evil. Nuremburg did a lot of the same. History being written by winners in those cases, still it was right.

Perhaps we just have very different values/beleifs in regards to these things. You seem to think no one deseves to suffer and die, while I beleive quite a few people deserve to suffer and die.
Maybe you haven't been hurt and jaded like I have, and that's what it takes to see things this way.

Millions of Crows fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jul 18, 2011

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Semi-Spoilers follow:
Does the end of the Frank arc over-write what was established in The Cell (Garth Ennis penned one-shot)? That issue seems to infer Frank got at the mobsters directly involved in the shooting not long after it happened, while in The Cell Frank is a longtime veteran of his specific war, navigating and manipulating Rikers like he owned the place, something a year one Punisher just couldn't do, and wouldn't have the reputation that had the whole place scared shitless of him.
That's the only fault I can find in the Frank arc. Though it's a big one. Ennis ressurected and redefined the chracter, I hate to see any of his run retconned. I'd like to think somehow it fits with what's been established, but it doesn't feel right.

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
The crossover poo poo in the latest issue makes me miss the old no-supes Punisher book even more. Suddenly Daredevil and Spiderman are in there talking about a techno-magic doohickey and I'm wondering if I missed an issue.
Alves shooting Hornhead in the back was satisfying though.

Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
Without Travolta and a script full of poo poo weighing him down, Jane's Punisher is much cooler.

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Millions of Crows
Mar 31, 2010

take a look overhead
So.... Jason Bateman as the Punisher whenever they get that far in the avengers movies?

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