Punisher Max: The Complete Collection Vol. 3

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The Punisher Complete collection is a must read for any Punisher fan. It is a collection of the delightfully vulgar and violent Garth Ennis run on the Punisher. What won’t be missed though is that shitty ‘The End’ one shot that’s obviously non canon. Why would I care about something that didn’t actually happen. I’ve never touched a single ‘Star Wars: Legends’ novel for a reason. One point is redacted just for that waste of time. The book is in three distinct sections - Frank Castle's time during his hellish third tour in Vietnam; shady CIA operatives attempting to recruit Castle during his particularly bloody war on NY and NJ-area mafioso; and then Castle, with assistance from an old British colleague, taking on NY's usually warring Irish-American criminal families / gangs that have now uneasily united for a common goal. PUNISHERMAX #2". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08.

December 2008 Comic Book Sales Figures". comichron.com. The Comics Chronicles . Retrieved 2017-07-07. The next arc is more serious where Frank goes to stop basically a warmonger who he didn't finish off before. This also leads to old friends, lots of betrayals, and some actual sad deaths. All of this worked and the ending to the arc was pretty good. A little long but good.I loved this collection and it's my favorite take on the Punisher. It also probably has my favorite Punisher story. Set an undisclosed amount of years after the Garth Ennis series, New York crime bosses are trying to come up with a plan to take out the Punisher. There has been rumors of a mythical Kingpin of Crime for years until Wilson Fisk comes up with a plan to create this Kingpin as a target for the Punisher. As the Punisher tries to take out the Kingpin, the crime bosses will be free to do their business. But Wilson Fisk has grander plans. As he begins to create the fictional Kingpin, he actually becomes the real Kingpin and uniting New York’s crime families. In his rise to power, he hires the assassin Bullseye to once and for all take out the Punisher. So let me talk about a couple that didn't work for me. There's one of a writer, she's trying to create a story but pushing towards actual events and having people kill and murder. It's stupid with a dumb ending. There's also a couple stories that are standard bad guy being bad, robs and kills people, fakes he's a good guy, but Punisher knows all. Snooooooze. Been there.

The second arc is called "In the Beginning". It is a crazy story filled with crazy Mafia types, a return of Microchip, rogue CIA and , of course, the Punisher himself. It is Ennis' trademark blend of over the top violence, vulgar prose and twisted humor. It works very well for this Punisher story. The Punisher takes down a Mafia birthday party and slaughters the heads of some of the families present. This causes an "outsider" to be brought in to deal with the Punisher-except this solution may well be worse than the problem. Equal parts violent, vulgar and darkly humorous this is trademark Ennis and it works superbly for the Punisher tale he tells.

December 2011 Comic Book Sales Figures". comichron.com. The Comics Chronicles . Retrieved 2017-07-08. PUNISHERMAX #4". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08. I've been wanting to read good Punisher stories before the Marvel series premieres this month, and this Garth Ennis run with the character is one of the most well-received. First, Ennis opens with Born, the tragic and haunting miniseries that gives us a peek at Frank's final Vietnam days, showing us that there might've been something within Frank already, even before the Mob killed his family; demons in his nature that were simply simply let loose after personal tragedy. It's a near masterpiece. In the next two stories in this first volume, Ennis does a great job here at resetting the Punisher world. He focuses more on the Punisher as a symbol and legend. Frank Castle has been punishing for over 20 years and has built up a bit of a reputation, and whether it's dealing with a CIA conspiracy or Irish gangs in Hell's Kitchen, we see Frank Castle mostly through the supporting characters' eyes. Though Steve Dillon is regarded as one of the best artists in the business, I wasn’t a big fan of the art here. Most of the male characters all have the exact same face, just various levels of chin fat (dead serious) and hairstyles. And the way he drew eyes was so super creepy - so many panels looked like frightening mannequins plotting their revenge on society. Why is this Punisher so good? The characterization. Frank never wavers and never doubts. He doesn't grandstand. He just does what he does. Damn everyone and everything else. Frank's not insane or disillusioned. He knows what he is. That and the dark humored storytelling.

I don’t want to be super dramatic like everyone else in this thread, acting like this is the end of the series and the next three volumes don’t exist. But the fantastic character study that Garth brought to this run will be sorely missed. Whoever writes the next couple of arcs has seriously large, bloody shoes to fill. PUNISHERMAX #10". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08.The "Born" mini series strongly earns the five stars but the followup twelve issues of Punisher Max are also great. Frank Castle is really hard to pull off for most writers and so instead of character development, they go for murder porn and see how many ultra-violent ways they can cleverly have their Punisher kill the bad guys, and frankly (ar ar) it gets rather boring after a while. It's even worse here with Garth Ennis in the Marvel Max imprint because now he can blast brains, smash faces, and eviscerate the baddies' insides like never before. And Garth must think he's being extra edgy with all the f-bombs and the n-words, but it's just kind of lame, and I'm not sure who he thinks is interested, but I'm not. Ennis goes for the gross out or the profane as a cover for how thin and pointless everything is in his series. Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation. In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.

Next Is the Barracuda revenge story. A very solid story that well could have been the "last Punisher storyline from Ennis". But no, he also had Valley Forge in him, a wonderful wrap up of an earlier story where Frank screwed some powerful military men over when he refused to hand over a girl he had rescued from Russia. PUNISHERMAX #13". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08.

PUNISHERMAX #3". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08. PUNISHERMAX #9". Comic Book Roundup. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-07-08. Of the Punisher Max series, this was the first story I've read where Frank Castle targets white businessmen instead of gangsters who happen to be persons of colour. It was a welcome change to show that Castle can battle white collar crime like blue collar crime. Barracuda was a formidable villain. The violence against the principle female character was pretty gross, though, as was the depiction of her as a sex addict, being the only female. Those details brought down a solid three star book to two for me. Sims, Chris (2011-03-23). "Frank Castle Goes To Jail in 'Punisher Max' #12 [Exclusive Preview]". ComicsAlliance . Retrieved 2021-05-19. November 2009 Comic Book Sales Figures". comichron.com. The Comics Chronicles . Retrieved 2017-07-08.