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Garth Ennis, �The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank�

Started June 30 � Finished June 30, 2003; 272 pages. Posted 14 July 2003

Though I�ve found myself buying plenty of stupid Daredevil related crap, the one thing I�ve managed to avoid was the guest appearance. For those lucky enough to be the non-geek amongst you, of which I�d say includes about .01 percent, since you�re reading book reviews for Christ�s sake, the guest appearance in the world of the comic book is where the cover will proudly pronounce some sort of strife between whomever is the hero of whatever book you happen to be reading, and a character that amazingly enough, has their own title.

The idea is that the person who doesn�t collect said guest star will become interested and pick up their next issue, and the person who collects issues of said guest star will check out the new material that they grace in other issues.

These team-ups almost always suck, and it�s such an obvious marketing scam that I avoid it anyway, although I know there are plenty of people that don�t. But I forgot my own rule about avoiding tie-ins when this issue came into the store. I was pricing books, opened this issue quickly, saw Daredevil in it, and quickly put it in my pile.

Now I remember why I avoid these things.

I�ve never understood the popularity of the Punisher character. It�s a standard Nietzsche mythos blown up to absurd proportions and the only thing that sets him apart from the average superhero is that the Punisher shoots people. He fit with the Reagan era of intolerance, but quickly faded away to become the cartoon that he is. When right and wrong is presented in such base instincts, you can�t help but notice the recycled material. The character faded away, though you�d never notice judging from the fratboys that sport the Punisher logo on their shirts.

And this is where my second mistake came along. When they re-launched the character, I noticed they hired Garth Ennis, of Preacher fame. I hadn�t read Preacher yet, but I heard that he was good. And he sort of is, but I read a large amount of his works in one sitting, and thus couldn�t help but notice he ran his ideas into the ground. An in the ground they stayed, as this 12 issue run is some of the same material as he used in his Preacher series. And it wasn�t that good in the first place.

Oh, and the Daredevil appearance? Nine pages total. Ripped off premise and conversation that I�ve seen at least three times before. In other words, this is worthless, even to an obsessive DD fan like me.

How bad was it? I can answer that. This was so bad, that for the first time since I started this reading project, I�m actually bringing this back to the store and returning it.


Rating: See above.

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