Page 45 Review by Stephen
Collects PUNISHER (2000) #1-12, PUNISHER (2001) #1-5 and PUNISHER KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, which is substantially more than just 'Welcome Back Frank'. However, this contains that too.
"I can't believe you're actually doing this...!"
"You're a monster and I'm killing you. It's not complicated."
The Punisher's reason for living is to eliminate people he doesn't like. Not for Frank, the moral vagaries of two wrongs and a right. He's not here to soliloquise, he's here to blow people's heads off, and time wasted weighing the scales of justice is time that could be far more effectively and satisfying spent with an Uzi, a six-pack of hand-grenades and a mortuary full of Mafiosi.
For the creators of PREACHER, this laugh-out-loud burlesque was one long opportunity for some seriously black comedy as deadpan Frank slaughters his way to the top, both disarming and dismembering an increasingly grotesque crime lord, Ma Gnucci. Yes, it's Ennis's trademark Loss of Limbs Motif.
His first stint on Frank Castle, this is a far cry from what he went on to accomplish in the far more socio-political PUNISHER MAX, but sometimes you have to eat the hamburger to appreciate the steak* and this is the Linda McCartney Vegetarian Mozzarella quarter pounder of burgers for which product placement I'd appreciate a lifetime's supply: very, very tasty.
Anything and everything is a weapon to Frank, so imagine what he can do in a zoo.
As with PREACHER, it's friendship and loyalty which form the heart of the book, coming this time courtesy of the unsuspecting naïfs he's shacked up with in rented accommodation: punk Spacker Dave, the over-excitable man of so many piercings that he's become a human curtain rail...
"Doing the town, huh?" he asks, as Frank leaves their home.
"It's tempting."
... Mr. Bumpo the balloon-shaped pizza addict constantly stuck in his own doorway, and shy young Joan who brings Frank freshly baked cookies as tokens of her timid affection.
Steve Dillon acts his heart out, playing Frank imperturbably straight in the even most ludicrous circumstances, pulling bloated Mr. Bumpo through his own doorway without breaking his stride, constantly emphasising the man's efficiency. Dillon is a master of communicating emotion through expression, so that although anger appears to come easily to artists (on the page!), few do pants-wettingly worried as well as Dillon. And there's plenty to worry the wrong people here.
With 'Welcome Back, Frank' alone, you're in for twelve full chapters which I concede I haven't read for a couple of decades or so, but Jonathan recalls Frank being less than impressed by three copy-cat vigilantes who want to join forces with him and I once referred to this as "the comicbook equivalent of an Arnie film, but with fewer plot holes and a lot less overacting". Sounds about right.
* Thank you, Marc Almond ('Ugly Head')
