|
THE PUNISHER: THE END #1
Highly Recommended (9/10)
|
Marvel Comics/MAX imprint
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Richard Corben
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Axel Alonso
Price: $4.50 US/$7.25 CAN |
Like most of us, I vary day by day (sometimes more frequently than that) between being a somewhat idealistic, optimistic person and someone who cynically sees only the worst in humanity. On the former days, I'm a big superhero fan, wanting to believe in guys like Superman and Spider-Man who do what's right even when there's no reward. On the latter, I want to read comics like The Punisher: The End. God damn is this a dark book! I mean, it's the Punisher by way of Ennis, which means the lead character is dark and brutal, and it's a post-apocalyptic setting, which tends to lead to some darker stories as well, but man... even the zombie apocalypse of Walking Dead comes off like a birthday party compared to this one. It really works, though, if you're in the mood for it. Ennis takes the Punisher's quest to its illogical extreme for a somewhat shocking finale that remains completely predictable and in character once you step back and look at it, and Richard Corben gives us one of the most beautiful visions of the apocalypse I've ever seen, doing so ironically by presenting it as an ugly, scorched version of the world.
What's kind of neat about Punisher: The End is that it's not just for the Punisher fans. Oh, Ennis is sticking with his cold, inhuman killing machine version of the character, which ought to sit well with fans of his Punisher run up until this point, but he's also using the character to tell a cynical and uncompromising tale of human weakness and greed and where that can eventually lead. The Punisher's role in modern-day stories tends to be as either cautionary example or vengeance wish-fulfilment, but Ennis has a different role in mind for him in The End: Humanity's conscience, able to wield a big stick in enforcing his unforgiving moral dictates.
The Punisher: The End begins right before the apocalypse, which is a really smart choice on Ennis's part. Not only does it let us see how the Punisher ended up in prison or how he escaped, it gives a sense of the civilization that he was a part of before everything fell apart. It's a moody sequence with some real dark humor to it, the kind of thing Ennis excels at, and it serves the dual purposes of exposition and entertainment. Ennis then jumps forward to the Punisher a year later, exploring the shattered world. It's a strange match, this man who is dead inside and a world that has gone dead, and it just works very well. The barren wastelands and lack of humanity make for an interesting reflection of Frank himself, and the story focuses in on a mystery: Just where is the dying Punisher hoping to go, and why?
If Ennis's prose and stoic characterization provides a lot of the mood, then it's Richard Corben's art that completes the picture with some vivid, disturbing illustrations. Along with colorist Lee Loughridge, he really does show the burning clouds that Punisher talks about, and he spares no detail in showing the skeletons and industrial wreckage that makes up the worldwide memorial of the human race. It is clear that the apocalypse is not something that humanity will rise from, that this was indeed the end, and it makes for a chilling setting.
Punisher: The End is a meditation on a character and what his final destination might look like, but this book isn't about something so small as the last criminals the Punisher fights, even though that's what the plot ultimately centers on. Instead, by referencing modern-day politics and comparing the "war on terrorism" to Punisher's "war on crime," not to mention exploring the likely survivors of this kind of disaster, Ennis makes the Punisher into a metaphor as much as a man. Frank's never-ending war finally comes to an end here, and when it does, it becomes clear that his war was not as pure as he would have liked to believe, but at the same time, one can't help but feel that he made the right decision in the end, even given the dire consequences that decision will have for the human race. A truly dark, disturbing and thought-provoking read, The Punisher: The End is probably my favorite of Ennis's recent Punisher stories.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
