A Beautiful Gory Display: Hokka Hokka Hey!
But there’s another approach that I also enjoy. If you ground the Punisher firmly in the Marvel continuity, and make him a guy with a machine gun who shoots mobsters in the same world where Spider-Man and Wolverine are running around, that is fantastically entertaining. Embrace the weirdness of the established universe, and you end up with something where, as former Punisher writer Matt Fraction put it: “A guy with a skull on his chest fires a bazooka at a man dressed like a rhinoceros.”
Luckily for me, Marvel is currently publishing two Punisher books, each telling the kind of Punisher stories that I like. The mature readers Punisher: MAX is a gritty, black-humored crime story, and the Marvel Universe Punisher is crazy-ass trip through a world of superheroes and monsters.
In writer Rick Remender’s run on Punisher, he’s had Frank fight super-villains brought back from the dead for the sole purpose of killing him. And then, in a pretty legitimate surprise, a battle with Wolverine’s son (don’t ask) ended with the Punisher being completely dismembered. And that’s where the “Frankencastle” arc begins – a vampire and a swamp monster gather up Frank’s body parts and resurrect him as a Frankenstein.
This is exactly the sort of goofy, over-the-top storytelling that I love to see in a Punisher story. If used properly, he has to be a one-note character, but this is one heck of a way to play that note. And, I suspect, it might be a way out of the fact that the Punisher has to be pushing 60 now. (That’s what happens when you inextricably tie a character to real-world events.) Once “Frankencastle” is over, and the Punisher is properly resurrected, I think he’ll come back a decade or two younger. Until then, I’m thoroughly enjoying the Punisher as a gun-toting reanimated corpse, living in the sewers with an entire civilization of monsters.
On the other end of the spectrum, the newly relaunched Punisher: MAX is a gritty crime story, laced with extremely dark humor. Writer Jason Aaron follows the Garth Ennis path of setting up villains so loathsome that it’s a relief when Punisher shoots them in the faces at the end of the arc. In the new series, Aaron introduces a new version of Marvel mainstay the Kingpin, and while being instantly familiar, he’s not exactly the Kingpin that we’ve seen before. The second issue is devoted to showing just what a vicious bastard he is, and it’s pretty chilling.Classic Punisher artist Steve Dillon returns to the character here, and his clean art adds a lot to the book. His art is meticulous and clean, which lets the writing provide the shock value, rather than graphic violence. Even a mobster getting his eyeballs knocked loose in the first issue is played for laughs, which from other artists might be distracting. He and Aaron work well together, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.
So yes, that’s two monthly Punisher books, one in which he is a Frankenstein, and one in which he fights an Amish hitman named “The Mennonite”. I couldn’t ask for more.
Beanworld Book 3 (Dark Horse) – This was a delightful surprise. Dark Horse has been reprinting
Larry Marder’s classic 80’s series Tales of the Beanworld in hardcover. And these books have been great, because I miss Beanworld. When I picked up the new volume, I assumed it was a book of reprints. I would have been happy to get classic Beanworld material, but then I discovered it was all-new material. All-new! A new 200-page Beanworld story that I wasn’t even expecting. You guys, it’s a Christmas miracle!
Larry Marder’s classic 80’s series Tales of the Beanworld in hardcover. And these books have been great, because I miss Beanworld. When I picked up the new volume, I assumed it was a book of reprints. I would have been happy to get classic Beanworld material, but then I discovered it was all-new material. All-new! A new 200-page Beanworld story that I wasn’t even expecting. You guys, it’s a Christmas miracle!Beanworld is hard to describe. The old tagline used to be “A most peculiar comic book experience”. Essentially, it’s about a utopian society of creatures who look sort of look like beans. I think it’s about a society discovering itself, personally. It’s about exploration – not in the physical sense, as the beans have a small and clearly mapped out world, but rather in the creative sense.
Given that my own tendency is to overthink storytelling, Beanworld is a unique and pleasant read. It operates by its own logic, and all you have to do is buy into it and keep turning the pages. If you try to analyze it, the magic is gone. Just sit back and enjoy.
Marder gives you everything you need to know in this book – he details Bean society and explains the food chain and then lets everything happen. While this brings back story elements from a very long time ago, like the return of Mr. Spook’s trusty fork, Heyoka the upside-down bean, and the Elusive Notworm, everything you need to know is here. (Alternatively, you could just start with Volume 1, which is also fantastic.)
I feel like saying too much would spoil the magic. I’ll just say that Beanworld gets my highest recommendation. If you give it a chance, it’ll enchant you.
The Brave and the Bold (DC) – Note, this is not to be confused with the Batman cartoon of the same name that airs on Cartoon Network. The title “The Brave and the Bold” has a long tradition. Up until the early 80’s, it was a long running series which featured a different character teaming up with Batman every month. The newest incarnation is also a team-up book, but it’s not Batman-centric, though he makes more than his share of appearances.The first 18 issues or so of the new series were fantastic, just embracing the fun of the DC Universe. Since then, the series lost its footing, though it’s had some sporadic moments of greatness. Recently, writer J. Michael Straczynski (the guy who created Babylon 5) has taken over. The results have not been pretty.
Three issues into his run, he’s taken three great premises and absolutely wasted them in the service of heavy-handed moralizing. I mean, two of the three issues have featured Batman, and they’ve been kind of terrible. Batman, people! Heck, one of those stories also involved the Joker, and you’ve really got to try to crap that up.
His first issue teamed Batman with “Dial ‘H’ For ‘Hero’”. That’s an old series where a kid had a magic dial, and when he spelled out ‘Hero’ on the dial, he’d become a different superhero every time. I love that concept. (By the way, when the series was revived some years ago, they invited readers to submit characters. I’m sad to say that my character never made the cut, though I’d like to imagine that 6-year-old EJ’s primitive drawing of “Plant Man” is kicking around the DC offices. According to the description I wrote, “He is like Poison Ivy, but a boy.”) Straczynski manages to do nothing at all with the premise, instead setting up a boring story to remind us that children are our future. Yeah. (In all fairness, artist Jesus Saiz knocked it out of the park with an awesome take on Joker.)
Then, he teamed up the Flash and the Blackhawks (a World War II fighter squadron). Since this involves time travel, the fastest man alive, and vintage airplanes, you wouldn’t think it could possibly be bad. You would be wrong. Blackhawk lectures the Flash about the necessity of killing enemy soldiers during wartime, and then they walk across occupied France. Yeah, a group of pilots and a guy whose whole gig is running take a leisurely stroll. It’s actively terrible.
Finally, the most recent issue has Batman and Brother Power the Geek. Brother Power, who lasted two issues in 1968, is a mannequin that somehow came to life and became a hippie. It’s one of those fantastically insane ideas that it’s hard not to love. And no kidding, Straczynski uses the issue to have Batman gripe about kids today and how much better it was in the 60’s. Granted, I will never love anything in which somebody in nostalgic for hippies, but this is a story where my favorite character ever is pissed that kids today have laptops and iPods. This is not something that should happen, ever.
And here’s the sad part – I’m probably going to keep buying this series. See, I love the DC Universe. Whether it’s the icons like Batman and Superman, the B-listers like Dr. Fate and Firestorm, or the batshit insanity of OMAC or Brother Power the Geek or Ambush Bug, I love it. See, while the Marvel Universe was primarily built by three or four guys working in concert, DC goes back 70 years and pulls from all over the place. In the early days, nobody even considered that Batman and Superman lived in the same world. Not everything had to fit together into a cohesive whole. And I love when those disparate elements are brought together, when you look at two characters and realize that they come from entirely different eras and sensibilities but somebody is bringing you a story that includes both of them. All of Straczyski’s premises are instantly appealing, but the execution is dreadful, and the upcoming issues bring even more team-ups that I really want to like. I can’t not buy an issue where the Atom meets the Joker, or where Aquaman fights the demon Etrigan. That sounds awesome! And I’m going to buy them, because those stories sound like fun. And I’ll be sad every month, because another really creative pairing of characters is going to take a back seat to a patronizing and heavy handed moral lesson.
Man, it hurts to say bad things about a story with Batman in it. Still, it had to be done. Next week, we’re staring down the barrel of the first week in 30-plus years in which no comics ship, and I’ll have some recommendations for you, and maybe we can help keep the retailers afloat in a rough week.
