Frank is legendary for his cool head, calm under fire, and progressive stance on complex urban social issues.<\/p><\/div>\n

As a kid I thought comics were great, I didn\u2019t mind eating my Wheaties for Captain America as long as he threw a few punches around to make it interesting, Spider-man\u2019s one liners were still funny because a clich\u00e9\u2019s just a joke the first time you hear it, and Wolverine sure looked badass even with that goofy haircut.\u00a0 This Punisher guy here with the all-black vibe is kind of cool, pirate flag on his chest, and HOLY SHIT he just blew that guy\u2019s face OFF!!!\u00a0 They make comic books all about the bad guys, too?\u00a0 Waitaminute, this is a good<\/em> guy?<\/p>\n

In the 1980\u2019s in the US, boys were exposed to an unprecedented experiment in desensitization to violence.\u00a0 GI Joe and Cobra blasted the shit out of each other every day for years on end, but everyone was still around at the end for their PSA spot.\u00a0 Autobots and Decepticons ripped limbs from torsos and just plugged them back in.\u00a0 Batman and the Joker go round, and round, and round, and the A-team cobbled together firebreathing tanks and rivet gatling guns; rest assured that all the baddies would surrender unharmed by the time the credits rolled.\u00a0\u00a0 Pretty much the only overarching message for 80s kids was \u201cviolence is freakin\u2019 awesome, and everyone gets to come back tomorrow to do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Frank\u2019s books, people didn\u2019t get to come back tomorrow.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t get to come back at all, and if you were writing for Frank Castle, you weren\u2019t recycling shit, Frank was the paper shredder at the end of comic character continuity.\u00a0 You want your bad guys to still be around for the West Coast Avengers to pound on, you better keep them the hell away from a Punisher book.<\/p>\n

So Frank got his own strange little world, sometimes the rest of the Marvel cast would dip in and out, but they never wanted to.\u00a0 EVERYONE hated him, the good guys, the bad guys, the thugs, the citizens.\u00a0 Over in the other books, not even the worst villans were so lonely, Dr. Doom had a country, Galactus had the Silver Surfer, even the Sinister Six would occasionally team-up out of boredom.\u00a0 All Frank had was a single fat computer programmer, a dead family, and you, the faithful reader.\u00a0 What a wonderful little secret; never had a comic book reader had such a direct connect to a character, hey, this guy NEEDS me, if I don\u2019t read this book, then no one will give a shit about Frank Castle.\u00a0 And clearly, shits need to be given, because he\u2019s going through all the motions that we grew to know and love with the other 80\u2019s series, but the bad guy doesn\u2019t trail off in the distance, shaking his fist over \u201cTo Be Continued\u2026\u201d at the episode finale.\u00a0 \u00a0Frank knows how to punctuate the end of his stories.<\/p>\n

Which is why we\u2019re here.\u00a0 The first Punisher continuous series debuted in 1987, and marginally-controlled chaos reigned for another 8 years.\u00a0 In this book, all Story Arcs ended in tombstones, and Character Development meant finding novel ways for Frank to kill your ass.\u00a0 Part goofy, a little campy, but 103% fascinating, there was literally nothing like it.<\/p>\n

There were some common themes to hold it all together, and no one reads anything on the internet that isn\u2019t a List, so I\u2019ve broken down the reviews.\u00a0 If you want to hear about plot and all that bullshit there\u2019s tons of websites of reviews that will oblige.\u00a0 Here I\u2019ve distilled it to the Shit That Matters. Up First, we’ll review Punisher issues #1-5.<\/p>\n