PUNISHER'S COSPLAY and COMICS: HAS THE 616 PUNISHER BEEN RE-BOOTED? I JUST CAN'T BLOODY TELL ANY MORE.

Before I articulate my confusion over what's happening with the Punisher's continuity in the main Marvel 616 comic at the moment, let me just say that I am enjoying the current series written by Greg Rucka. He's taken the approach that Garth Ennis put to such good use in his Max run, that you don't need to have the Punisher appearing in every single page of the comic just because it's got his name on the cover.

He's telling an interesting story full of great characters and detestable villains that just so happens to involve the Punisher. This makes it all the more satisfying when Frank does make an appearance and starts fucking people up because you have much more of a connection to what's going on and who's getting murdered. In fact I often enjoy seeing characters conversing about how dangerous Frank is and describing terrible, brutal (or brilliant, depending on your point of view) things that he's done almost as much as seeing him actually committing the atrocities, because of the depth their fear, disgust or admiration of him gives to his character.

Another point worth mentioning is Frank's lack of dialogue in this series. Some writers do his dialogue and dry inner monologue very well, others not so well. I'm not gonna name any names but you've all probably got you own favourite writers. Rucka has taken the bold step of having him say almost nothing. It's two whole issues before he says a single word to anyone. Some might call this lazy but I call it brave and it works very well and also makes a refreshing change to see him so quiet, leaving the reader to work out for them selves what he's thinking.

Combine all this with the high quality and well laid out art work and you've got a great series. Unfortunately this still hasn't stopped Marvel announcing that it's to finish after just 15 issues but hell, what can you do?

Right then. The Continuity. I posted a picture on my facebook group page a while ago from one of the earlier issues of the run where they had a brief re-cap of the Punisher's origin and military career, along with a comment expressing my dismay that they appeared to have slapped Frank with a completely unnecessary re-boot. I was led to this conclusion by the pictures that illustrated his role as a marine, showing modern day soldiers using modern day equipment, in a modern day war zone with absolutely no mention of Viet Nam or his recent death and resurrection with the blood stone, restoring him to the peak of his fighting condition.

What the hell, Marvel?! What the actual hell?! What was the point of everything that Remender wrote in his massively under appreciated run on the Punisher if this is what you've decided to do? I don't care what anyone says about Franken-Castle. It was a good fun, action packed story that was necessary to revitalise Frank and make it more acceptable that a Viet Nam veteran would have the physical fitness to be a hero, or anti-hero, in the Marvel 616 universe. Every time I've spoken to someone who said it was crap, it always turns out that they never actually bothered to read any of it.

But now in the latest issue (#7) detective Clemons recounts a story about how the Punisher once messed up a crime scene and then killed someone who absolutely deserved to die in a Punisher/Daredevil crossover printed waaaaaaay back in 1988. He also explains his crummy reasons for disapproving of Castle's methods. I'm seriously starting to dislike Clemons. Dude needs to wake up and smell the ass holes being taken out of everyone else's misery on a regular basis.

So what's the deal then? The stuff Mike Baron wrote in the 80's still happened but Remender's stuff didn't? Did Rucka not want to use any of Remender's material as history for his current run or did he just never read any of the more recent Punisher stories so he doesn't know it happened? Maybe Marvel told him to write it this way. Maybe, and I really hope this is the case, maybe when the artist was drawing the panels for the re-cap, he just didn't know that he was supposed to be drawing marines from the late 60's and by the time anyone noticed, it was too late but then why was there no mention of Viet Nam in the text?

For the love of God, Marvel why do this? It's just a big fat slap in the balls to all the long term fans of the character. Thinking about it, it's a bit of a low blow to anyone who only started reading it recently during Remender's run. Stop screwing with shit that ain't broken and breaking it, Marvel!