Reviews Comicbook / The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

Actually, yes, collateral damage and normal people dying in the crossfire of fights that unleash so dangerous forces as most superpowers is precisely what would happen if Reality Ensues for just a bit. In fact, many times there is material collateral damage, which gets downplayed and then never given a second thought. And neither Civil War nor this comic book are the only times this issue was adressed: see Superhero Paradox for more examples. And, as for Frank defeating them all, isn\'t the whole point of great superhero stories a protagonist that overcome the odds and defeats a foe that on paper should have been way much more powerful?

I outright said that fanboying over who\'d win is the wrong way to approach the story.

Whether or not \"This is what would happen in reality\" is a wrong-headed argument too, because superhero comics are already ludicrously unrealistic the moment people with bizarre powers strapped on spandex and went out to fight crime. The whole story hinges not on whether or not it\'s \"realistic\" for innocent people to get caught in the crossfire, but on the idea that if and when they do, the superheroes don\'t care.

Regarding the two comments above: there\'s a subtle difference between \"realistic\" and \"coherent in-universe\". The Punisher killing off the entire Marvel Universe is neither of these two. He is basically turned into a Gary Tsu in this story. Overcoming the odds is one thing, but you have to do it in a way that\'s actually credible and do not makes you wonder Why Don\'t You Just Shoot Him?.

Still, I get Spectral\'s point.This is far from being the only problem in the story, and it shouldn\'t be considered the main problem.

The Punisher is a very odd choice of character if you want to call out other characters on causing collateral damage. The Punisher is a character who uses high explosives and high calibre firearms in an urban environment on a regular basis and if you assume that he\'s so good that he somehow doesn\'t ever accidentally cause any collateral damage then you can\'t then assume someone like Captain America or Spider-Man isn\'t going to be able to do that exact same thing.

Ennis does some genuinely good work with the Punisher but it\'s notable that the vast majority of his best work on the character is when he\'s totally removed from contact with conventional superheroes...

Actually, I had no problem to find it credible. A man with no superpowers manages to defeat all the super-powered dudes that get in his way, by resorting to cunning strategy, exploiting of weak points and going Crazy Prepared to the action? In the Distinguished Competition, Batman does that all the time. The heroes do not simply shoot him? Why would they? They don't shoot their villains, and were confident to simply defeat him as they always did with others. Doom did not do it either, but gloating instead of securing victory is totally in his style, and in fact it was his undoing in several other stories. And Kingpin and Wolverine did try to kill him, they simply couldn't because Punisher killed them first. Remember that a good plot is not one where the characters do the best sensible action for a context, but where they do the action that fits they character style.

Yeaaaaah, still don\'t buy it. I said Why Don\'t You Just Shoot Him? as an example, that doesn\'t mean it has to apply here. Alternatively, I personally think all superheroes would have teamed up against the Punisher the very moment he would have started killing superheroes, instead of allowing him to come and kill them one by one. Batman has multiple advantages such as huge ressources, a hideout and a secret identity which allows him to operate behind the scene when villains are tracking him, which the Punisher doesn\'t have; and even then, it\'s usually agreed 1) He would still have difficulties defeating strong superhumans, 2) If he started killing people, the cops would put effort in finding him and probably eliminate him. If the entire Avengers went against Castle at the same time with the knowledge he is killing people, he would be obliterated in five minutes, no matter how good he is. And Doctor Doom not only has a history of being just as Crazy-Prepared as Castle, he has better ressources and magic; the Punisher even getting close enough to attack him mid-gloat is ridiculous of its own. In fact, if he could really kill Doom that easily, why did he never do it in canon? Doom isn\'t a superhero and killing bad guys kinda is the Punisher\'s thing.

So yeah, it still doesn\'t fit in my opinion.

What I want to know is - is it worse than Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe?

The Avengers did not have the chance to go against Punisher, perhaps you missed the part about the teleporter \"accident\". And it may be hard to \"go against\" someone that you don\'t know where he is; his lack of a hideout is more an advantage than a problem. But I don\'t understand those comments about Punisher not having great resources, or that the cops would be trying to find him. Did you actually read the story before complaining about it? Because in this story Punisher is supported by The Omni Scient Council Of Vagueness in this crusade. So yes, he does have resources, and he does have people who get him out of jail when the police captures him.

As for Doom, he did not know magic when this comic was published, so the point is moot. And he was not really prepared against Punisher because A) he did not start that fight, Punisher did, and B) he thought he was a mere insect, unworthy of being the focus of contingency plans.

And, as for Batman, I don\'t know who is that nebulous group that \"agreed\" on those things, but most of the times I saw Batman defeating guys with super powers, it was during combat, not with financial tricks or by taking advantage of his secret identity. His wealth and batcave only influenced the \"crazy prepared\" part, in a manner not much unlike this story. In fact, taking aside the killing part and the motivations, a story \"Batman vs. the Marvel Universe\" would be a lot like this one.

The story is a bit hard to compare with the Deadpool one, because the genre is a bit different. Deadpool\'s one is basically Black Comedy, this one is not.

Depends on what metric you measure it on, Elmo.

If you mean, is it more obnoxious with the protagonist beating people he clearly shouldn't? Eh. Not as much. Castle doesn't just walk through everybody like Deadpool in that story, and he almost loses a couple times, repeatedly acknowledging how closely he brushed with death after taking on someone in the big leagues. They at least explain that he's got undisclosed-but-enormous amounts of new intel and funding, as opposed to Deadpool just pulling stuff outta nowhere. And he doesn't go for killing off Cosmic Marvel, so there's that. I doubt it'll trip your fanboy-rage as much as the Deadpool one.

Is it more obnoxiously self-righteous? Yes, and no. Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe is a bit less overtly preachy (until the sequels anyway) because it's trying to be Darker And Edgier trash to show how pointless and awful Darker And Edgier trash is. That's a bit hypocritical, maybe, but it's also pretty unambiguous. By comparison, Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe is a lot more self-righteous, loaded with mean-spirited digs at characters whom Garth Ennis despises and containing scene after scene of the characters ranting about how much they hate superheroes. But, at the same time, the last scene does call into question whether what Castle did was the right thing, even to the character.

Does it work better as a piece of entertainment? ...Meh? It has one or two really good moments (the "THAT WON'T SAVE YOU DEAD MAN!" scene is almost as great as it is plotless and neigh-nonsensical), and the story does feel a bit less mean-spirited. And while I have nothing but scorn for his decision to squander his talent on a mess of self-indulgent pottage (or, as the immortal CS Lewis one put it, on a pot of message), I can't deny that Garth Ennis is a much more-talented writer than whoever does those Deadpool Kills X stories. But the Deadpool one's got better art, better staging, a slightly self-aware story, and it works as a horror piece. And it feeds into two kinda-okay sequels.

On the whole, I prefer Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, since, well... it frames killing the Marvel Universe as a bad thing, rather than a debatably-good one. I dunno which one is better, but Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe definitely didn't piss me off as much.

I don\'t take either story seriously enough to invest in disliking them. The entire notion of 1 street level comic book guy murdering the Marvel world quickly crosses into gag territory, even if in Ennis\' case he tried to paint it as a plausibility. They\'re no goofier than any other elseworld comic, it\'s just easier to feel insulted in some way by them if you let yourself be.

The Avengers did not have the chance to go against Punisher, perhaps you missed the part about the teleporter "accident". And it may be hard to "go against" someone that you don't know where he is; his lack of a hideout is more an advantage than a problem. But I don't understand those comments about Punisher not having great resources, or that the cops would be trying to find him. Did you actually read the story before complaining about it? Because in this story Punisher is supported by The Omni Scient Council Of Vagueness in this crusade. So yes, he does have resources, and he does have people who get him out of jail when the police captures him.

I am well-aware of all these points, and it makes it even stupider. Aside from the fact it makes his victory even less of his own merits and the idea of him being better than superheroes a Broken Aesop (The Punisher didn't even on his own against all odds, he won because had the support from a bunch of rich assholes who hated superheroes). And yes, the lack of hideout is a disadvantage, because you need a friggin' place where to make all your preparations and keep all your equipment functional, because this isn't a friggin' video game where you can keep an entire arsenal on yourself and still ne able to move. Well, unless you're Deadpool, but that's an entirely different story. My point is, without a hideout to store everything, the Punisher would have to either leave his material behind or go slower and more noticed, which would make him easier to catch. And really, if these rich assholes wanted all heroes dead, did they really needed Castle? They could have just sent assassins with all that tech to do the job. But nooooo, they sent Castle, because for some reason he is more efficient despite being a regular, if well-trained, human. Really, this whole council thing was just lazy writing to justify the Punisher having all the equipment he needed; if any superhuman-hating organisation in the Marvel Universe was powerful enough to do that, the X-Men would have been gone a while ago, seeing how people hate them.

As for Doom, he did not know magic when this comic was published, so the point is moot. And he was not really prepared against Punisher because A) he did not start that fight, Punisher did, and B) he thought he was a mere insect, unworthy of being the focus of contingency plans.

Yes, because a paranoid dictator like him who got overthrown a few times would CLEARLY not bother with plans to deal with regular human assassins and only prepare against super-powered individuals. Because that's how it works in real life. If he really had nothing to deal with this, he would have died a long time ago. That assumption that super-powered or advanced enough that they might as well be superpowered characters all would underestimated Badass Normal is stupid and need to go away: normal guys aren't the only one with brains, no matter how much Frank Miller would like us to think. Besides, if Badass Normal characters needed to be underestimated in order to win, they would be pretty pathetic.

And, as for Batman, I don't know who is that nebulous group that "agreed" on those things, but most of the times I saw Batman defeating guys with super powers, it was during combat, not with financial tricks or by taking advantage of his secret identity. His wealth and batcave only influenced the "crazy prepared" part, in a manner not much unlike this story.

You misunderstood what I meant by his identity and money being a big part. Batman doesn't need them to play financial tricks, as you say, he needs them because if his opponents knew about his identity, they would immediatly go to his Batcave and wreck it out before he could do anything to stop them, and without his money he wouldn't have the ressources to make all the crazy plans he comes up with. In fact, almost any story where villains find out about his identity or the Batcave end up with him getting beaten up. Bane, both in movies and comics, was able to utterly destroy him with these informations, just to give an example. Usually when Batman is confronted by an opponent he didn't expect to fight and as such didn't prepare for, he gets his asses kicked, retreats to his Batcave, studies his opponents, and THEN faces him again with a plan allowing him to win; his secret identity makes sure his opponent will have no choice but leave him the prep time needed. Again, the Punisher doesn't have this luxury; you could make the argument he was hidden by his council of morons, but even then, he had to get out and go look for heroes, and since he doesn't wear a mask nor have a secret identity, people could signal him, which would give superheroes the time to see him coming and prepare of their own.

In fact, taking aside the killing part and the motivations, a story "Batman vs. the Marvel Universe" would be a lot like this one.

Already exists with the DC Universe, though he doesn't kill them in it, just humiliate and outsmarts them. It's called All Star Batman and Robin, and it's considered one of the worst comic books in history. You might have heard about it.