Reviews Comicbook / The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

An affront to the entire superhero genre.

From day one, I never really cared for Garth Ennis and had very little interest in reading any of his work because of his tendency to devote his work to tedious rambles on why superheroes and religion suck. I found my assumptions to be verified in regards to the former when I one day decided to read The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe.

Don't get me wrong. I don't care that he's an atheist, and it's his opinion if he doesn't like superheroes, but that doesn't change how pretentious, petty, and spiteful it is when he makes stories that primarily run on attacking what he doesn't like.

The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe is an absolute trainwreck where Frank Castle's origin is altered so that his family was killed in the crossfire of the Avengers and the X-Men battling the Skrulls and the Brood. He kills several of the heroes and ends up in jail, but is busted out by a committee of people injured in superhero battles who hire him to kill all superhumans.

It sounds on paper like an interesting story, but the potential is irrevocably ruined by Ennis' blatant disregard for the superhumans' powers and having Punisher easily mow them all down.

Wolverline has a healing factor, so being reduced to a skeleton shouldn't be enough to do away with him. Shooting Bruce Banner before he has a chance to turn into the Hulk again sounds like a sensible tactic, but it can't really be done if he's capable of reflexively transforming the instant he's in danger.

And this isn't even getting into how the story gives the biased assumption that heroes don't care about hurting innocents while fighting villains. The whole point of superheroes is that they fight for the greater good. Not giving a damn if they hurt innocent people in the fight against crime would go against everything they stand for.

I'd go on, but I don't want to exceed my character limit.