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This has just bugged me whenever I'm in a Punisher mood. Today all most people talk about is "Ennis' Punisher" and Punisher MAX. Frank existed for decades before Ennis came along. He had good writers before Ennis came along.

I've read statements like "Ennis is the only person who understood the character." How in God's name does that work? How does someone create a character and multiple people write him for years on end and only this one man can understand him? I think Ennis understands hating God and black morality and that's what he wrote in the Punisher. Maybe that's what people meant.

But yeah...does anyone here like the Punisher before Ennis came along? Any stories or writers you liked in particular?

Punisher War Journal Vol. 1 with Jim Lee was the best.

Ennis is a friggin hack, whoever tells you he the only one who understand punisher is an idiot. Dude sucks period. He decent when he does something like max were there arnt any real hero cross over. Because yes ennis writes pretty dam good solo punishers, but as soon as a hero with any powers in brought into play he simply treats them like idiots. He notorious for such things. He also tends to go off on comedy driven theme's which frankly are just stupid in nature. In short Ennis is far from god sent in concerns to writing comics or even punisher for that matter.

I always liked the stories from Chuck Dixon.

The Punisher was around for over ten years before Steven Grant & Mike Zeck fully embraced him and his methods in the 1985 miniseries.
Before that, Marvel danced around him, uncomfortable that he could really be a hero (or anti-hero) to follow in an ongoing. After that mini, they finally got a template going for some very good stories by Mike Baron, who wrote him well for several years. Chuck Dixon and the Carl Potts/Jim Lee team did good work as well. Marvel just over-saturated the market by the mid-1990's, with three Punisher monthly titles plus a B&W magazine. I think Garth Ennis brought something valuable to the character, combining ultraviolence, street level heroics and black comedy. With the MAX title, he just got to go further than anyone possible could before. Right now, I'd put him next to Steven Grant as one of Frank's best writers.

Originally posted by roughrider
The Punisher was around for over ten years before Steven Grant & Mike Zeck fully embraced him and his methods in the 1985 miniseries.
Before that, Marvel danced around him, uncomfortable that he could really be a hero (or anti-hero) to follow in an ongoing. After that mini, they finally got a template going for some very good stories by Mike Baron, who wrote him well for several years. Chuck Dixon and the Carl Potts/Jim Lee team did good work as well. Marvel just over-saturated the market by the mid-1990's, with three Punisher monthly titles plus a B&W magazine. I think Garth Ennis brought something valuable to the character, combining ultraviolence, street level heroics and black comedy. With the MAX title, he just got to go further than anyone possible could before. Right now, I'd put him next to Steven Grant as one of Frank's best writers.

I love you man I was actually planning to write a post like this. I was going to mention Steve Grant but I might disagree on Einnis being one of Punishers best writers, he did alot of crap as well.

Originally posted by Deadline
I love you man I was actually planning to write a post like this. I was going to mention Steve Grant but I might disagree on Einnis being one of Punishers best writers, he did alot of crap as well.
agreed, I think his major issue, is he tries to make everything to much like a dark comedy. He does his best work when he gets away from such theme's like "an army of midgets who cut off peoples legs". It like common man wtf is this.