Punisher Max: Born - Part 1

[espanolbot]

The story takes place in Vietnam, and mainly follows the last few days of the Valley Forge outpost where Frank Castle was posted.

Here's our narrator,







Valley Forge isn't exactly the base outpost to be placed in, the guy in charge is both an alcoholic and incredibly lazy, leaving Frank the only competant one in the place. Competant but... kind of unstable.

As shown by his reaction to a general whose response to Frank's reports of increased VC activity around the base is to just shut the place down and threaten to sack him for complaining.









After Frank basically fragged the guy who said such things didn't happen, a strange voice in his head begins to talk to him. The Voice tells him that he's just fooling himself with his selfjustication that he wants to stay to prevent the North Vietnamese from advancing further into US-controlled territory and killing other marines futher inland, and that all he's really doing is prolonging things because he loves being at war too much...

Comments

[venatosapiens]

People talk about the kind of man the Punisher would have to be to exist in the real world, and point to this to back up a certain interpretation of what that would look like. I don't buy it, because I think it points at something a little different and more interesting: this is the kind of setting The Punisher needs to emerge within the Marvel universe. It's comics, after all: everything is heightened and a little unreal. And I think this fits in beautifully with a Punisher who was always, on some level, primed to go off. A ticking narrative time bomb. A man in search of a war.

[espanolbot]

The Max version by Ennis and Jason Aaron (really the only two people worth reading when it comes to the Punisher, though the regular universe version with Greg Rucka apparently is good) is kind of different to the really universe one, in that, like you say, he's a guy who was just looking for an excuse.

This was something that was covered by well by Aaron in an arc that followed on from Born, where the experience of being so fixated on war causes Frank to be unable to hold down a decent job (he starts out in a bar, then ends up having to work in a slaughterhouse) or connect to his family anymore.

[venatosapiens]

Well, I think even in the "real" universe the Punisher tends to be played as a little... "off", and not just because he's the one willing to kill. Rucka's currently playing up the grim, slightly larger then life side of the Punisher in the 616, and I think it's a take that works. After all, everyone who writes the character these days is pretty much inspired by Ennis' run.

Unless your name is Rick Remender, of course. That was a fun arc.

[cainofdreaming]

That saluting part always made me giggle!roll. How does someone live long enough to earn his stars without realizing why that would be stupid?

[espanolbot]

He went to an officer college, lead from the back and didn't actually have to face a combat situation, a la the higher ups during WW1?

[icon_uk]

How does someone live that long in Vietnam without realising that standing up in plain rifle sight like that is a bad, BAD idea? And casually standing against the sign just seems like lazy plotting, since Frank would have had to run ahead and drape himself clumsily across it so that the great big word "DANGER" wasn't visible.

[espanolbot]

The general wasn't one of those soldiers who ever actually went close to combat, so he probably didn't think that would happen anyway. And Frank's kind of a big guy, just standing in front it could have blocked it out.

[filthysize]

What do you mean? That he expected the Marines to salute him? But that's exactly what they're supposed to do.

[tammy_moore]

Generally not in active combat zones though, I think? Makes it too easy for the enemy to id the important targets.

...not as easy as walking them out and basically saying 'shoot him!', but easier.

(personally, I'm impressed by the general's ability to grow. He's navel height on Frank in one scene and closer to eye level in the next.)

[cainofdreaming]

Yes, they gave a couple of lectures about that difference in regulations when I was in the service. Actually, even when we were just training in the woods the saluting was pretty much nixed.

Might have had more to do with everyone not really caring that much about strict form, and this included the COs, when we didn't have to keep up the appearances than with combat discipline though.

[stolisomancer]

One of the major reasons why Vietnam was a clusterfuck was down to generals and politicians who didn't understand the realities on the ground, but who shaped policy and tactics anyway. This guy's straight out of most of the literature about the period; remember, he's a general who landed at the base without knowing about its problems with the supply chain, which is one of the most basic things you're supposed to get right.

[atj99]

Sounds like the Brits in WWI

[stolisomancer]

As I understand it, the Brits had a little bit of that going on in WWI, but their primary issue was that they simply could not or would not adapt to the realities of the machine gun or gas attack. They sent a generation to their deaths because they weren't willing to adjust their tactics, even when it was provably devastating.

Vietnam is a lot more complicated and is difficult to summarize, but the most common sentiment I see expressed is that the U.S. went into the war without an obvious goal or a clear chain of command, and was fighting a well-armed guerrilla force that could effectively deny the Americans the use of many of their advantages. It's why you don't run a war by committee and you make sure you know why you're there before you send in the troops.

[cainofdreaming]

I've also read that they hadn't had time to train their troops properly so they didn't have enough faith in them to use any more advanced tactics than simply advancing in a line, even when it became apparent that it simply didn't work.

I guess class society had an impact on that decision too, regular Joe Normals who hadn't the tiniest bit of upper crust in their breeding just weren't seen as capable of being more than fodder.

[bmaryott]

More like the Brits in some of their worst Colonial spots. They ended up with a few key people that were there for the wrong reasons; officers there for glory, etc.

[espanolbot]

Problem was that the guys in charge were expecting WW1 to be war as fought in the 19th Century (superior fightpower against people who didn't have the same resources), but since the Kaiser funded the Boer's during the earlier war to study British tactics, it kind of made a bad situation increasingly worse.

[espanolbot]

Pretty much every nation was like that I think.

[bmaryott]

Lets see - Tet offensive was in '68 so at the LATEST this one was born in 1950 (assuming battlefield commission or something).

Even then, that puts him at LEAST in his 50s when the series takes place.

[espanolbot]

When Ennis wrote him he was in his 50s, and when Jason took over the character he was approaching his 60s and the physical tole of nearly 30 years of vigilante warfare was starting to effect him (he wouldn't let his wounds heal properly, as he expected them to heal as fast as they did when he was younger for example, and he had bad knees).

Punisher Max 44 had his date of birth even,

[ensiform]

I liked this story - though some Punisher fans felt it made him too "special" (when his main conception is normal - though badass - guy driven to psychopathic obsession by violence) and paranormal.

I got chills reading its bookend, The End (also by Ennis).

[espanolbot]

One thing that I think is interesting in hindsight is that people talk about the Voice being Death or the Devil or something, but considering how the later version of Ares has the same white skull on black shirt design in his costume...

[akodo_rokku]

I think we can all agree Ares would just about lay a sloppy kiss on Frank Castle.

[darkblade]

I was kind of surprised that never really came up in the Punisher Dark Reign arc. The Dark Avengers were hunting him and never once did Ares speak up and say "Can we not kill him? Make sure he doesn't kill you of course but leave him alive to keep killing random street criminals. I am quite fond of him."

[mola_ram]

I absolutely adore this comic.
My only beef with it was that Stevie Goodwin pretty much had "Kenny McCormick" written all over him from page one as the narrator...

I would have preferred a more seasoned soldier who could stand his own ground and meet Frank on a more equal level and perhaps actually give him some encouragement on making it back home, acting a bit like his "Jiminy Crickett" to counter Castles budding dark side.