Why I'm Dubious Of Frank Tieri

[espanolbot]

In Garth Ennis' Marvel Knight's Punisher series, he took the opportunity to poke fun at some of Marvel's characters, or at least the tropes that they were being written with at the time. One such character was Wolverine, who Ennis seemed to think was a catchphrase-spouting, ridiculous character that people treated as being a lot more serious than he really should be.

And since Marvel Knights (not Punisher Max, the later more serious take on the characters) was effectively running on deliberately Looney Tunes levels of ridiculous violence, stuff like this kept happening to Logan as the story progressed.


However, despite the depiction of Wolverne clearly not being meant to be taken seriously (and Frank admitting that in a straight-up one on one fight Logan could easily kill him), then writer of Wolverine Frank Tieri apparently got offended and in Wolverine 186 decided to write his own take on a Punisher/Wolverine story.

Unfortunately, Tieri ain't no Garth Ennis, so his comeback to a perceived insult to his character... wasn't the most mature either..





So yeah, resorting to homophobia to prove that Wolverine was the "better character". This is why I'm dubious of Frank Tieri.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

That Punisher series was fucking hilarious (and I especially liked how Frank tailored his level of violence carefully so as not to risk killing Daredevil or Spider-Man who he considered innocent - and Wolverine was pretty much unkillable at that point) but that's really weak, Frank Tieri. Everyone knows that the hero whose book it is tends to win the fight - you don't have to be pissy (and homophobic!) about it. Tieri comes off as the asshole here, not Wolverine or Punisher or even Ennis.

The worst part is

[chortles81]

It feels like Frank Tieri taking a shot at a frankly more important writer who wrote arguably the DEFINITIVE Punisher depiction in the 21st century, whereas I can't remember any Frank Tieri story EXCEPT this one.

P.S. Speaking of Daredevil, I'm reminded of a scene where Castle chained up Daredevil with a revolver pointed directly at Castle's back and told him that he was about to shoot a mobster coming on out from a doorway, so that the supposed only way to stop Castle would be to put one in his back. I'm sure that that wouldn't have been the case under ANY other writer but Ennis, but I remember it being Castle testing Murdock's character -- and respecting Murdock for actually pulling the trigger (minus a firing pin or primer).

Re: The worst part is

[lilacsigil]

Yes, Tieri only harms his reputation by doing this. All I remember about him is that he did some dumb shit that stopped me reading a title years ago, but I can't even remember which title!

Well, another writer might do that scene, but they'd make it clear that Daredevil's super senses made sure he wouldn't hit anything vital etc. etc. whereas Ennis just had the scene play out as is.

Re: The worst part is

[chortles81]

Whereas for me Tieri has no reputation EXCEPT for this one comic.

As for the Daredevil scene, I imagined that another writer would have claimed that Daredevil's super senses were so strong that he would have detected a missing firing pin/primer/otherwise impending failure-to-fire... whereas the way that Ennis constructs both the scene and the test in-universe specifically relies on Daredevil being unable to sense that the weapon wouldn't fire, much less escape from the chains.

Speaking of which, the scene concludes with Castle promising: "Don't worry, the chains will be gone when you wake up." Wildly different attitude than towards Spidey or Wolvie, at that.