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

[korvar]

Yeah, that's pretty grim.

I always thought any rivalry between Wolverine and the Punisher was rather stupid - they're more alike than different.

I thought it would be funny if it was all some elaborate long con against some villain who needed to be convinced they hated each other. And the whole gay porn thing was just another of a series of pranks between the two.

[lucean]

I think it is letting Ennis off easy by saying that he was poking fun at those characters. Ennis would always, when given an opportunity, to go out of his way of putting down superheroes in an embarassing manner, with Superman being the exception, and how his Real Men characters were better in every single way.

That is, however, not to defend Tieri, as that scene is icky in so many ways.

[veleda_k]

Yes, that's my take. Nothing makes that scene anything other than gross (What the hell, Tieri?), but I've never seen Ennis's shots at other heroes as lighthearted fun.

[espanolbot]

With Ennis it pretty much depends on his mood, what series it is, and when in his career he happens to be writing the story. His relatively recently written JLA/Hitman story, for example, is a lot less scathing in its depictions of Batman than the actual Hitman story was, for example. He also did a pretty good version of Wonder Woman too, and admitted that like Superman she's a character that he can actually understand why they're the way they are.

Additionally, when he's writing a straight-up Batman story, he writes it like an actual Batman story rather than as a parody of one, if that makes sense? Basically if he likes what he's been hired to write, you can really tell it by how the story unfolds. If he's annoyed at something, he can either make the target of his scorn look ridiculous (like Wolverine did in Punisher Max), powertripping idiots (zombie survivalists in Crossed), or are horribly murdered (human traffickers in the Slavers).

As for the Real Men trope that appeared in his earlier works... yeah, that's something that he realised himself wasn't that great a stock character either, and has gone on to deconstruct it in works like the Boys, for example. His later works

[cainofdreaming]

To quote Sluggy Freelance - "One man's 'birds of a feather' is another's 'muscling in on my territory'."

But, yup, there have been some good bits when they haven't just instantly gone at each other's necks. Like that storyline in War Zone where the Avengers went after Castle, Logan helped Castle with getting his one time partner out of a death sentence. And was generally heck of a lot more amiable in their interaction than in 99% of their meetings.

[junipepper]

wtf, seriously, this is vile.

[halloweenjack]

In particular, his work on Punisher pre-MAX jobbed Wolverine, Spider-Man and Daredevil, more than once; I felt like Ennis was deliberately trying to convince Marvel to give him a MAX series where it would be Frank and Nick Fury and no other Marvel characters, and he could write the kind of stories that he really wanted to write.

[halloweenjack]

It's also worth noting that the first story bears some remarkable similarities to the Hitman/Lobo special that Ennis also wrote--catchphrase-spewing grimdark superhealer, damage with construction machinery.

[starwolf_oakley]

Frank Tieri is better than this. He did a great Weapon X series that did quite well in resolving some continuity questions about Grant Morrison's revelations. He also did a DARK REIGN: LETHAL LEGION miniseries about Avengers villains not thrilled with Norman Osborn being in charge.

[thanekos]

Badass normal vs. superhuman- unless the outcomes's a draw, someone's gonna cry bullshit.

(There was a Punisher/Superior Spidey team-up that gave good moments for both sides- you got a page of Frank disorienting Spider-Man with flashbangs and putting a gun to him, and a page of Otto webbing the Punisher to a wall and making it very clear he could claw his throat out.)

[lucean]

Well, yeah, the Hitman/JLA was a lot less scathing on Batman, but it did go brutally after other heroes and became some kind of idiotic ode for the sacrifice of Hitman for doing what the JLA would not, which is to kill, which was kind of a bizarre sacrifice as that was the character's solution to almost everything. As for if he writes a Batman, he actually has a written a Batman story, Leviathan if I remember correctly, in which he relentlessly bashes GCPD and Gordon as being incompetent and reduces Batman to basically being a sidekick to his Real Man vietnam vet ex-cop and his partner who really solve things.

As for the Punisher storyline, I really doubt anyone went to him and told him to include Spiderman, Daredevil or Wolverine to his stories, I much more suspect that he just wanted to bash them for being popular. As for the Boys, that was about as Real Men as you could get and have you actually seen an interview with him admitting that problem, as he does seem to continue to trend? Even his female main characters end up following the Real Men trope.

I repeat, maintaining that Ennis is somehow just gently poking fun at superheroes is giving him far too much leeway, as he will jump at any opportunity to express his scorn at them, and maintaining that his approach was somehow less distasteful than what Tieri did is really one-sided to me.

[flint_marko]

So now it's canon that Wolverine's a homophobe.

I guess it's not that surprising, he refused to make a GSA in WatXM, and his perfect dream of Daken involved Daken going to a prom with a girl.

[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.

[arilou_skiff]

You could probably do something with Punisher and his repressed sexuality.

This? This isn't it.

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.

[espanolbot]

Generally everything that I've read of his seems to be mediocre at best. Such as Punisher Noir, which consisted entirely of reworked versions of Ennis' characters in a "Noir" setting, or Gotham Underground, a post-Salvation Run Batman book where the only notable things about it were it had one of the few reappearances of Steph Brown post-resurrection, and how the majority of the characters were either rewritten to be more like Marvel versions (Vigilante was rewritten to be like Frank Castle, Tobias Whale became even more like the Kingpin than he previously was) or just created from whole cloth to be direct homages to similar characters from Marvel (Johnny Stitches being basically Jigsaw but with a backstory tied to the New Gods).

From what I've read at least, his work seems primarily to be either be built on other people's material for the most part.

[grumman]

Yeah, Frank's problem is that he's still faithfully married to his wife, and he will never, ever get over what was done to her. Nudie mags would still be just as out of character if they featured women.

[servant_iskandar]

IMHO, both authors manage to score a very debatable performance through this comparison, and that's because they've purposefully set the bar very, very low in these two stories.

Personally, I feel like I'm reading bad fanfiction on the net, of the "Juvenile humor meets strawman meets Marty Stu" sort, with a liberal dose of prejudice mixed in. There's no doubt Frank is Ennis' strawman in that cycle, and the same can be said for Tieri's depiction of Logan here, with the awful (and nonsensical) "U R Gay" innuendo stacked on top.

To me, both authors should have recognized things went too far, offering an apology to the audience (up to and including LGBT readers, of course) -and- to the original creators of the characters they were handling. Had I been, say, Len Wein or Claremont, I'd have felt pretty peeved.

The fact both have written better stuff shouldn't allow them to duck the issue. Because let's face it: Ennis recycled his Hitman vs. Lobo story, dialing the "add insult to injury" factor to the max, and Tieri in return went straight for the OMG MUSCLE MAGS U MUST BE HOMO rimshot.

I believe that such weak writing cannot be condoned with "Y'know, here I was CONSCIOUSLY trying to be edgy and stomping all over the place in true ultraviolent, over the top fashion, and besides those are Real Men characters" - an excuse you could hear from both.

Just my two cents, but Mark Millar isn't always alone in juggling that particular ball, as this instance seems to prove.

[ablackraptor]

GSA? I'm not really good with recognizing acronyms, so I'm not sure what that means.

[silverhammerman]

Gay Straight Alliance. I think a good number of high schools have them these days, they're basically a semi-organized student group that acts as a safe space for students to deal with issues of gender and sexuality.

[mrstatham]

"a post-Salvation Run Batman book where the only notable things about it were it had one of the few reappearances of Steph Brown post-resurrection"

Where it wasn't even confirmed to be Steph. It was implied, but nothing was ever confirmed, largely because Dixon decided to bring her back right around the same time.

But yeah. GU was incredibly bland, and as I've said elsewhere, Tieri is largely a one trick pony where the trick isn't even that good. His Marvel work as of late breaks down to, again, 'major shit is going down and keeping heroes occupied, these z-list villains are going to get up to some wacky yet inevitably dull hijinx while it's going on'. And his villains don't even sound distinct. They all sound the same/trying too hard to be cool, whereas Spencer on Superior Foes certainly makes the characters sound different, to say the least, but at least distinct.

[mrstatham]

Rucka did amazing work of actually integrating a Frank that actively worked alongside other characters into the Marvel Universe during his far too short run. During the War Zone climax, he essentially comes to a draw with Spider-Man after being webbed down and it's noted it's because Peter's one of the people he encounters most frequently, he only manages to pilot an Iron Man armour because of how intuitively Tony designs them, and he doesn't even fight the likes of Thor or Black Widow or Wolverine properly; He lures Nat to a place where he knows her morality will win out in favour of helping people in trouble over chasing him, and he basically drinks with Thor who only gently coerces him to give up.

[espanolbot]

Oh yeah, I just remembered another moment I disliked about Gotham Underground. After all the character development that Paul Dini did for the second Ventriloquist over in Detective Comics, Tieri just had her led off to be "hurt" in an offhand comment in one of the issues. *sigh* She doesn't die, if only because Dini was still writing a story with her, but he still had a mentally ill woman apparently beaten or whatever offscreen... which is all the more unfortunate considering her own backstory of domestic violence.

[espanolbot]

Eh, I think that there is a difference between Ennis writing a parody of a character (while still admitting that that Wolverine is dangerous), and Tieri outright going "Your character is stupid and gay!".

[mrstatham]

Mm. That was really unfortunate, but unsurprising given it's Tieri. I really liked Peyton as the new Ventriloquist, too - she was really quite underrated in an entire run that was underrated thanks to Morrison's run going on at the same time.

[starpiper]

I guess it's not that surprising, he refused to make a GSA in WatXM...

Wait, wait, wait, wait...what? Wolverine outright said he didn't want the kids to have a GSA? Why?

[flint_marko]

He said it when he was answering one of the letter pages for WatXM. He basically used the "We don't need it, it's not an issue anymore" argument.

[starpiper]

...wow. Just...wow. You can tell this was written by a really clueless straight person. :(