The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe is more than just a reprint of the 1995 Garth Ennis/Doug Braithwaite one-shot of the same name. It also includes the four-issue miniseries Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher, released in 2010 from the team of Jonathan Mayberry and Goran Parlov. Both take place in alternate timelines, with the former following Frank Castle as he takes revenge on every Marvel hero and villain following the accidental death of his family in the midst of a routine super-powered battle. The latter sees Frank’s attempts to kill everything that moves in a world similar to 28 Days Later (name-dropped in the book itself), in which the world has been decimated by a cannibal plague that infected heroes and villains alike. Both are totally over the top, but one worked better for me just a little more than the other.
The titular one-shot is an exercise in excess, but it’s one that I find to be bizarrely entertaining every time I revisit it. Yes, there’s not much to the story itself beyond a series of increasingly improbable set pieces of Frank killing various heroes and villains. However, the pacing of the story and Frank’s brief moments of self-reflection really aid in making this book feel like a worthy companion to Ennis’ later work with the character. It feels like Ennis really put in the time to think about how to take out some of these heavy-hitters, too. One memorable sequence sees Frank dropping a nuclear warhead on a meeting of some of the world’s most powerful mutants, while another sees the Punisher using Spider-Man and Venom against one another. And as I mentioned in a recent episode of the AIPT Comics Podcast, my favorite darkly comedic beat involves the Punisher, Doctor Doom, and a sledgehammer.
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Beyond the alt-universe hook and some cynical moments that genuinely made me laugh, however, there’s not much substance to the story. The bulk of the one-shot is made up of the aforementioned murder scenes, then an abrupt moment of self-reflection that causes Frank to bring his mission to an end. The dialogue is largely boilerplate, filled with platitudes on the nature of revenge and whether or not Frank’s mission is a righteous one (an argument that will be continued in the next miniseries collected in this trade paperback). It should be noted that Braithwaite’s artwork is stellar, giving us some fantastic character acting from Frank and a few truly gnarly action sequences. We need to believe in Frank’s conviction, even in the face of pleading heroes, and Braithwaite sells that this is a man who never shies away from doing what he believes must be done (aside from that abrupt ending, as I said).
The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe is a fun time, but slight. Ennis is clearly having a good time here (despite reports that parts of his script were changed behind his back), and the connections the story draws between Frank and Matt Murdock are compelling, even if they don’t add up to much before the story’s conclusion. Overall, this is a story worth seeking out for fans of Ennis’ later Punisher work, but it’s not exactly essential.
Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher is excellent at setting a mood right up top. We meet Frank as he’s in the process of killing Deadpool, which he describes as a chore that he’s had to take care of several times. Frank has even more survivors’ guilt than usual, as he may have in fact caused the outbreak that destroyed the world. There’s some compelling backstory communicated in this first issue, revealing that Frank feels personally responsible for the end of the world. The flashbacks to the first days of the outbreak are genuinely chilling as well, particularly when a routine fight between Spider-Man and Rhino takes a hyper-violent turn. Mayberry and Parlov smartly keep a lot of the really gory stuff just off-panel, particularly in the flashbacks, which makes for a clean break between the age of heroes and the apocalyptic landscape in which Frank now finds himself.
Frank’s characterization is solid as well. It’s easy to see why Marvel chose to collect this story next to the Ennis/Braithwaite book, as the two versions of the Punisher feel like they have a very similar ethos: He will keep fighting until it kills him, and he will take as many of the other side down with him as he can. It’s not an especially deep read of the character in either story, but the iconography and Frank’s iron will is largely enough to carry the plot and the action sequences forward.
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On the negative side of things, the characterization of the infected heroes is a bit all over the shop. Some are portrayed as mindless, drooling fiends, others are monosyllabic yet hyper-intelligent, some speak in full monologue and appear to have all of their physical and mental faculties, others are leering, maniacal villains that hardly resemble the heroes we know. Even Spider-Man seems to change speech patterns between issues, going from making a deal with Frank in one issue to “Me Tarzan, you Jane”-esque grunts in the next. The lack of cohesion makes the overall threat a bit unclear, and while it’s interesting to see Frank talk about adapting to a new threat, the solutions never really amount to more than “get a bigger gun.”
We also devote a good bit of real estate to explaining the origin of the breakout and how Frank came to be immune, only to reveal other people in the world are similarly immune. This apparent incongruity is addressed in later sequels to this miniseries, but it reads like a bit of a plot hole when taken on its own in this collection. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the appearance of the Kingpin’s severed head in the first issue — even though Kingpin is revealed to be a thriving warlord later in the miniseries.
I’m also not wild about the way this book utterly removes any agency from its sole female character, Mary Jane. Not only is she never referred to by name in the book — but frequently called Spider-Man’s “mate” or “the Spider’s bitch” on more than one occasion — but she spends it in a tattered sub-Red Sonja outfit. Most of her time on the page is spent clinging to Frank’s leg like a rejected draft of the Star Wars poster, her eyes wide with fear and her pregnant belly protruding from under a makeshift bra and loincloth. Mary Jane, who is still human after the outbreak, seems to have no issue with the fact that her husband is a murderous monster.
That being said, the action is nicely paced, particularly in the scenes that mix battles with flashbacks. One of my favorite sequences involves Frank recalling the death of Wolverine at the hands of the Hulk, and how Frank manages to bring things full circle with an adamantium arrow. I also quite like some of the zombified character designs. Though some of them seem to have just stuck to their old superhero costumes, others have learned to accessorize for the wastelands with tooth necklaces and bits of armor. Deadpool in particular has a great look, almost like his costume is a bag holding all his various pieces inside.
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All in all, The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe collection is a bit of a mixed bag. The stories collected here kind of link together thematically, but the Ennis/Braithwaite has a stronger balance of tone, managing to give us some truly hilarious violence mixed with surprisingly sincere pathos. It’s a clear indicator that Ennis had a particular take on Frank Castle, and it’s a fun alternate universe companion/predecessor to his later Punisher MAX work. The second miniseries is less successful in my opinion, as it struggles to balance the Mad Max-inspired carnage with spiritual and philosophical pontification, raising questions about the nobility of the Punisher that it never quite answers (and maybe that’s the point, but it just doesn’t land for me). Both stories are largely a parade of increasingly unlikely sequences of the Punisher killing your faves, and neither of them are high art, but the former is just more mean-spirited fun.
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