The Punisher: The Tyger

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The Punisher, as a character, wasn’t fully created until Garth Ennis started writing him.

Ennis’s Punisher yarns make all other creators’ attempts look like failures, even if they were good in their own right. Garth Ennis has taken Frank Castle and made him as much his own as any character he created in Preacher. The Punisher: The Tyger #1 is a testament to just how good Ennis is at his craft.

When the name Garth Ennis is printed on a cover, the first impression I get is that the contents within will not be for the faint-of-heart, morons, or any religious cults. Ennis is

Frank Castle wasn’t fully created until Garth Ennis started writing him.

known for his over-the-top violence, bizarre sexual content, extreme blasphemy, and all the other great stuff that makes a great comicbook. Within the pages of The Tyger #1, however, you will see none of the above. What you do get is an example of how wonderfully Ennis writes the most elusive and disturbing of all literary elements: real, tangible human emotion.

Ennis has made it a point to delve deeply into the origin and the profoundly disturbed psyche of Frank Castle. Frank is, at the base of his crusade, a serial killer, and Ennis asks the burning question, why? Why and how could someone end up becoming The Punisher, the Tyger of our species? That essential equalizer that exists throughout time? The face not made by God?

The answer to these questions has proven to be much more complex than the mere death of his family. Ennis explored Frank’s origin in the mini-series Born, and continued in the terrific one-shot The Punisher: The Cell. The Tyger adds to this mythos by exploring Frank’s childhood, and it shows us that the seeds of the Punisher were sown long before even his pivotal tour in Vietnam.

John Severin’s artwork is nothing less than equal to Ennis’s writing; he gives the story the visual weight it demands. Frank is ten years old in this tale, and he looks ten years old. Frank

John Severin adds a tough-as-nails flair seen only rarely since the EC crime comics of the 1950s.

does not appear like a midget body-builder or a syphilitic child with an oversized head and manga eyes. When Frank is angry, he looks angry, not constipated. The men look like men; the children, like children; the women, like women; and on top of that he adds a dynamic, visual representation of the proper emotions called for by the dialogue. John Severin adds a tough-as-nails flair seen only rarely since the EC crime comics of the 1950s. Along with Garth Ennis, John Severin is obviously a master of his artform, and he pulls no punches with The Tyger.

The cover art, as always, is provided by the talented Tim Bradstreet, and this one especially caught my eye. The visual weights and balances of the composition, the muted color choices, and the overall visual construction make this particular effort extremely successful. It remains iconic, as all Punisher covers are, but with all the combined elements of the composition it also summarizes the story within quite effectively. The image of Frank superimposed over the tiger, while literal in regards to the title, also represents a manifestation of the part of Frank that is The Punisher. So, as far as The Tyger goes, you can indeed judge the book by its cover.

The Punisher: The Tyger #1 is the absolute perfect thing to give that friend who is still holding on to the archaic notion that comics are just for kids, social maladjusts, and/or sexual deviants. It is brilliantly written, the art is accessible and realistic, and it is self-contained. Hell, give it to your teachers, your parents, or anyone who needs the extra push to convince them that comics at their best, being the perfect union of literature and art, represent the single greatest artistic storytelling form to be born in America!