posted by
@Ivo
This Q&A should be released yesterday but due to the recent bombing attempt in Boston we will publish it today.
We condemn this cowardly acts on innocent people. Our hearts are with the bostonians.
We would like to thank Greg Rucka for all his work with the character and to be such a responsive writer to the fans.
We couldn't ask for better writer, in the name of the Punisher community... THANK YOU Rucka, we hope to see you soon!
So, enough talking let's go to the Q&A!
-In your opinion what the Punisher needs
to be succeed in Marvel Comics?
I
normally wouldn’t touch a question like this with a ten foot pole, but since
you’re asking about my opinion, I’ll
give it a shot. I think the Punisher needs a couple of things to work properly.
I think he needs to be given space within the Marvel U, which is to say, I
think whoever is working with him needs to understand that his skill set, and
his place, are distinct – he occupies and works best in those corners of the
Marvel U where other heroes don’t go. He gets the shadows and the corners, even
further afield of Daredevil and the like.
But
that’s not the most crucial thing. I think the most crucial thing is the same
as anyone should give any character they’re working with – Frank needs to be
respected; his smarts, his skills, his depth, all of those things need to be
acknowledged. Without doing that, he just becomes some nut with a bunch of guns
who’s looking to kill a lot of bad guys. That’s – arguably – a starting point
for him, but that’s not the destination.
-Why you decided to retcon his war
origins?
Ultimately,
it was because the idea of Frank in his 70s was becoming more and more
difficult to sustain. Linking him so tightly to a specific conflict (within the
Marvel U) was, in my opinion, limiting, and was going to raise some real
problems, to whit, at a certain point we were going to have to make excuses as
to why Frank’s age wasn’t effecting him. It was already being done, in fact,
and I personally found it distracting.
If
that doesn’t make sense, here’s another way to look at it. Frank is ENTIRELY
HUMAN. That’s one of the things that makes him, as a character, so damn
amazing, in my opinion. He has no mutant powers. He has no God-like powers. He
has no cybernetic enhancements. He’s a man. A well-trained, highly-motivated,
very smart man, with a mission.
And
what he does, he does REALISTICALLY. That’s one of the things at his heart, I
think.
If
you respect all of those things, but then provide him with “cheats” to avoid
the effects of age, I think you undermine that.
We
didn’t make this decision lightly. Steve Wacker and I discussed this for a long
time, and one of the things we realized – at least for how we wanted to portray
Frank in our run – was that the actual conflict he served in wasn’t relevant.
To imply that Vietnam was a “worse” war than the last ten years in Iraq or
Afghanistan, or the European Theatre in WWII, or Korea – is a falss calculus.
War is horrific, even when we try to label one as a “good war” (ie, WWII). We
felt that you could put Frank into any conflict, and you’d still get the same
service; you’d still get a man who went to serve his country and gave
everything he had to that cause, and who returned home only to lose everything
he was fighting for in his heart.
This
is distinct from the MAX version of Frank, mind you. What Garth built, and what
others have expanded upon there, works for a man now in his 70s.
-What do you think that fits better the
character? 616 universe or in MAX?
I
don’t think there is a better fit, per se. They each allow different ways to
tell his stories. I think, obviously, the MAX universe is easier on him – he
has less superhero interference, and you can go to extremes that you simply
can’t touch in the 616. But I’d like to believe that we did a good job showing
how well he fits into the 616, for all that. The stories have to be told
differently, but I believe the character remains fundamentally the same.
-We recently saw Deathstroke cancelation
on DC, do you believe that "antiheroes" have reached their
"expired date"?
No.
I think, as always, the publishers are making their decisions based on what
will sell, what does sell, and those numbers, nothing more or less. Whether or
not the antihero has run its course, I doubt it, but we may – and I stress may
– be in a period of downturn. One of the things comics, and indeed all fiction,
responds to is their moment. We’ve been living in some dark, dark times. One
could argue that the need for simple heroism, rather than the complexity of the
antihero, is more prevalent. But I’m not sure, honestly.
-Before getting this job to write the
Punisher did you ever be in contact with this character in the past? (comics,
movies, etc)
When were the first time?
You
can’t be a fan of superhero comics and not have encountered Frank in some
place, in some form. I’d not really been a fan at all, as I’ve said elsewhere,
though I had loved what Garth in particular had done with the character. I
can’t remember the first time I encountered him, though I suspect it was in
Daredevil when I was very young.
-The best Punisher movie in your
opinion: Punisher '89(Dolph lundgren), Punisher 2004 ( thomas Jane), Punisher
War Zone ( Ray Stevenson)?
I’m
partial to Thomas Jane’s performance, but… honestly, none of the movies have
made me happy. The nature of film is to try and offer a complete story, with
closure. Frank doesn’t want closure.
-Can we expect "Jad"(Alpha)
appearence in comic books?
It’s
possible….
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Shockdingo @ GPA:
"Hey there Mr. Rucka, loved what
you did, not only with Frank's revitalization, but also the creation of
Cole-Alves!
Excellent treatment of the Avengers in
WZ; instead of a cheap win, you had Frank really show off his smarts, but also
his limits and the surprising opinions people like Thor have towards him.
All in all you mad a well rounded work
that I'll fondly remember for the rest of my days.
Onto the questions:
First
off, thank you for the very, very kind words.
1.) Is there anything in particular you
would have liked to do with the book, but were unable to do?
Oh,
sure. There are always ideas and plans, some of them just don’t execute, some
of them just change. But if there’s one thing in particular I’d have liked to
do, honestly, it’s that we had a plan for three books in a sequence – Punisher,
War Zone, and then War Journal. I’d have loved to have seen that all the way
through. The run on The Punisher got cut a little short, but War Zone was
pretty much what Steve and I had envisioned from the start. Journal would’ve
followed Frank once he’d been released by S.H.I.E.L.D. and would’ve put him in
a team, but very different from Thunderbolts; rather, it would be a strike team
of operatives, and it would’ve been some very wet work.
2.) Frank is an engaging character, what
does he mean to you and where would you have wanted to take him in a future
work?
I’ve
said elsewhere that I didn’t have much fondness for the character before Wacker
offered me the job, but that changed very quickly. He is, without question, one
of my favorites I’ve ever written for either Marvel or DC, frankly. I’m
extraordinarily proud to have gotten to write him, frankly.
Future
work, well, that’s an open question. The thing about Frank is that he can
change, but he’s never going to stop being on mission, so to speak. So I don’t
know where I would’ve taken him, honestly. More, I suspect he’d have led me, if
that makes any sense – you don’t boss Frank around, he kinda tells you who he’s
going after next, and why.
3.)Are there any villains he wanted to
involve in a storyline but was unable to?
Not
really. We were very careful about who he could go up against, because the
options were fairly limited – there are only three ways a conflict with Frank
ends, and one of them (him dying) isn’t really an option. Of the other two, one
you can only use sparingly (a stalemate) and the other is that Frank wins,
which normally means whoever he’s targeting is six feet under. So from that
perspective, we had to use characters that could
be killed, even if they weren’t.
That
said, it’d have been fun to throw him against one or two of the bigger guns in
the 616, just to see the result. A Doc Ock/Punisher set-to would’ve been
something to see….
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Deep_Sleeper @ CBR
Did you have a definitive ending in mind
for your Punisher run or did you have an idea of what would sustain the title
8-10 years had you gotten the reader/retailer support?
There
was a definitive ending in mind for The Punisher and for War Zone, both, and we
were able to reach them, although the ending of The Punisher was rushed, in my
opinion. I wanted to take the fall-out post Gerard’s death further, for
instance, and would’ve liked to have spent more time on the build-up to
Cole-Alves’ taking her out. But in the main, we did what we set out to do.
As
I said in the previous answer, there was a plan for a War Journal book that
could’ve run for quite a while, and I think could’ve been sustained if we’d had
the chance to try it.
Also, I have not liked or wanted to read
a Punisher book consistently prior to reading your Punisher run, so thank you
for a great run.
Heh,
well, you and me both! Sounds like we both changed our minds!
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XxSnakeProxX @ CBR
Is there any way you would be up for
returning to write for the Punisher?
Oh,
absolutely! Not even a hesitation there.
Your take on him was fantastic.
Very,
very kind of you to say, especially considering the long list of talent who’d
been there before me. Thank you.
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damian622 @ GPA
In the end he saves Alves because of
emotions/honor/comradeship or because he felt Avengers won't let him do his
mission, so he'll save her so she can continue
it?
I
think Frank would tell you he did it solely for the continuity of the mission,
that he knew the Avengers wouldn’t stop until they had him, and that, at the
very least, that would be a distraction for him; he could spend the rest of his
days avoiding the Avengers, and thus not continuing his mission, or he could
fix things in such a way that allowed him the possibility of continuing it
himself, while making certain operations proceeded.
That’s
what he’d say.
But
I do think that he and Rachel share a bond as fellow Marines, and as soldiers
who’ve both been robbed by the society they’ve sacrificed so much to protect.
Frank would most likely never admit to any emotional connection, however small,
but he certainly recognized their shared camaraderie.
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cat7975 @ GPA
Dear Mr. Rucka, thank you for your
excellent run, I am sure it will be remembered by most of Punisher fans, I know
I will.
Was Frank Castle a hard character for
you to write and if so, then what was the hardest part?
Thank you.
He
wasn’t a hard character for me to write, but he was a very hard character for
me to crack. Let me explain: every character I write, I do my best to get into
their head and their shoes, to see the world through their eyes. Frank’s got a
very dark, very focused view of the world, and it took me a lot of time and a
lot of thought before I felt I really got him. Once I did, though, the writing
was… not easy, but it was there, if
that makes any sense. Once I understood him – meaning, once I had my own take
on him – it was a question of giving him the right situations to put him on
display and set him through his paces.
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MzLizz @ GPA
The Punisher was conceived as a lone
vigilante. He most always works solo,
not in groups or with partners.
What motivated you to have Frank work
alongside someone (although "not a sidekick") in the field?
It
wasn’t so much a need to have him work with anyone as it was a desire to show
him through other characters’ eyes. That said, I wanted to see what Frank would
do if faced by someone who had the potential, through similar circumstances, to
follow his path. Not to become another version of himself, but someone who was
now walking the same road that Frank had already traveled.
A
lot of the characters we love in comics have been around for a very long time,
now, and most of them have had excellent, and in some cases, definitive stories
told about them. I wasn’t at all certain that I could offer anything new about
Frank, but I did think that I could at least offer new points-of-view on who he
is and what he does, and those, by necessity, had to be external. Thus Ozzy,
Bolt, Norah, and Rachel.
There
was another reason, and you mention it in your question, actually. There’s a
reason Frank works alone, and it’s not simply because he can’t trust anyone or
he doesn’t need anyone. The more I thought about Frank, the more I thought
about the fact that he had to be remarkably careful with his emotions. He’s not
crazy, and he’s not a machine. There’s a man in there, and a terribly wounded
one. There’s a man in there who was clearly capable of loving deeply, of
laughter, of joy. That man isn’t dead, but that man has no place in the
mission. So Frank has to keep that man safely locked away. Putting Rachel next
to him challenged that on every level, not because there was a potential for
romance (not in a million years would I have gone there), but because her
circumstances and his were so similar. It created a bond, whether Frank wanted
it or not (and he sure as hell didn’t.) That was my way to challenge him, to
see what he would do. That was the engine of the story.
What attracted you to the idea of making
that person a woman?
It’s
no secret that I like writing female characters, so that was certainly a part –
it was who I wanted to write. I also had been doing a lot of research into
women in the military as a result of the Batwoman work I’d done, and it fed
into the decision. There was also the fact that Frank’s world is very much
male-centric, and bringing in both Rachel and Gerard was a way to challenge
that.
Do you think Marvel takes into
consideration the comic fans' opinions and criticisms of current comic runs?
Absolutely.
Sometimes, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but every publisher
is listening.
Are you yourself cognizant of those
opinions and criticisms while you are writing a comic, and have you altered a
storyline due to fan reactions?
I
do my damndest not to be, honestly. I can only tell the stories that I can
tell, and I try to do that to the best of my ability. It’s my job to serve the
character, and in doing that, serve the publisher. I care about the fans and
their opinions, but I can’t let them drive my decision-making; I’ve been hired
to write the book, presumably because someone felt I could do it well
There’s
always someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing, you know? If I tried to
please everyone, I’d end up with a book that had no direction and no heart, and
that most likely made everyone unhappy, rather than one that made some people
very happy.
I
am not, to my memory, aware of ever having altered a storyline due to fan
reaction or criticism. Perhaps for better, perhaps for worse.
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@sundaymeal @ twitter
Rucka- thank you for respecting this
character. Had this been a longer run, where would you have taken us? Thanks.
I
think I answered this above, but, ultimately, we had hoped to move into a War
Journal book that would’ve had Frank leading a spec ops team for S.H.I.E.L.D.,
doing the kind of wet-work that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t want anyone knowing about.
It would’ve been a loose team book, with maybe three other characters serving
under Frank’s command, and the POV would’ve been from one of those characters.
That would’ve lasted until someone realized what S.H.I.E.L.D. was up to, and
the team disbanded (however long that might’ve taken) and then Frank would’ve
just up and walked away, resuming his own mission.
What past Punisher writers/artists
influenced your work on this run?
I
suppose this is kinda a cop out, but honestly, the biggest influence both in
what I wanted to do and didn’t want to do was Garth’s run in MAX. His work had
a profound effect on me, supplemented by what Jason Aaron was doing. On the art
side, I find it hard to pick out any one, mostly because that’s just not how my
mind works – I focus so much on the writing, I always view the art in service
to the story.
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@DangerRuss77 @ twitter
I`d like to get Ruckas opinion of the
multiple Punisher movies and the inability to really nail the character down in
film.
I’d
like to see an honest-to-God Punisher movie. I think that’s been the biggest
problem – that the movies try to make him something that he isn’t, try to come
up with a conceit that’ll justify everything he does. His origin isn’t the
problem; Hollywood balks at the idea of him continuing to pursue vengeance
after that “personal” quest is attained, in my opinion. What they don’t
understand – and what was so great about the “Dirty Laundry” short film – is
that precisely the point. He’s the Punisher. Most movies want to soften him.
“Dirty Laundry” didn’t.
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@MrRyanClark @ twitter
How many Punisher stories did you read
while researching the character? What were the standouts?
Oh
man, too many to count! I’ve already talked about Garth’s run, I mean… I went
back through the black-and-white phone book collections, I read everything I
could, and I still felt I was missing stuff. For a character who “can’t sustain
his own book” (and those are not MY words), he’s had an awful lot of books
published!
If
you forced me – and I mean FORCED ME – to pick, I’d probably say “Mother
Russia,” for a variety of reasons. I really liked Frank’s interactions in that
one in particular; moving him out of his own AO, for lack of a better phrase,
and putting him into a mission-specific environment.
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Candid Rook @ CBR
1. Did you have plans for Frank beyond
his capture by the Avengers or was that your planned endpoint to the series?
Answered
above!
2. Were there any planned arcs that were
never realised and if so what were they? I know there was something with Frank
vs SHIELD and I think I read something about another Daredevil crossover down
the line.
The
S.H.I.E.L.D. idea was War Journal. There was another DD story that Mark and I
had discussed, as well, dealing more with Matt/Rachel/Frank, and Matt’s
attempts to try and wrest her from, as he saw it, Frank’s influence. There was
also an idea that, once the Avengers had caught Frank, they’d actually try to
put him on trial, and Murdock would’ve had to defend him.
3. Were you required to truncate the
planned Frank vs Avengers storyline due to the mini format?
Other
than the trial idea, not really. It’s probably best that I didn’t do the trial,
actually. I suspect it would’ve been staggeringly boring to read ;)
4. Rachels actions with the accidental
shooting of Walter Bolt put Punisher in a new situation I don't believe any
writer has covered before.
As a fan I just wanted to voice my recognition
of that. Having said that many writers could validly have had Frank take
Rachels life. Interestingly enough, you didn't. Could you tell us about your
justification for Frank letting Rachel live and continue his mission despite
the fact she took the life of an innocent?
I
was sincerely going to have Frank kill her all the way up until I wrote 16, but
the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t make it work. At the start of
the run, the untouchable Frank would’ve probably shot her dead and not blinked,
but I just couldn’t default to such a simple decision; it seemed a disservice
to Frank not to consider more than the action. In a way, it seemed to me, that
doing so would turn him back into the Punisher who snipes jaywalkers, and
that’s… that’s never sat right with me.
Frank
kills, and people call him a killer, but he does so with purpose and direction.
He knows it was a tragic mistake, yet another in a long line that have dogged
both Rachel and himself. He also knows that – unlike himself – Rachel has a
death wish. To kill her for Bolt’s death – a genuine, horrible mistake –
would’ve been, perhaps, too much even for him at that last moment. And while
Bolt is innocent, but he’s not AN innocent; his death isn’t the same as if
Rachel had gunned down a cop on the street. The idea that Frank cannot discern
between these things, that he does not see nuance, doesn’t sit well with me,
you know? It simplifies him too much, and I think that does him wrong. He’s
deeper than that, and smarter than that.
One
could argue that what he does is potentially crueler, really – he forces her to
live on. He takes from her the escape and the peace of ending everything.
And,
tactically – and Frank always thinks tactically – there’s the fact that if
Rachel survives everything she’s done to herself, he’s got another asset on
mission. He’s got someone who, hopefully, gets her head straight and gets to
the work that needs to be done.
5. Would you ever consider coming back
to the character or even doing a MAX take on the character without the
superhero trappings?
Thanks very much for a thoughtful and
well written, if somewhat shortlived, run on Punisher.
I’d
do it in a heartbeat. Seriously.
Thank
you for the very kind and thoughtful words.
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B. Kuwanger @ CBR
Thanks for your work. I've enjoyed
lesser runs before, but I now I'm pretty reluctant to read anyone else on those
characters.
While you were probably very familiar
with him, would you have considered yourself a fan of Frank Castle before going
in, and could you see yourself writing a similar character in the future?
That’s
high praise, thank you.
I
wasn’t a Punisher fan before Wacker really came at me about writing the
character. I’d enjoyed the work of the last ten years or so a great deal, but
he’d never been a character I’d tried to really understand. Wacker forced me to
do that, and in doing, he turned me into a True Believer.
I
don’t know about similar characters. I’ve written revenge stories before, but
the amazing thing about Frank is that he transcends that, he really transcends
the genre and has become something wholly unique. He’s a cross between The Man
with No Name and the Unknown Soldier. He’s just… he’s the Punisher. There’s
nothing else that I’ve read remotely like him.
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TonyStark1012 @ CBR
Thank you Mr. Rucka for your work on one
of my all time heroes. Your run was amazing.
What are some things you wanted to get
too or touch on with Frank that you didn't have a chance to? Again thanks to
adding another great run to an amazing character.
There
was one story that I’d discussed with Wacker, and that I had wanted Michael
Lark to draw. It would’ve come before the showdown with the Exchange, but as
part of the build-up, and there just wasn’t any time to do it.
Essentially,
I wanted to put Frank and Rachel in a hide with a sniper’s rifle, Frank as spotter,
and Rachel as shooter. And the whole issue would’ve been silent, just no
dialogue at all, as they waited for four days for the shot. Just four days of
them switching off and interacting and communicating without any spoken
dialogue, the intense pressure and fear of discovery, all for this one moment
when the trigger could be pulled and the target could be downed.
I
still think that could’ve been either an amazing issue, or a total disaster.
Would’ve
been fun to try it, though.
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aNamored @ CBR
Big time thanks to Mister Rucka for
making the Punisher accessible to someone who never could quite grok the
character before your run.
What was the scene you enjoyed writing
the most? The least?
My
favorite scene has to be the fight between Frank and Rachel leading up to him
“bringing her in” on the mission. That whole issue was a blast for me, and that
moment, the moment where Frank actually speaks to her, where he makes her
choose between mission and her pain, that was something I’d been working for
from the start.
Least
favorite, honestly, was the wedding party massacre in the first issue. It
wasn’t simply the emotional content, but wanting to convey everything as
brutally as possible in the time and space allowed… that had me banging my head
against the wall for a long, long time.
You've mentioned Frank is all about the
mission: do you feel he completed his mission during your time on the book?
Frank
will never complete the mission. It’s impossible, and he knows it, and he keeps
going. But there is always going to be someone who needs to be punished for
what they’ve done.
Would you work with Marco Checchetto
again?
God,
yes. He’s amazing. He’s not just a terrific artist, he’s a terrific
collaborator, and those are two different things. I’d love to work with him
again.
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punisher97 @ CBR
Thanks for an amazing run. Would you
work for Marvel again if they offered you work on another Punisher title?
Also, if you can, please get Checchetto
to do some guest-art on your creator-owned work.
I’d
happily work for Marvel again on Punisher or another project, assuming the
project was the right one for me and they wanted me to do it. I’ve got not
ill-will towards Marvel at all, honestly.
Getting
Marco on a creator-owned project would be fantastic. It would also be
difficult, because most CO projects have a much smaller budget than
work-for-hire.
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James Hunter @ CBR
1) What were your long term plans for
the character of Rachel Cole?
Honestly?
I’d thought she was going to end up dead. I was surprised as anyone when Frank
let her live and put her on mission. I’d like to think she’s still out there in
the 616, on her own, following in Frank’s footsteps. It’d be interesting to see
what happened if they ever met again, but there’s another piece of me that
likes the idea that they NEVER see each other again.
2) If Marvel had not decided to
incorporate Frank in THUNDERBOLTS would you, at any stage, ever have had him
encounter Venom or General Rulk (my name for the Red Hulk)
Uhm…
No.
Never even considered it.
3) Do you plan to do any more stories
for QUEEN AND COUNTRY at Oni Press
Yes!
Hopefully summer 2014!
4) Are you currently working on any
novels?
Thank you for your time.
Just
finished the second Jad Bell novel, called BRAVO-INDIGO. Working on revisions,
and hopefully that’ll be out for summer 2014, as well.
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John Gee @ facebook
Link between WarZone and Thunderbolts -
how did Frank get out of Stark's prison?
Not
a clue.
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Neil Byce @ Facebook
Any clues/ideas on Rachel's future in
the Marvel U. now that Rucka's run is in the bag. Is his run cannon?
I’ve
no reason to believe it’s not canon, but like all things in comics, it’ll be
ignored or acknowledge as others see fit. As far as I’m concerned? Rachel is
working the Western United States, “on mission.” She works alone. She works
very carefully. She’s slower than Frank at target selection and operational
execution, but that’s because she’s still new at it. She’ll get faster as she
gains more experience.
Was Rucka's plans for the detectives
storyline larger than it ended up being in the end?
There
was more to do with Ozzy, Bolt, and Norah, yes, but ultimately it worked out in
the run.
What do you think of future of Frank
Castle in comics?
I
think they’re always going to have the Punisher in print somewhere; not
necessarily in his own book(s), but he’ll always be operating in the 616 and
MAX.
If you could continue with the
character, where would he potential take him?
I’d
have liked to have put him into more of an espionage/spec-ops setting for a
while, with specific targets chosen by Nick Fury or the like.
Were other characters not fleshed out as
much because of the cancellation?
Sure.
I’d have done a lot more with Gerard and Poulsen, honestly, and we’d have seen
a lot more of how Frank and Rachel worked together – and didn’t work together,
for that matter.
Is there a future that doesn't feel like
a retread for this character?
The
thing with Frank is that he CAN change, but he can only change incrementally,
and in a manner that won’t alter his fundamental design, ie, the pursuit of the
mission. But there are more stories, always more stories, and there will always
be new ways to look at what’s been done. I don’t think we should fear a retread
as much as a compromise of who he is, if that makes sense. I don’t want him
simplified. I don’t want him cheated.
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Derek Bergquist @ Facebook
Does this War Zone arc tie in at all to
Frank's role in Thunderbolts? Is it simply independent of Thunderbolts and vice
versa? Thanks.
Not
to my knowledge. My head canon says War Zone, prison, then Thunderbolts.
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Jacob Williams @ Facebook
Will you come on Body Count?
(http://punisherbodycount.com/)
I’d
be happy to. Contact me via twitter or tumblr or through the Lady Sabre website
(www.ineffableaether.com).
Why did you keep doing the husband's
name thing over and over and over again?
To
annoy you ;)
Honestly?
Because Rachel couldn’t let it go. You say it was me, but it wasn’t, it was her
character. She was obsessed, and that’s why she never, ever, could let it pass.
She could not let go of what she’d lost.
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@csksos @ Twitter
Will u be writing Punisher novels? Will
u return for more comics?
No
plans for any Punisher novels, no. And I’d certainly be up for returning if the
invitation was extended.
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Blackstone @ GPA
Mr. Rucka:
Eventually, would Frank have killed some
established villains, or would you have created more threats for him to take
out?
That’s
a harder question than you might think. I went to editorial a few times asking
who Frank could kill, and the answer kept changing. If the book(s) had
continued, he’d have to eventually have come face-to-face with some of the big
villains. Whether I’d have been allowed to kill them or not, I can’t say.
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Astro @ GPA
What is your current feeling's on how
The Punisher has been treated in all form's of media. (Movie's, Cartoon's and
Yes Canceled Volumes and run's through the years)
I feel the world doesn't understand the
message the character is trying to portray.
Not the violence and anger just the
ultimate state of the world. (90's Frank stories pulled from real crime
stories)
Not like Batman were it's a different
world and a city that doesn't exist. Is it that this character could exist?
I’m
really not sure how to answer this. Frank runs very close to our reality, as
you’ve pointed out, and that may be why his popularity rises and falls as our
own situations change. We live in a world where crime is less of a concern now
than terrorism, where the nature of war has changed dramatically. It could
simply be that it’s a cycle, and that each time Frank wanes we know he’ll wax
strong again.
I
think, honeslty, that good Punisher stories need to make people a little
uncomfortable. Not always about Frank, but about the darkness and evil that he
confronts and fights. That’s hard medicine, and not a lot of people want to
take it at the best of times.
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Sissel @ CBR
-Is there something about your scripts
that you would have changed?
Not
that I can think of.
-Did they offer you to work on a
Punisher MAX title? And if not, would you have written one?
Nope,
wasn’t offered. I’d be interested in doing one, though only because of the
different continuity, rather than because of the explicitness MAX could
provide.
-Did you like the work done by Carmine
di Giandomenico on Punisher: War Zone?
I
did, but I had to warm to it, as I’d been very much on board with Marco,
obviously. But I thought Carmine’s work was perfect for War Zone.
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Decimated @ GPA
Hello, I've got one! Other than seeing
Frank in a modern day military outfit in a flashback, it wasn't explicitly
stated that Greg's run was a reboot even though the series stood on it's own
and didn't reference recent continuity (which was a great choice).
It seems to have been deliberately left
vague as to how this run fit in with Frank's recent adventures, although it did
reference Franks encounter with Daredevil in the 80s, which blurs the issue
even more.
I'm just a bit curious had the series
continued would it have become clearer that Frank was now a Gulf War vet, or
was he still a Vietnam vet made youthful by the bloodstone?
Honestly,
probably not. The nature of 616 time is that it’s so fluid, it’s nearly
impossible to fix things to a point. Saying Frank is a Vietnam vet versus a Gulf
War vet versus an Afghanistan vet becomes a mish-mosh, and perhaps misses the
point. In MAX, his Vietnam experiences are crucial, and placed specifically in
Vietnam. But I’d argue that in the 616, the actual conflict in which he served
is far less important than the fact that he DID serve, and that he served with
honor. The focus on Vietnam seems to me to be a holdover from the 1970s, and a
reaction to failures of the war, but those are not, sadly, unique to that
conflict.
The
decision to move away from Vietnam was never intended to disregard or
disrespect anything that had been done, but rather to address a perceived
problem with his age without damaging the character’s core – ie, that he’s just
a man, a flesh and blood man with a lot of purpose and a lot of smarts. This is
why I’ve always viewed the whole bloodstone thing with great suspicion. It just
never seemed to fit my view of Frank, in the same way that, say, having him get
bit by a radioactive spider doesn’t fit.
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Final message to the Punisher fans:
You
are an amazing group of fans. Seriously. I have written Batman, I have written
Superman and Wonder Woman and Wolverine and you name the character, I’ve
probably put words in their mouth. But Punisher fans are a breed apart, and
your passion for Frank and his journey is why he is never, ever going to fall.
He’ll have bad times and good times, like every character, but you are the ones
who make sure he stands up again and keeps going.
You
have no idea what a privilege it’s been for me to add to his stories, and no
idea how flattered and proud I am that, for the most part, you’ve seemed
pleased with my work.
Thank
you for your questions, and thank you for trusting me with Frank.
Best,
Greg
END
How do you feel? Kind of bittersweet right? Give your opinion to us on Twitter, Facebook or give it a shout here in the blog comments.
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In the interview we got some insight of the first great "event" of this team and for the info Soule's give to us it seems the team will have some trouble more than they can handle. 
