I understand the sales logic behind launching new books during massive universe-wide events, but from a storytelling perspective, it’s a horsebunk concept. The identity of the book is forever entwined with the value (or lack thereof) in the larger crossover story.

Matt Fraction makes the most of it, and fortunately Civil War provided a pretty ideal launching pad for the return of Frank Castle to the Marvel Universe proper. Fraction seems to have somehow ingested every word of overwrought narration written for the Punisher since the late seventies and has woven in an actual personality, tweaking expectations constantly with oddball one-liners. The supporting cast is refreshingly surreal, which seems to underline what makes Fraction’s take on this character so appealing: Instead of totally buying into the reality of a gun-toting psycho who kills criminals, he first embraces the idea’s absurdity, and then layers on some reality as almost an afterthought.

Which brings me to issue 4 of the title, a stand-alone that is almost worth the price of the first trade all by itself: a second-class supervillain wake, bringing together the dregs of Marvel’s bad guys to celebrate the life of Stilt-Man. The situation is mined for all its humor potential (the malfunctioning Doombot was my favorite bit) but there’s a layer of pathos and critique that at first reads like any other hipster fanboy complaining about all the doom and gloom in modern comics.

Until the final few pages, where Fraction lets the story take a very dark turn that forces you to wonder if he was trying to espouse his views on superhero comics all along, or just tweaking expectations yet again before literally burning them to the ground.

In a universe full of oddballs who usually don’t realize just how odd they are, Fraction’s Punisher is the High King of the Oddballs, and in taking that direction, the writer gives us a new, irreverent take on the character and his world. Good stuff.