READING BETWEEN THE PANELS

For the most part, I feel that the one-shot stories being pumped out of the \"Big Two\" (Marvel, DC) every month are loads of horseshit. Occasionally I come across some, however, that have a skillfully-assembled creative team, and within the pages, you can tell that each individual involved genuinely cared for the project they were creating.
Marvel’s series of \"The End\" stories is a chronicle of the last days of various Marvel heroes-- possible swan songs for the characters, if you will. In this series I have found some (albeit little) hope.
So far, Marvel has released crescendos for three characters: The Hulk, Wolverine, and The Punisher. Now, I’ve got to admit to you that I haven’t read all three, but from what I have read, you can score two in the win column, and one in the crapper. Right now, I really only want to discuss the one I think is the best, The Punisher: The End. It seems to be the one most dedicated to and in touch with the character\'s roots, while still displaying an interesting story that drives you to the end.
The story was written by the man who has single-handedly (with assistance from all the wonderful artists he’s worked with, of course) defined The Punisher for the new millennium (Do people still call it that?), Garth Ennis. For Christ’s sake, it seems like this guy was fucking born to write The Punisher! He never fails to deliver in terms of consistent characterization, dead-on portrayal, and finding innovative and fresh ways to do what The Punisher does best: kill.
This 48-page joyride was illustrated by Richard Corben. My first exposure to Corben\'s name was in a 1996 Batman story, and I really wasn’t interested in his art. Unbeknownst to me, this man brought the world the album cover to Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell. (Shows you what I know.) And with the release of this story, I officially want to change my tune. Corben’s work is so gritty, I’m fucking spitting sand through my teeth just thinking about it. His portrayal of the aged Frank Castle, I dare say, one-ups the older Bruce Wayne/Batman from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. His scenes of grizzly carnage in the post-apocalyptic United States are some of the most disturbing images I’ve seen in comics to date. The abstract factors of Corben’s art play well to the surreal, fantastic, yet all-too-possible world we find ourselves in with this story. I just can’t say enough. This is the best mainstream book of the year.
To give you an in-depth summary of the story would be robbing you of the total experience of reading this for the first time yourself. But I’ve got this for you: \"In a dead world there’s still work to be done. A long mission would finally come to an end the only way it could. The Punisher: The End.\"
Please, please, please find and read this book.