Heroes Never Rust #65: Feed the Beast

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

Tags

Born #4, Darick Robertson, Frank Castle, Garth Ennis, sean ironman, The Punisher, Tom Palmer

Heroes Never Rust #65 by Sean Ironman

Feed the Beast: What a Man Must Become to Survive Vietnam

Many of the Marvel Comics characters created in the 1960s have their origin tied to war. The Fantastic Four tried to beat the Russians to Mars during the Cold War. The Incredible Hulk was born during a gamma bomb test. The Punisher didn’t make his first appearance until 1974, but maybe he’s lasted so long because his origin is tied to war, like the others. Characters like the Fantastic Four and the Hulk were created, were scarred, because of some deeply human trait. They are parables to show us mankind’s flaws. They are comics that want peace, not warmongering—no matter how many battles those heroes find themselves in. The Punisher fits into that idea. Some readers prefer stories where the protagonist is a good person. I am not one of those readers. I don’t have to agree with the protagonist’s actions. I don’t agree with what the Punisher does, but I can understand it. That’s enough for me. In the final issue of Born, Frank Castle gets the closest he will get to becoming the Punisher until his family dies. And it’s in the midst of battle.

The issue opens with the greatest panel sequence in the miniseries. A close-up of an American soldier holding his face in both hands. Blood is on his hands. It’s raining. More blood flows and drips down his hands. He removes them from his face and he has no eyes and half his nose is gone. His mouth is filled with blood. In the final panel, he falls face first into a puddle and dies. “There is a Great Beast loose in the world of men,” the narration over the first panelr reads. “It awoke in dark times, to fight a terrible enemy. It stormed through Europe, across the far Pacific, and crushed the evil that it found there underfoot.” According to the narration, this “Great Beast” came to destroy evil. It was good at one point. But now that evil has been defeated, there is no putting away the Great Beast. “So the Great Beast must be fed: and every generation, our country goes to war to do just that.” The second and third page is a shot of the Vietnamese overpowering American troops. Castle and a few others fire from behind sandbags. Grenades are thrown. Pieces of heads are blown apart. There’s a severed arm off to the side. mid-air. The narration reads, “Today is the day we feed the Beast.”

It’s not long before Castle, Goodwin, and Angel, along with many more make a run for it. Angel stops to fire at the enemy. Goodwin tries to get him to keep running. Angel manages a few words before his head is blown clear off. “There ain’t no God, fool! Look around you! there ain’t no muthafuckin’ God!”

Anti-aircraft guns are used on the Vietnamese. Some are blown away. But there are just too many enemy soldiers. American jets fly overhead and drop bombs. “I was so certain I would make it,” Goodwin says in narration. “The big freedom bird. Thirty-six and a wake-up. I am out of here. In the end I can do no more than follow on a killer’s heels, rushing with him to his Alamo.” A soldier aflame runs at Goodwin with a bayonette ready to strike. Goodwin is grabbed and pulled into a plane. Beautiful flight attendants call his name. One says, “You made it, you silly son of a bitch.” He smiles with tears in his eyes and the plane flies off into the white of the background. He’s dead.

As Castle blows away Vietnamese soldiers, and actually stabs one in the stomach with the rifle when the barrel burns out, a voice tempts him. The voice says it can help him. Castle just needs to accept the help. Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I don’t believe the voice to be of supernatural origin. I believe it’s inside Castle. I believe Castle accepts the beast within himself. He becomes a savage. He lets go of his humanity to fight his order. And he lives. He should have died in that battle, but against all odds, he pulled through.

Goodwin couldn’t give up his humanity. He couldn’t give up on his hope to return home to the good America. Castle gave up everything he had and he survived. He fed the Great Beast inside. He returns to America. The last shot of Vietnam is of Goodwin, blood soaking his shirt where his heart would be. His corpse is left behind. Maybe that’s what happens in war. There’s no humanity left by the end. Castle goes home, but he’ll never be the same. The Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk turn into something inhuman, but are still able to hold onto their humanity underneath. A lot happened in the world in the 1960s. The Punisher still looks human, but he’s not complete. Vietnam has created that hole in him.

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Photo by John King

Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #62: Vietnam, the Good America, and the Real Origin of the Punisher

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

≈ 1 Comment

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Garth Ennis, The Punisher

Heroes Never Rust #62 by Sean Ironman

Vietnam, the Good America, and the Real Origin of the Punisher

I’ve written about my love for the Punisher before. To me, Frank Castle is one of the most interesting fictional characters. And I do mean fictional characters, not just comic book characters. He is the only character that causes me to argue with myself every week about whether or not to write a story or a screenplay even though without the rights I’ll never be able to publish it. The greatest Punisher writer is Garth Ennis. He wrote for The Punisher Marvel Knights series, which was a dark comedy take on the character, and he wrote The Punisher Marvel Max series, which was a violent, serious drama. Both work and both are fantastic. One of his best Punisher stories is Born, a four-issue mini-series about Frank Castle before he becomes the Punisher, when Frank is a soldier on his third tour in Vietnam in 1971.

For those of you who don’t know who the Punisher is (and shame on you):

Frank Castle is a Vietnam vet. One day, he goes to Central Park with his wife and young daughter and son. Two rival gangs get into a gunfight, and the Castle family is killed. Frank survives. Then, he decides to wage a war on crime. He spends the rest of his life killing gangsters and other criminals. That’s basically all you need to know to enjoy Born.

Every story requires a suspension of disbelief on the reader’s end. Whether it’s a huge jump the reader has to make, or a small one. The reader may not react a certain way to an event, but they must be willing to believe the character in the story would. The writer is not totally “off the hook,” however. The writer must provide a consistent fictional world. By consistent, I mean a fictional world that may operate by its own rules but rules nonetheless. George R.R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire novel series, which forms the basis of HBO’s Game of Thrones, has dragons and magic, but there are still rules for those fantasy elements.

The Punisher is no different. Even though, he exists in a world that is somewhat close to our world, he is still fictional. The problem that has always plagued the Punisher is that he continues to kill criminals long after those who killed his family were punished. Why would he continue? This question is also what separates him from other vigilantes going after bad guys who hurt or killed someone they loved. Born provides the answer.

Vietnam is especially important for the characterization of the Punisher. Captain America fought against the greatest evils of the world during World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans came together as a country. Vietnam divided America. World War II vets were treated as heroes, while Vietnam vets neglected and resented. Regardless of facts, World War II is viewed as good men standing up to evil. Vietnam is viewed as a mistake, something America should have never gotten involved with. Good and evil, right and wrong, doesn’t seem to have a place in Vietnam. Soldiers went through hell and for what?

The Punisher, to me, is a romantic. Stevie Goodwin, one of the main characters in Born, says, “I will not fall in love with war like Captain Castle.” But, I don’t think Castle loves war. There is no joy when he’s gunning down Viet Kong. There is no joy when he allows a superior officer to go out on a hill where there is a known enemy sniper. I don’t think the Punisher feels joy. If the Punisher loved war, he would show emotion. He would show bloodlust. Stevie also states about Frank Castle that “his dedication to his men is total…Since he arrived, six months ago, not one patrol that he has led has suffered K.I.A.” Frank Castle doesn’t take risks just to fight the enemy. He is a man who refuses to accept that good and evil doesn’t exist, that there is no set right and wrong. He sees the world in black and white and will never see the grays. I believe that the Punisher believes he is sacrificing his own soul to fight for what is right. America is still good and right to him and the enemy must be stopped. After Vietnam, when his family is gunned down randomly on a picnic, he snaps. His mind can’t handle the idea of randomness. The good triumph and the bad are punished. Vietnam is the perfect backdrop for him. It’s what’s been missing from the film adaptations.

At the end of the first issue of Born, Frank Castle sits alone as the sun sets. It’s the first time we get interiority from him. “You got your war a stay of execution. But it won’t last. You know that.” Some readers have put forth the idea that these are not Castle’s thoughts, but a supernatural being such as the devil or Mephisto. I don’t buy it, though it could be interesting. There’s no other supernatural element to the series so it wouldn’t quite fit. I believe these narration boxes are Frank Castle talking to himself, being honest with himself. While I don’t think the Punisher loves war, I think he needs war. I don’t think he needs war to be happy. I don’t think he can be happy, even with his family. I think he is fulfilled by war. Vietnam has killed him. He has no purpose without war. Refusing to see the world as shades of gray, war allows him a clear enemy. As long as there is war, he can raise his rifle, he can shoot, he can stop those that would do harm to him and his men. He knows how to do those things. He can protect the American dream that no longer exists, maybe never did.

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Heroes Never Rust #61: The Golden Age That Never Was

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

≈ 1 Comment

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Captain America: Dead Men Running, Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts

Heroes Never Rust #61 by Sean Ironman

The Golden Age That Never Was

Last week, I finished reading Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, which is about the U.S. ambassador to Germany and his family in the 1930s. Throughout the book, Hitler and his men beat, imprison, and kill, while Americans refuse to stand up to the madman. Germany owed the United States a lot of money following World War I so the American government couldn’t make Hitler angry. At one point, President Roosevelt and other government officials attempt to put a stop to mock trials Jewish organizations were going to hold for Hitler in New York and Chicago. They succeeded in stopping the one in Chicago. Moments like that were the most interesting parts of the book.

I’ve heard it said before (and I’ve been one to say it) that World War II is the closest to a comic book war. On one side is Hitler and his cronies, beings of pure evil, and on the other side the Allied forces, good men and women from across the world fighting for freedom. But that’s not entirely true. Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 and he gained full power when President Hindenburg died in August 1934. But the United States didn’t get involved until after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. And, even then, the U.S. didn’t declare war on Germany, only Japan. Hitler had to declare was on the United States a few days later for Americans to fight in Europe. It’s a nice thought to think of America, my home country, as the defender of freedom, defender of the weak. But, at the end of the day, that’s bullshit.

It was the same in World War I. The United States fought Germany then because German submarines kept sinking cruise liners (the latest being the Lusitania) with American passengers. Although, what’s been forgotten is that the United States was selling ammunitions to the British and the RMS Lusitania was carrying small-arms ammunitions at the time it was attacked. The United States is still the same today. We have problems at home and we should concentrate on Americans. That’s what people say. I don’t know. I don’t agree with that, but that’s a topic for a different type of blog.

I don’t know what it is that makes us look back so fondly and make the past better than it was. Maybe it’s a simple case of history is written by the winners. Maybe it’s us today trying to rationalize when we mess up or fail to act. “Well, it’s not as simple as it used to be.” “We don’t know who the enemy is anymore.” “Things are more complicated today, due to…computers, or the economy, or…kids and their short attention spans.” Whatever. Let’s just accept that we’re bad people. That someone is bad, not because he or she does bad things, but because he or she doesn’t do good things.

We need someone like Captain America to remind us of that. Our man out of time. In Captain America: Dead Men Running #3, Sergeant Solo, in the ruins of an attack from the cocaine mafia, yells at the super soldier. “Take a look around, Captain! We don’t live in a black-and-white movie anymore! It might’ve been easy to do the right thing back in your times, but this is a different world! A hard one!”

Captain America can put him straight. He lived through the war. He tells the sergeant about arresting an American soldier for raping old women and about an officer who shot prisoners in the stomach to watch them die slow. It’s a choice. It doesn’t matter the time period. People can choice to be good or to be assholes.

Sergeant Solo makes the right choice in the end. Not for him or for the other soldiers. Captain America takes the kids and the remaining nuns and hits the road. The soldiers who started this mess stay behind. They’ll fight the mafia. They’ll die. But the kids and nuns will be safe.

In the second issue, Sore went on about how his grandfather beat him for not being Captain America. Here, at the end of the road, he wears Captain America’s mask as he fights the mafia. He does some damage. But, it’s not enough. The mafia cut him to pieces. And that’s the end. The other soldiers are as good as dead. But we don’t see it. Like the sergeant has been saying since the first line of the first issue, they are dead. The sergeant earlier thinks he can do bad things because it won’t matter once he’s dead. And he knows Captain America’s response. “It’s no excuse.” The soldiers finally stand up for something beyond themselves. That’s what Captain America can do. He doesn’t fight anyone this issue. There’s no need. He can get people to fight for themselves.

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