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Essential The Punisher Volume 3

featuring Mike Baron, Roger Salick and Gregory Wright

(Art by Erik Larsen, Scott Williams, Bill Reinhold, Tod Smith, John Beatty,  Jim Lee , Mark Texeira, Lee Sullivan, Kim DeMulder, Dwayne Turner, Russ Heath, Mark Farmer, Jack Slamn and James Sherman)

Containing twenty issues and two annuals worth of Punisher stories, this book sees Frank Castle take on organised crime in boxing, ruthless ninjas, corruption within the US military, biker gangs, drug cartels and supervillains such as Viper, Doctor Doom and the Reavers.

What I love about the Punisher, something that was here in abundance, is his total lack of awe.  His whole attitude is that his war on crime knows no limits and he will continue even if it costs him his life, which means that there's no situation where he entertains the idea of being out of his depth.  This includes (more or less) single-handedly capturing a US Navy nuclear submarine.  My favourite two examples of this on offer here are where he teams up with Moon Knight, never for a second pausing to consider if he and the god-empowered, moon-branded-helicopter-owning superhero are a reasonable match, and where he fearlessly confronts Doctor Doom himself.  In fact, the best bit of the book is where Frank is so undaunted by Doom (who, let's not forget, is one of the most powerful supervillains of all time) that, despite them clashing, he actually earns Doom's grudging respect.

I was a bit worried that the mundane street-level crime stories might get a bit boring but actually that's not the case and Mike Baron, the writer responsible for the majority of stories on offer here, keeps them fresh and engaging.  Put simply, these are some genuinely great Punisher stories.

4 out of 5