Ronald Nand said:
Also what kind of tone is it, is it like an action movie or is it dark like Watchmen or something?
It varies. Frank's been around for a few decades, and he was insanely popular in the early nineties, and had three series running concurrently. Garth Ennis' stuff is usually a lot darker than other writers, particularly the MAX stuff.
Well, my recommendations would be based on what you want in an anti-hero. A lot of fans rank Garth Ennis' stuff highly, but there are a number of Punny fans who feel that he took away or downplayed a lot of Frank's more sympathetic traits, whereas his earlier writers were usually more nuanced. Plus, it depends on whether you just want trade paper back collections, or whether you're willing to try to find his individual issues. I know his essential trades collect a lot of his early stuff, but I can't recall where they are now.
Anyway, I would recommend Welcome Back Frank. It boils down the Punisher to his essential traits, and is highly entertaining. I feel that Garth Ennis' later stuff became kind of repetitive, but improved when he started writing the MAX storylines. Jason Aaron's MAX run, consisting of Kingpin, Bullseye, Frank and Homeless is a fantastic storyline that perfectly caps off the MAX series, but I'd recommend saving that until you've read the rest of Ennis' stuff.
A lot of Mike Baron and Carl Potts' work is good, and they were the two who started running his first regular ongoing and the War Journal series, respectively. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were also a pretty good team, so I'd recommend trying to find any of their storylines. Chuck Dixon's work is full of action, and his first War Zone storyline is great, and availble in trade paper back. I'd recommend the "POV" and "Ghosts of Innocents" minseries, if you can find them. Suicide Run was a pretty good storyline and the first crossover between his various series, but it deals with several recurring characters, so you might want to hold off on that.
Ronald Nand said:
Does it matter if I start with a comic released after the original 1986 comics, will I be confused if I read the MAX series first or do I only need to know the Punisher's origin story to understand.
In his heyday, Frank actually did have a number of recurring characters. When Garth Ennis brought him back, the slate was pretty much wiped clean, and a lot of plot threads and characters haven't been seen in ages. Actually, most of the recurring characters usually only appeared in stories written by the people who created them in the first place.
