Back when Garth Ennis was writing Preacher, I thought he was the greatest thing in the world. Obscene, violent, but still somehow right-minded. Then he wrote The Punisher and he seemed watered down. He’d sold out the right-mindedness for obscene and violent. It was all a rehash of the “hit” characters of Preacher, just with the Punisher occasionally shooting people. (I need to note, for Ennis’s current MAX Punisher series, the magic is back).
I’d heard about Fury, just never gotten around to picking it up. It’s famously the comic book George Clooney read and decided not to make a Nick Fury movie. I don’t understand it, because Ennis is a liberal (possibly a bigger one than Clooney). Maybe he didn’t like the constant violence, obscene humor, and the utterly hopeless view of the world. (However, I’ve seen From Dusk Till Dawn, so... come on, George).
Fury is the bridge between Ennis’s original Punisher series and the new one. There’s even references to Preacher in it and Ennis throws in a hilariously annoying character, giving the series some light moments. But when he bares it down, the story becomes a character study of a sad old man, helpless to help anyone, much less himself. Fury doesn’t have the awe-inspiring insights into the human condition that the MAX Punisher occasionally produces, but I laughed and I felt bad when good people died.