Nothing beats Classic punisher, I’m not a biggest fan of the modern era punisher that was popularized by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion. I respect them for giving this character a proper revival after marvel did probably the stupidest Punisher run in the late 90’s. I grew up with the classic lineup from the late 80’s and early 90’s with the anti-hero vigilante frank castle/punisher killing criminals 'Rambo'-style with his classic black suit, the big guns, the skull symble, white gloves and sometimes wears a jacket or a raincoat. what make this punihser also iconic is the grim tone, over-the-top violence and suggestive themes. marvel were really punishing the limits of the infamous 'comics code authority' restrictions at the time.maybe i perfer classic punisher, but i have my limits too. i think his very earlier appearances and most of his first run series are kinda meh and even boring at times due to Punisher being bland and appearing more as a guest character in other marvel super hero stories such as Spider-Man, Captain America and Daredevil. it wasn't until the mini-series "Circle of Blood" arc came in 1986 and finally made the punisher stand on it's own kick-off his own first series in 1987 (which like a said before is a very mixed-bag when it comes to quality of the writing and artwork). in this collection “Punisher: War Journal” is the second-run series of comics for the punisher from 1988, unlike the first run, "War Journal" has better artwork, better writing, more grittier, mature content and focus more on frank castle/punisher then the other marvel characters. The only drawback it has it only collected the first 19 issues of ‘War Journal’ with few extras. I don’t really mind since this collection is more celebrating the collaboration of Carl Potts (who was the editor of marvel at the time) and Jim Lee (a very talented artist and one of his earliest work at marvel). The series itself has total of 80 issues. But from what I read and remember this series later issues are not very good, since it jumps from different writer, artist, inker on daily basis, it’s common with long running series to drop in quality and eventually lose direction with the crazy outlandish storylines. I know there's another punisher collection called “Suicide Run” which collects War Journal #61-64 on another story on the fake punisher. Overall "Punisher: War Journal by Carl Potts & Jim Lee" is a great collection for fans of classic punisher. highly recommended!!! I also recommend from the classic line-up is the Punisher: “Circle of Blood”, “Year One” and “War Zone” (original 1992 mini-series).