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My life will be a bit empty without Ennis's Punisher Max. I don't want to put the new guys down, but I can't see the book lasting long once he's gone. This isn't 1991, and I don't think it's feasible for Marvel to publish two Punisher books.
I do agree with you that if they want to keep a Punisher Max title, they should relaunch with a new number one.
If the book doesn't last, they're going to have to come up with something for Max that can achieve the kind of acclaim that has followed Ennis's book. As it stands, the line doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire.

Don't know about the re-numbering and I don't really care. I've not been reading the book ever since 'Barracuda', not because of the quality of the book, I was just not into the series anymore and had to drop a title from my pull list.

As far as the new writers go, I don't know any of the works of two of them. Swierzynski I know mostly from Cable (a waste of potential and paper). His recent Punisher: Force of Nature was pretty good, so I think he can do a good job on the ongoing series.

If they did relaunch the title it would be the 9th Punisher ongoing series in 20 years.

Look, Garth's run as been remarkable. Maybe some of the best work he's ever done, and he's one of the best to ever work in comics. But I can tell you that I've read crime novels by all three of these guys, and they are all very talented writers. Of course they have big shoes to fill, but I know I'm going to check out their runs. I agree that new numbering would probably help sales.

Yeah, I'm dropping it.

The last thing The Punisher needs is ANOTHER new #1.

I'm willing to roll with this, at least through each of these gentlemen's first storylines. I weathered the lows of Angel Punisher, I can certainly weather this.

Dept. of Uninformed Speculation: Marvel eventually uses the decrease in Ennis-less Punisher's sales to close out the Max series, either making War Journal the "default" Punisher book or, alternately, starting a new "The Punisher" series under the normal Marvel U. banner, thereby getting their new #1 (see: my first sentence).

This summer will see the publication of Victor Gischler's new novel -- Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse. You should all read it. And then all your doubts about his ability to handle the Punisher will be put to rest. (You could probably put them to rest with one of his currently in print novels, too, but I'm just saying, GGGA is pretty damn amazing.)

Again, I have no doubts about the replacements from a creative standpoint, only a commercial one - not only are you asking them to follow up probably the best Punisher writer ever (heck, "probably" is doing him a disservice), but you're also asking them to alternate arcs, robbing them of continuity. Let's say Gischler is awesome - you'd have to wait almost a YEAR until his next arc!!!

The interviews only says they're on the title for 15 months, each on his own arc. Nothing about rotating arcs after that. So the book if secured for the next year and a half. I guess that fan reaction and sales will determine their and the book's fates.

Not to mention that the tone of Alonso's "no comment" at the Cup of Joe panel Saturday seemed to indicate that Charlie Huston was at least being considered for a future arc of Punisher MAX as well.

I'm optimistic about this despite my disappointment that Jason Aaron isn't the next writer. Hurwitz, Swierzynski and Gischler are all talented crime writers, and all three arcs seem to have solid stories behind them. Hurwitz has been knocking it out of the park with Foolkiller, Gischler has Parlov backing him up, and even though the premise of Swierzynski's arc seems superficially reminiscent of Crank, I'm almost positive that it'll be better executed than that movie ended up being.

Eh, people seem to be making too huge a deal out of this. Yes, Ennis's Punisher is absolutely fantastic, but he's already spent more time on it than he did on Hitman, Preacher, or Hellblazer, and while the former two are closely tied to Ennis as his creations, the latter has gotten along just fine afterwards. I can see Punisher going for a little while, and as long as the sales don't drop too low in the monthlies, the trades should do well in bookstores, given the next authors' pedigrees.

I really can't see the book lasting much longer once Ennis is gone - his writing was the driving force of the book, and I can't see the quality holding up - these guys may be great writers, but are they great comic writers?
Ennis has always been good, but it took him years to get this good.

Or great, I should say.