I remember Chuck Dixon once wrote that if he ever got the chance to do another PUNISHER series, he'd write him a new nemesis - a hero. A Van Helsing to his Dracula. He figured that was the way to go with the Punisher, because he just doesn't work as a sympathetic protagonist.

Steven Grant, on the other hand, wrote in his final Master Of The Obvious column for Comic Book Resources that the secret to getting Frank Castle right was to write him as an existentialist; something like a force of nature.

Then there's Garth Ennis, who brought THE PUNISHER back into the top ten with an altogether more tongue-in-cheek portrayal. He presumably figured you couldn't take the guy seriously, so why even try? If you have to have an all-out bloodbath, you might as well enjoy it.

Three ideas from three writers with noted associations with the character, all of which touch on the same core concept - the Punisher as a storm's eye - but all of which take it in different directions. Three interpretations of a character that isn't, let's face it, all that dynamic or adaptable. But even the Punisher can be used as a tool for interpretation. And interpretation, as any actor or musician will tell you, is an art.

We don't tend to think of comics as an interpretative art, since there's no element of performance; there's no stage or pit, no one declaiming, no-one conducting or working the lights.

'Interpretation happens on work for hire, company-owned books.' In fact, we tend to think all the interpretation happens in the reader's mind. The great 'interactive' nature of comics, which I always thought sounded a bit pompous. Reading comics is a skill, sure, but it's a reading skill, so it's a pretty basic one. I'm a great believer in the importance of literacy, but let's not take too much credit for being able to look and think at the same time. Some folks have been known to chew gum while reading comics, and suffered nary a twinge of migraine.

The interpretation I'm talking about happens with the creators. It happens when Kevin Smith writes DAREDEVIL, followed by David Mack, followed by Brian Michael Bendis, followed by Bob Gale. It happens when your bookshelf of BATMAN trades includes works by Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Frank Miller. It happens - and here's where I'll lose many of you - at Marvel and DC. It happens on work for hire. It happens on the company-owned books.

Yes, there's interpretation in other books as well. SANDMAN, a book that wasn't creator-owned, but was identified with a single creator, owes much of its charm to the idea of artistic reimagining. Interpretation is presumably at least part of the reason why Alan Moore farms out his ABC characters to creators like Rick Veitch and Steve Moore.

Interpretation is the reason jam books exist. It's the reason Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Joe Lansdale, Paul Pope, Eddie Campbell and others were lining up to work on Kitchen Sink's SPIRT book a few years back. It's the reason people like Mike Allred and Jim Mahfood seem to spend half their time doing pin-ups for the back of other people's collections. Interpretation is laudable and exciting and can energise creator and audience alike.

But mostly it happens when the characters don't belong to one man or woman. It happens when the characters are a commercial license. It happens at Marvel and DC.

And that's why it seems many comic creators never feel truly satisfied until they've had a crack at Batman. So if Frank Miller writes Batman or Daredevil, it shouldn't immediately be dismissed as "paying the bills". When an artist takes something established and presents his own version, that's interpretation. That can be - and always should be - art.

'I can't understand a creator producing sub-par work that dilutes his own brand.' Some folks say they would always rather read creator-owned works. I find the idea absurd. I'd rather see good comics. Company-owned comics can be works of shining excellence, and creator-owned comics can be execrable, self-indulgent tosh. It works both ways. The name on the contract is not a seal of quality; it's just a seal of ownership.

There are business reasons for creator ownership, of course, and they're good ones. If you own it, you get to reap all the fruits, be they sweet or sour. Warner Bros has reportedly made over $2bn from the BATMAN franchise, and the Bob Kane estate certainly deserves its share (but so does Warner Bros). There may even be a question of pride involved - if you made it, why shouldn't it be yours?

And for some creators there is a question of quality. Untalented hacks would have a hard time selling creator-owned works, but stick them on UNCANNY X-MEN and, irritatingly, it'll still fly. For that reason, if it's creator-owned, the quality threshold might be higher. A gifted creator might not use his gift to its best if he's working on company material.

The sense in that eludes me, though. I can understand a creator putting more of his heart into his magnum opus, and that's commendable, but I can't understand a creator producing sub-par work that dilutes his own brand. If they want people to read their creator-owned works, now or in the future, or even if they just want more work from the same company, they should surely be doing the best job they can.

If the creators aren't doing their best, the problem isn't company ownership. It's that people are buying their crap and keeping them in work. The answer is not to imagine a simplistic equation of "company-owned equals bad". It's to have some sense and discretion about what you buy.

'Without Marvel and DC there wouldn't be much of an industry today.' Companies are in the business of doing business, that much is true, and their behaviour is not always ethical. But to provide patronage and ask for something back, that in itself is not unethical behaviour. That's what keeps the companies in business and allows them to continue to act as patrons.

It could be argued that without Marvel and DC, without Superman and Spider-Man, there wouldn't be much of an industry today. Without an industry, the only comics being created would be vanity press publications. There are some people who would honestly prefer that, of course. Some people like to wallow in misery. Some people drink their own urine because it's good for them, but you couldn't sell it at the supermarket.

A creator using someone else's character is not entirely the same as performance art, I admit. All creators are capable of inventing something of their own, but not all actors can write plays, and not all musicians can compose concertos. But even the best singer-songwriters are allowed to stick a Bob Dylan track or a Carol King number on their albums, and when the song is sung, their talent isn't any less.

All great actors want to play Romeo while they're still young, Hamlet while they're still handsome and King Lear while they're still brilliant. I believe great comic writers are the same. I think they want to write Spider-Man while they're still young, Batman while they're still handsome and Doom while they're still brilliant.

Andrew Wheeler is a London-based entertainment journalist.

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