Hello, fellow Questers!!
I'm back again to bring the pain, as we talk about one of Marvel's ultimate pain-bringers...The Punisher!!
2016 was the year that the Punisher made his small screen debut! And it was pretty great! He took on Daredevil in the much-awaited season 2 of Netflix's series of the same name. A few days ago, on November 17, 2017, The Punisher opened a can of whoop-a$$ on Netflix, with the debut of his very own series!
Bernthal is reportedly using "Born" and "Punisher MAX" as inspiration for his portrayal on the Punisher. This is good news for fans of the Punisher, as Garth Ennis headed up both series, a writer who, arguably, penned the best Punisher stories ever.
To mark this exciting occasion, I thought I'd roll out some of The Punisher keys from my collection, for your eyes to see. Sound good? Sweet. Let's pop smoke:
It's Captain America #241, published in 1980. This features the first meeting between Captain America and the Punisher...And boy do they get the fisticuffs done! Frank Miller is on the cover and Frank Springer is on the interiors.
Mike Barr really tried to starkly contrast Captain America's and The Punisher's ideologies in this issue. Cap tells The Punisher that he's "never willingly taken a life," even though Cap's a WWII war-hero who was part of the bloodiest war the world has ever seen. Captain America and The Punisher are representations of their respective eras and in how many Americans viewed the wars they fought. WWII is the stuff of legends, while the legacy of Vietnam is much darker in the collective American mind. Still, there is respect, and honor between these two war-fighters, and even though their approach to justice differs, they still find a way to work together to heroicly take down the threat of the mob!
This is Marvel Preview Presents #2, published in 1975. In this B&W, non-Comics-Code compliant magazine, The Punisher tries to stop the murder of a politician that will be giving a speech on Wall Street; also, we get the very first telling of the Punisher's origin story showing the horrific murder of his family. While out for a day in the park, the Castle Family stumbles across a mob hit, and are mercilessly gunned down. On that day, the man known as Frank Castle dies, and the one-man Army of vengeance known as The Punisher is born.
Here are a couple of pages for you:
Gerry Conway writes and Tony DeZuniga rocks those pencils!
FUN FACT 1: The Punisher didn't exactly catch fire when he was created. He appeared in only 2 solo B&W stories and was basically a guest character in other books until he got his own series in 1986.
FUN FACT 2: This magazine also features the 1st app of Dominic Fortune (which Howard Chaykin created based on a character named Scorpion that he created for the now-defunct ATLAS SEABOARD)! It's true. I can't make this stuff up.
Next up:
Here we have The Amazing Spider-Man #135 - the second-ever full appearance of the Punisher (he had a cameo in #134), and the origin of the Tarantula! Isn't that cover just all kinds of swell?
And of course, I have the most important of them all:
It's Amazing Spider-Man #129, published in 1974, featuring the very 1st appearance of the Punisher and the first appearance of Miles Warren as the Jackal!! This swell cover was done by the hands of greats John Romita and Gil Kane!!
And finally:
And finally:
Here is The Punisher #1, published in 1986. Written by Steven Grant, and drawn wonderfully by Mike Zeck, this series was in limbo since the early 80s when Grant and Zeck first asked to do it. Marvel wasn't sure about giving a hero that killed in cold blood his own title. What would the kids think? Eventually, Marvel published the title but didn't put much effort into promoting it, and it is no small wonder. This series is hard-boiled. You will see things in this series that Marvel hadn't even dreamed of in that era: suicide, the death of a child, and even a sex scene. Yikes!
And to round it all out, of course, I have the full set:
FUN FACT 3: Issues 1, 3, and 4 had banners above the title stating that this was a four-issue limited series; however, issues 2, and 5 clearly state that this is actually a five-issue limited series. Which was correct?
FUN FACT 4: It was actually a five-issue limited series. Hurray for production errors.
That's all for today. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I do posting! Comment and let me know if you enjoyed the article and if you enjoyed "The Punisher" on Netflix!
Did you ever track down any of Don Pendleton's "Mack Bolan" paperbacks? I got about half way through one and found it too depressing. While the Punisher's mid-70's paranoia was part goofy fun and part compelling drama, the Executioner stories were more like lurid voyeurism. The Punisher made an unusually sympathetic villain for Spider-man and posed serious moral questions that comics normally dance around. That's why "Circle Of Blood" (the five-issue mini-series) felt like a jump-the-shark moment for me. After that, I never enjoyed him as much as a solo character as when he was the unanticipated complication in another character's story. At one time I had all the pre-"Circle Of Blood" appearances except the first one in #129, which I read as a Marvel Tales reprint, and the two Nightcrawler issues of "Amazing". but I sold the two B&W magazines for college money. I'm hoping that if/when Marvel gets around to Volume 1 of his Epic Collections (they're starting with Volume 7) that they'll simply collect these early stories in the same way they did for the Silver Surfer Volume 1.
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