Punisher 365

One panel of one Punisher comic book every day for a year

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What If...? #17 "What If... Daredevil Had a Dishonest Tailor?!" By Harry Candelario, Rodney Ramos, and Chris Ivy Published September 1990 This is the entirety of this.

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Marvel Comics Presents #59 "The Real Thing" By Marcus McLauren and Dan Reed Published September 1990 Some crime boss sets up the Punisher by planting information about a warehouse where a deal is going to happen, then sending in a little kid with a realistic looking toy gun. He expects Punisher to shoot the kid, then be so shaken up that he'll be easy to kill. Punisher doesn't kill the kid, then proceeds to kill all the mobster's guys and the mobster, which frightens the kid, who runs away.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #337 "Rites and Wrongs" By David Michelinie, Erik Larsen, and Terry Austin Published Late August 1990 While Peter Parker and Mary Jane are walking home from a funeral and Punisher and Wolverine are hanging out having a conversation in the lower part of a panel. Also, is that a hirsute Herbie Popnecker at the top of the panel?

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Web of Spider-Man Annual #6 "Salesday for a Shoot-Out" By Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito Published August 1990 In an Aunt May backup story, Mary Jane takes Aunt May shopping at a mall, which is played as some newfangled idea that the elderly can't possibly embrace even though it's 1990 and the first mall was built in 1954. I can only assume Aunt May is also uncomfortable with the rotary telephone and the phonograph. Some terrorist crash through the skylight of the mall with machine guns with orders that no one be allows to leave alive. They are terrorists who believe killing everyone in a mall is the best way to get people to reject capitalism. Aunt May finds the Punisher and then watches as he guns down several of the terrorists. It should be noted Aunt May is completely unfazed by this, so if you're ranking the things that disturb the elderly according to Gerry Conway, "watching a vengeance-fueled vigilante riddle communist terrorists with bullets" ranks well below "visiting crowded shopping venues." The terrorists reveal they are all wearing suicide bomber vests. Aunt May fakes a heart attack in front of the terrorist leader and Mary Jane yells for them to call an ambulance. The terrorist leader who had demanded no one be allowed to live is temporarily concerned for the life of a woman who appears to have been born during the Benjamin Harrison administration's ill health, giving the Punisher the distraction he needs to blow them all away.

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The Impossible Man Summer Vacation Spectacular #1 "A Night to Remember" By Jim Valentino and Danny Bulandani Published August 1990 The Punisher tries to kill some criminals, but when he pulls the trigger on his purple and green gun, a large "BANG" flag comes out. He ducks behind a taxi while the drug dealers return fire, and the gun turns into Impossible Man. Punisher throws a grenade at the drug dealer and opens fire on Impossible Man. I.M. throws pies in Punisher's face and flies away.

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The Punisher War Journal #21 "Deep Water" By Carl Potts, Tod Smith, and Tony DeZuniga Published August 1990 A ferry to the Philippines meets a boar full of refugees, then both get attacked by pirates. One of the guys on the ferry fights with one of the pirates and falls overboard as a patrol boat comes near. He and the pirate he's fighting are about to get eaten by a shark when the Punisher appears from nowhere (he doesn't appear to have been on any of the boats and he manages to drop on the shark's head with pinpoint precision even though it's pretty deep and he would have had to drop from something pretty high to make that happen) and attacks the shark with a knife. He and the guy from the ferry get away while the pirate gets eaten. Frank is in the Philippines looking for his friend, David Keeton, who deserted while on leave with Frank in Vietnam. He finds Keeton's home, but his wife, Maria--JESUS CHRIST, PUNISHER WRITERS! THERE ARE WIVES WITH NAMES OTHER THAN MARIA! BUY A FUCKING BABY NAMING BOOK!--says he was kidnapped by pirates a month ago because of his vast knowledge of the rivers and coast from years of fishing. Punisher promises if David is still alive, he'll save him and bring him home. Punisher poses as a fisherman and gets hijacked by pirates. He kills some of them, then follows the others back to their base. They have a game they play where they chain up hostages in the water and wait for the tide to come, then bet on who the sharks will eat first. Punisher sails in to rescue the hostages, but while killing some of the pirates, realizes one of them is David--JESUS CHRIST, PUNISHER WRITERS! WILL FRANK EVER MEET SOMEONE HE SERVED WITH IN VIETNAM WHO HASN'T SINCE TURNED TO A LIFE OF CRIME OR WHO DOESN'T GET MURDERED WITHIN THE FIRST THREE PANELS WE SEE THEM? David claims the pirates forced him to do terrible, piratey things at first, but then he came to like it. Frank offers David a chance to redeem himself by giving him a knife and tossing him to the sharks, telling him to hold them off while Frank rescues the hostages. David dies. Frank then returns and is sad, and I think maybe this issue was written before the last one and the whole thing about debts was in reference to this. Oh, Carl Potts, you are the worst. Also: The Arranger travels to East Germany, where he offers a completely healed up Sniper a lot of money to come be an assassin for Kingpin.

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The Punisher War Journal #20 "The Debt" By Carl Potts, Tod Smith, and Al Milgrom Published July 1990 Frank is taking a break from the war on crime after his Hawaii experience, but while flying into a country called Triji, some rebels shoot down his plane because the French ambassador is aboard. They kill the ambassador and chase Frank into the jungle where he's saved by the French Foreign Legion. Frank talks to one of the leaders of the Legionnaires then decides to follow them the next day when they go on patrol. They get ambushed and two men get killed. The rest of the Legion kills most of the men and they track one back to his village. Their leader orders them to kill everyone in the village. Frank gets there and saves the last child, claiming to be French Foreign Legion internal affairs. He kills the leader and convinces the others he was there investigating that guy so it's all cool. He then sends Microchip a postcard saying he paid off part of an old debt bur acquired a new one and I've read this thing twice and can't figure out what that means, though given that the name of the issue is "The Debt," one would assume it's important.

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What If...? #15 "What If... The Trial of Galactus Had Ended in Reed Richards' Execution?" By Jean-Marc Lofficier, Randy Lofficier, Roy Thomas, Greg Capullo, and Sam DeLaRosa Published July 1990 In a world where Galactus never comes to speak on Reed Richards's behalf during his trial, the Shi'ar execute Mr. Fantastic. This leads the rest of the Fantastic Four to fly to Shi'ar for revenge, which results in their accidentally destroying the whole planet. In a few headshot panels of other Marvel characters giving their takes on this turn of events, we learn Punisher is cool with it.

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The Punisher #37 "The Neighborhood Defense Fund" By Mike Baron and Mark Texeira Published July 1990 The Punisher follows Jigsaw into a bad neighborhood where two rival gangs are fighting and it's so bad the police don't even come around. Jigsaw joins up with one of the gangs. A mother carrying a baby comes running out into the street and Punisher helps her get away from some gang members who are trying to kill her because they thought the baby was a load of explosives she was trying to sneak to the other gang. Punisher takes her to a bunker the Neighborhood Defense Fund has set up to teach kids and keep families safe during the turf war. Punisher figures he can help them out and kill Jigsaw and some gang members all at once. He kills some gang members, but Jigsaw gets away. The Neighborhood gets $20,000 from the raid. Then Jigsaw and the Rev take off for Venzuela.

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The Punisher #35 "Jigsaw Puzzle" By Mike Baron, Bill Reinhold, and Mark Farmer Published July 1990 Punisher busts in on a major drug operation and finds Jigsaw running it. He blows up the warehouse and destroys all the drugs, but fails to kill Jigsaw. Jigsaw goes to meet his partner, The Rev, who still has healing powers, which he now attributes to Lucifer. He says when Punisher left him for dead in the jungle, he turned to Lucifer and was saved. They are planning a trip to Venezuela. A scientist analyzes a sample Frank stole of the drugs he destroyed and discovers it's a chemical that would sterilize people if dumped into the water supply. It comes from a plant in Venezuela, so Frank plans a trip there. The Rev breaks into a family's home and slaughters everyone. Jigsaw follows him and wonders if that's how his partner gets his powers. The police show up and Jigsaw guns them all down. As he escapes, Punisher hears it on the police band and spots Jigsaw's car coming the opposite way on the road.

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In 12 hours, Punisher is apparently reading a Hebrew translation of "Art of War." Why wouldn't Bill Reinhold write it the other way around?

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The Punisher Armory #1 By Eliot R. Brown Published July 1990 This was a collection of full page pictures of guns and other things in Punisher's arsenal with specs and comments by Punisher. Most of them were first featured in the back of Punisher War Journal issues before being collected here.

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In 12 hours, Marvel collects a bunch of pages they've already used to pad out Punisher War Journals into a "new" comic. This was in addition to going bi-weekly with the regular title and releasing four graphic novels. Summer of 1990 was a busy one for Frank.

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The Punisher Annual #3 "The Programma Strain" By Mike Baron and Neil Hansen Published June 1990 A guy breaks into a laboratory to steal some virus, but gets caught and, while fighting with the guard, gets exposed to the virus, which makes him turn into a big, puffy monster. He's the son of a radical right-winger who plans to run for President. Punisher tracks him for a bit, then breaks into the right-winger's home. The son comes, kills all his dad's guards, kills his dad, and winds up getting shot with a bazooka by the Punisher. Frank declares he's dead and nothing could possibly have survived that blast. Of course, Frank is wrong and this story continues in Dardevil then the Hulk and Silver Surfer. "Punisher's Fighting Techniques" By Roger Salick and Mark Texeira Punisher recalls some fights he's had and the hand-to-hand techniques he used to kill or cripple bad guys. "Punisher's Arsenal Entries" By Eliot R. Brown Did you know there's a whole book of these? And it's on the comic racks this very same month! "Forewarned or Foretold?" By Gregory Wright, Lee Sullivan, and Kim DeMulder Punisher has a nightmare that he dies and goes to hell. Kingpin is in charge down there. "Philanthropy" By Mike Baron, Mark Texeira, and Dwayne Turner Microchip's elderly neighbor is weak from starvation because she's been giving all her money to "Save Our Children." Chip does some research and finds out it's a scam run by a guy who also sells tapes of "Yodelin' Sam" through a 1-800 number. Microchip bugs his office, gets him on tape confessing to ripping off old people, has thousands of copies made of the tape and substituted for Yodelin' Sam. One of the victim's sons comes to kill the guy.

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In 12 hours, Punisher kicks an old man in the face.

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The Punisher Movie Special By Carl Potts and Brent Anderson Published June 1990 This is the adaptation of the Dolph Lundgren film. If you don't want spoilers, watch all of this first:

In this version, Frank Castle is a cop whose been trying to take down a mobster named Moretti for years. Oh his birthday, he sees his wife and daughters blown up in their car right in front of him. He runs to their aid and the car blows up again, supposedly killing him. Years later, Moretti is acquitted of pretty much every crime every committed and goes home to celebrate, shrugging off urban legends of the so-called "Punisher" who has a vendetta against organized crime. He and his whole crew get slaughtered back and his home, but not before the Punisher reveals himself to be Frank Castle. The mob is in shambles due to the Punisher's killing of so many of its leaders, and the yakuza makes a play to take over organized crime in New York through the combination of ninjas and cunning. When the mafia refuses to give them 75% of everything they make, the yakuza kidnaps all the mob bosses' kids. A wino convinced Frank to help fight the yakuza, even though doing so will help the mob. Punisher rescues all the kids except the top boss' son, Tommy, but gets captured by the police in the process and winds up face to face with his old partner. While being transferred to another jail, the mob springs him. The big boss asks Frank to help save his son, then instructs his men to make sure they kill the Punisher once Tommy is safe. Frank and the boss do a frontal assault on the skyscraper the yakuza uses as an office. They fight their way to the top floor where the lady who's head of the yakuza has Tommy hostage. She promises the boss she'll free Tommy if he shoots himself in the head. Punisher swoops in and kills her. The mobster takes advantage of Frank's injuries and is going to kill him, but Tommy stops him, which Frank uses as an opening to kill the mobster. Tommy vows to kill the Punisher, so Frank gives him a gun then kneels and points the barrel toward his own head. Tommy can't do it and Frank leaves just before his old partner arrives.

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The Punisher War Journal #19 "Trauma in Paradise!" By Carl Potts, Jim Lee, Al Milgrom, and Don Hudson Published June 1990 This. This is a magical moment in comics. I have a standing rule that whenever I find a copy of Punisher War Journal #19 in a quarterbox at a comic store or a convention, I will pick it up in the hopes of cornering the market some day. I love this comic so much. I bought a tanktop with the cover of this comic back around 1991. Chris Giarrusso drew me a recreation of the cover as a gift a few years ago. My left leg from the knee down is a tribute to how much I love this cover. But about the plot. The Punisher rents a jetski to go get Microchip's friend's daughter who is stranded on a small island with some of the drug dealers coming after her. Punisher kills them, but hits a rock with the jetski and goes underwater, but is no longer afraid of open water thanks to Edith the Kahuna. He and the girl return the jetski and go to find her mother. Meanwhile, Microchip has tracked down the drug dealers, who are deep into Hawaiian mysticism. He concludes criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot and makes up his face to look like a death god. Punisher shows up and helps kill them all. Later, Frank wakes up and finds the anonymous gift of a boogie board from the Japanese Shadowmaster who wants him to fulfill his destiny of becoming the greatest ninja in the Western world.