The Punisher Magazine #5 - Marvel

Dec. 1989 - Another visit with everyone's second favorite homicidal superhero!

I've covered The Punisher Magazine once before, when talking about the second issue, when the series was busy reprinting the superb Punisher mini-series by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck. I knew that the magazine kept going, so I wondered whether it was original series or more reprints.

Turns out it was more reprints, as the magazine moved right on to reprinting the regular Punisher color series, but presented here in black and white.

Behind the cover by James Sherman (I don't know what that one weapon the ninja on the left is holding is, but it looks painful), this issue reprints The Punisher #'s 4 and 5, by Mike Baron and Klaus Janson. The Punisher gets involved with a self-styled religious leader named The Rev who ends up being corrupt (stop the presses).

While Mike Zeck did a fantastic job on the Punisher mini-series, Klaus Janson was just as good on the character, as well, and his work looks even better to me without the color muddying it up:

...I love the blunt, hard edges he gives these stories. The art looks like how The Punisher feels, you know?

In addition to the two stories, there's a really spooky pin-up, where ol' Frank Castle looks like he's completely gone around the bend:

...this was during The Punisher's hottest period, where Marvel couldn't crank out enough material.

That hotness cooled off, of course, and The Punisher Magazine was cancelled after sixteen issues. Too bad; I think this harder-edged, more adult format fits the character better than making him part of the regular Marvel universe.

The Punisher Magazine #2 - Marvel

Oct. 1989 - The second issue of Marvel's Punisher magazine that started off reprinting Steven Grant and Mike Zeck's superb Punisher mini-series from just a year or two earlier. As an added bonus, this issue sports a cover by Steve Rude!

At the end of the previous issue, Frank Castle was sprung from prison by a mysterious organization who hires him to go after giant criminal organizations.

This issue opens with the Punisher going after who thinks is the Kingpin, but it turns out to be a decoy. The Punisher realizes this just seconds before the whole place blows up, sending him crashing to the street.

He wakes up in a strange bed, wounds patched up, with a beautiful woman named Angela bringin him food. Zeck renders an exquisitely beautiful woman here:

...I also love how massive The Punisher looks here. And as you can see, his wounds aren't that bad.

But there's not just sex in this mag! The Punisher of course resumes his hunt for the Kingpin, and runs across would-be hitman who has a personal grudge against him. He then gets involved in a nasty gunfight on a subway car with another hitman, and he learns don't mess with The Punisher:

I'm actually a little surprised Frank looks even that squeamish!

Turns out, though, that Frank let himself get too close to Angela, and it turns out she's a hitman, too, and puts a bullet into the Punisher when her bosses tell her to. Damn dames, can't trust any of 'em!

The Punisher Magazine #1 - Marvel

Marvel's b/w magazines in the eighties were always aimed at the tough(er) guy market, publications like Savage Sword of Conan, The 'Nam, and Savage Tales(mk.2) were all designed to capture this rapidly-shrinking share of the comic reading audience.

So of course, a magazine devoted to the Punisher made total sense--there really wasn't any meaner or nastier member of the Marvel Universe. And like The 'Nam, Marvel had some perfectly good material lying around, so this series started off reprinting a Punisher color comic, in this case the 1986 mini-series by Steven Grant, Mike Zeck, and John Beatty, which opened with the gangbuster premise of the Punisher in federal prison.

As a kid I was never into the Punisher that much--he seemed like an odd fit in the Marvel Universe, and I never really bought into the premise that heroes like Spider-Man and Captain America would work with him knowing his methods.

But I absolutely loved the Grant/Zeck mini-series, because it seemed Marvel allowed them to ramp up the Punisher, and take him to the extremes that someone who does what he does would experience. While Frank Castle is the obstensible hero, he's presented as just this side of nuts, and he is just as scary the bad guys he's locked up with. Amid all the bone-crunching, kicking, and punching, I think the scariest panel just has the Punisher eating a meal:
...brr!

The Punisher runs into the supervillian the Jigsaw while in prison, who of course takes this moment to exact revenge. But Grant writes his as almost comically inept, and while Jigsaw talks tough, the minute he's faced with any danger he starts blubbering for his life. It felt like Grant and Zeck were showing us a skeezy, dirtier corner of the Marvel Universe.

It ends with the Punisher throwing in with a group known as The Trust who tell him that they share the same goals he does. The last, full-page panel shows Frank Castle dumping his prison greys and reassuming his death's-head uniform.

There's also this uncredited pin-up, and a foreword and afterword about the mini-series.

The Punisher Magazine didn't last too long--sixteen issues--even though it had this superb start. This was around the time that Marvel made the decision that if people wanted more Punisher, they'd get him, and he was headlining something like three titles at a time.

I think, in the end, the Punisher is a character people don't want to spend that much time with, and he was under the control of too many creators who just thought all you had to do was have him shoot lots of bad guys. Eventually, all his titles were cancelled and he layed low for a while. But of course you can't keep Frank Castle down forever...