I don't think she even gets to pull a gun out this issue; that never happened to Frank.

When we blogged Punisher: Countdown for "The End" week, I mentioned how I thought the villain Stone Cold was there as a "narrative cheat," to keep the Punisher from coming across as the bad guy. Turns out Stone Cold had appeared before that, as in today's book! From 1995, Punisher War Journal #76, "Stone Dead" Written by Chuck Dixon, pencils by Melvin Rubi, inks by Frank Percy and Reggie Jones.

I was aware of this stretch of the title, but hadn't really read any of it; so I was excited to get it out of the quarter bin. Then I set it aside and forgot about it for a bit, and now? ...enh. The book's new lead, Lynn Michaels, does not get much to do this issue; it's mostly Stone Cold versus the anti-vigilante task force VIGIL. Stone Cold's motivation isn't much clearer here than it was in Countdown; he mentions his government-sponsored origin, but why he's seemingly against vigilantes and anti-vigilantes alike is anybody's guess, except I think he was trained and prepared as a contingency against either getting out of hand and then decided now was as good as time as any to get on that. He is also shamelessly aping Jules from Pulp Fiction, with quote after quote intended to make him seem literate and/or badass. For their part, VIGIL seems like a knock-off G.I. Joe (so the Corps then?) with cowboy hat guy, tank guy, etc. Prepared up the wazoo with Macross-style missile spam, Stone Cold chews them up and spits them out. Even for a Punisher comic, that seems like a lot of ordinance flying around; but the New York City of this book is little but rotting tenements and street gangs. VIGIL is disbanded afterwards, absorbed back into the Justice Department or something, although a ton of guys probably died.

Not great, then. This issue did have the ever-popular U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership: Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 87, 058. Actual number of copies of single issue closest to filing date: 41,800. That seems like it's augering in. Lynn had two issues left, before Frank took back over for Countdown.