I don't have my Punisher Armory comics next to me, but there hadda be a bow in there somewhere, right? Frank musing about the utility of the modern fiberglass bow in the murder of mobsters. I've seen someone articulate this better, but while I find a lot of that stuff neat--a Thompson machine gun is just so cool, guys--it might as well be a lightsaber for how much I think people in the real world should have it. Fun in the context of fiction, less fun when your neighbor has like twenty AR-15's...
Exactly how well did those armory issues sell? I’m sure diehard Punisher fans & gun enthusiasts snapped them up quickly, but for the casual fan or comic collector, I can’t imagine they’d seem all that interesting without Frank using all those weapons on someone.
ReplyDelete10 volumes worth, from '90 to '94! Iron Man only got one issue of the Iron Manual.
ReplyDeleteI would by no means think of Frank as left-leaning, but it's interesting that the book seemed to discuss guns and weapons in a more politically-neutral tone than I think you would get anywhere else, especially nowadays. No moral judgements, more like how these things were interesting in terms of engineering and such.
I think that was one of the things they talked about in one of the text pages, how they wanted to show the more intelligent side of Frank and how much thought and research he puts in.
DeleteThat said, he did occasionally make comments about the foreign-made models and making use of foreign regimes’ military equipment.
They did 10 issues over 4 or 5 years, so well enough that it wasn’t just because of the Punisher name. I personally love them (still missing the last 2 or 3) and don’t like any of the other Punisher stuff. I think the audience is the people who like those technical manuals and such- I’m also big on Who’s Whos and Official Handbooks, both of which the guy behind Armory (Eliot R. Brown) worked on. Plus, there’s a lot more than weapons- there’s vehicles, body armor, and security systems, among others.
ReplyDeleteThere was definitely at least a crossbow or two in there- don’t remember if there was a straight-up bow and arrow.
They definitely had Frank use a bow and arrows in the Thomas Jane Punisher movie for, as Satanna describes, quietly murdering people from a distance.
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