It's a little weird for that lot, I think. From 1993,
Quasar #42, "The White Room" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Andy Smith, inks by Ralph Cabrera.
Quasar was still dead, after
Infinity War, and Thanos had released a copy of
Marvel Boy--now calling himself Blue Marvel to serve as a pawn. (I don't know that Gruenwald had a great handle on Thanos; and I'm not 100% sure what Thanos allegedly even wanted Blue Marvel to do. In fact, that maybe was the Magus's duplicate Thanos.) Blue Marvel had quantum bands like Quasar, but was childish, petulant, and just an all-around jerk. I'm not sure I've ever read old
Marvel Boy comics--there weren't a lot of them--but I wonder, was he a jerk in those? I know he'd eventually be updated into "
the Uranian," and be more alien and weird than just a brat. Anyway, Blue Marvel had fought Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) and here fights Hercules, Black Knight, and the Eric Masterson Thor. He does manage to get a shot in on Thor, knocking his helmet crooked so he couldn't see out of it, predating the classic Black Canary twists the Flash's mask from
JLA: Year One. He then nearly gets choked out by Captain Marvel, and has to quantum-jump away.
Meanwhile, Quasar himself was in the White Room, seated at a long table, with various other Protectors of the Universe from the past. The other Protectors did not seem to have a concensus on what exactly the White Room was: heaven? A trophy room? Purgatory? Storage? Not particularly spirtually inclined, Quasar believes this to be "a crazy hallucination in the dimension of manifestations," which he had visited in an earlier issue, and was where abstract beings took shapes to appear in this universe. The other Protectors think, there might have been somebody else in that seat before him...
Then, we get to our big guest-star, the Punisher, gunning down some nobodies. He is approached by Blue Marvel, who's impressed that he kills people, without powers, and wants to learn from him. Frank isn't interested, so Blue Marvel tries a more battle-ready 90's look, with a helmet and guns. And in another subplot, on the planet Scadam--from the computer game tie-in
Questprobe--Kayla Ballantine, Quasar's girlfriend, destroys the malevolent Black Fleet with the Star Brand.
Back in the White Room, Quasar is arguing against reincarnation, claiming it didn't make sense from an
administrative viewpoint: it would take too much energy to figure out what souls should be brought back as what. He's then approached by the spirit of his original mentor, Eon; who wants Quasar to kill him, saying that would free him...and lessen his own guilt. Quasar doesn't seem to be buying it, and wants to free himself without killing. Next, he's visited by the "Angel of Vengeance," who appears as a more-chiseled version of himself; Quasar's pretty sure that's still Eon, and isn't into vengeance anyway.
On earth, the Punisher finds himself surrounded by a SWAT team--either they had staked out the nobodies he killed, or Blue Marvel delayed him too long, but Frank was kicking himself. Blue Marvel opts to prove himself to the Punisher, by using his bands to just
wreck the cops, in about three panels. Frank isn't impressed, and tells him if any cops were killed, he'd be coming for him next. He turns his back on him, and Blue Marvel considers killing him, but is interrupted by Thanos, who tells him someone was trying to free Quasar: stop that. Teleported to the White Room, Blue Marvel blasts the "Angel of Vengeance" apart, then turns his gun on Quasar...to be continued?
