I might have to build up to his most recent last issue, so here's the end of one of his shorter series: from 1997,
Punisher #18, "Double Cross" Written by John Ostrander, pencils by Tom Lyle, inks by Robert Jones.
We saw the
previous issue a while back: this was around the time of Onslaught and
Heroes Reborn. The amnesiac Punisher was hiding out in a half-demolished church that still had a Sentinel head in it. While he seems to instinctually recall his training and habits, Frank tells a familiar nun, Maggie, that he remembers just enough to know he doesn't want to know more. Still, he gets involved in both the return of an abusive boyfriend--Frank had beat his ass before, and promised a broken arm was next if he abused again, but he might as well skip ahead--and some gun dealers. Somewhat unusually, Frank seems to be asking himself, are there other ways of punishing? Maybe not
immediately going with murder. He gives the gun dealers a chance to surrender or run, and maybe knocks out one, but once the shooting starts there's no mercy.
Frank tells a boy he might not have his memory, but he had a mission--and that's it? He was left amnesiac in his last issue? This would've been about the same time as
Marvel's bankruptcy, and I believe they had some strict rules about profitability when that went down: they maybe couldn't have taken a chance on keeping the book going then. Which is a shame, because narratively it leaves some cash on the table: with the disappearance of a lot of earth's heroes, criminals and villains would have been emboldened, and Frank's role could have been much more important. Of course, the next
Punisher book was the "
angel" version, which retconned a lot of Frank's history...briefly, as it was almost immediately reversed. Still, Bernie Wrightson art, feel like I should at least flip through it one of these days. (Have I ever read it? I wanna say no, but...)
5 comments:
I think Ostrander carried this over to his Heroes for Hire title for a couple of issues, where SHIELD (or the FBI? I forget, but the agent doing the hiring is bent) gets Iron Fist to try and bring Frank in, while some neighborhood kid hires Luke Cage to protect Frank, who I think has his memory back by then? Maybe not. Guess I ought to dig the comics out.
And to think it all started when he thought he killed Nick Fury.
I definitely had the 1st issue, or at least the one where Frank is about to be executed for supposedly killing an innocent & is cool with it until Bullseye shows up as a priest to taunt him. Frank definitely would’ve & more importantly SHOULD’VE been allowed to go after the villains of the MU & kill some off like we were promised during Matt Fraction’s run.
I think the problem comes back to what you and H were discussing in this week's strip about how anybody that gets sent to Hell just pops back up in 6 months. Frank kills Electro for example, but if Electro's back fighting Spider-Man a few months later, then it makes Frank look kind of ineffectual.
And if Frank's running around killing villains despite the protests and best efforts of the heroes who object to that sort of thing, then it makes them look kind of ineffectual. Granted, that's not as big an issue since most of the characters that used to balk at lethal methods - Spidey, DD, Captain America - sure don't seem to have any problem hanging around Wolverine or Deadpool or whoever these days.
They certainly are conveniently ok with Logan and Wade aren’t they? I’m guessing because for the most part, those two have proven to be flexible enough to soften their stances on killing…for the most part, whereas Frank never has & never will.
Wolverine especially. Once Bendis threw him on the Avengers via Iron Man's logic that they NEEDED someone to do the dirty work the next time they had a "Wanda goes crazy" moment, everyone just seemed to decide to look the other way at Logan's body count (which must exceed several small wars by this point.)
Deadpool's own book at least plays with the idea that even if he gets to hang out with the Avengers or X-Men, a lot of time most of the roster don't like him. Granted, because he's annoying and smells bad rather than the pile of corpses, but it's something.
It does make it weird when Ghost Rider or Moon Knight still get the side-eye like Frank does, though.
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