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- SPOTLIGHT ON: THE PUNISHER #4
It was the ’80s, and Schwarzenegger and Stallone were taking the screen by storm with their testosterone-fueled vigilantism, locked in a fierce competition to see who could rack up the highest body count. It was the perfect time for a character like the Punisher to find his audience. Created by Gerry Conway in 1975, the criminal-killer codenamed the Punisher first appeared in comics as yet another Spider-Man antagonist and, for ten years, was at best an interesting villain when well-written. It wasn’t until 1986 that a successful miniseries written by Steven Grant and drawn by the great Mike Zeck proved that the character had a life of his own and that the concept was viable. The very next year, with Mike Baron writing and Klaus Janson illustrating, the Punisher starred in his own series to great success, making him one of Marvel’s most popular characters.
In this issue, #4, right at the beginning of the story, Mike Baron introduces us to the character Microchip, an engineer and hacker who assists the Punisher by gathering information and providing sophisticated equipment for his crusade against crime. Next, we get a glimpse into the logistics of how the Punisher operates. He obtains his weapons from illegal dealers in the criminal underworld and finances the entire operation with what he ironically calls “spoils of war”—that is, money stolen from the criminals he kills. It becomes clear that the Punisher is, in fact, a criminal himself, and a racist, as shown in a scene where he refers to a Black driver as an “ape.” Special mention goes to Klaus Janson’s art. Still basking in the success of The Dark Knight Returns from the previous year, Janson takes on the penciling, inking, and coloring, bringing his signature visual style to the story. His Punisher is a brute navigating an equally raw and rough New York City.
More than just a prelude to what the 1990s would bring in american comics, Baron and Janson’s Punisher cranks up the level of violence typically seen in Marvel stories—but with a touch of intelligence and sincerity. Whether or not you like the character or his central motivation (“I must kill the people who deserve to die”), the series is effective and draws us in, as it leads us to believe in its significance.
Oh, right, the plot of the story? The Punisher decides to investigate a conspiracy orchestrated by an evangelical church led by a charismatic, corrupt pastor. How absurd, right? The imagination of these writers…!
