For this whole year I'm going to be storytiming Punisher comics at least once per week. Most of them will be pre-Ennis stories, but expect the occasional Ennis era or post-Ennis era story as well.
This week I'll be posting the infamous Jigsaw Puzzle story arc.
I'll be honest with you. This story is... not good. No, that's not even accurate. This story is irredeemable shit. No, that's not even fair to irredeemable shit. This is just BAD. Like there aren't even really words to describe how ill-advised this story was. It's one those who--thought-this-was-a-good-idea things from the 90s that was so bad and so instantly poorly received that Marvel right after the story finished basically pretended it never happened and hasn't acknowledged it since. Why exactly? Read it and find out. And if it doesn't seem THAT bad at first, then trust me: Keep reading. It will be.
Also of note is that this arc is 6 issues long, making it the longest Punisher story ever as of the time of its publication. Thankfully for anyone who had to suffer through this when it was coming out, it was also published twice per month, so it only took 3 months to finish instead of 6, which to be fair had to have made this much easier to endure.
The only positive thing that can really be said about this story arc really is that it featured some really nice cover work on some of the issues, but that hardly matters given what's behind them.
Oh, and did I mention that it was written by the otherwise usually excellent Mike Baron? To this day I still wonder if this was his idea or if it was forced on him by editorial. I like to imagine it was the latter, because I somewhat doubt editorial'd have let any writer make such dramatic changes to the core of a series without their permission. Though who knows... (If you do know I actually genuinely would like to know myself.)
It usually was on Marvel books back in the day. They used to have super high standards.
Zachary Gonzalez
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Brayden Fisher
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Jackson Carter
Art seems to be mostly real lazy these days.
Although when it's on point, it's on point.
DESU, it doesn't have to be perfect all the time as long as the style and designs fit the story that they're trying to tell.
Michael Hernandez
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Julian Miller
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Anthony Taylor
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Ian Adams
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Josiah Clark
>LAIR! >6-666 Huh. I wonder what's insi...
...welp. Shocking.
Aiden Stewart
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Easton Torres
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Jacob Jones
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Robert Jones
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Angel Robinson
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Ryder Morales
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Levi Carter
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Connor Sanders
Bullpen Bulletins
Grayson Rivera
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Ayden Howard
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Daniel Gonzalez
Oh, hey, Not-Jim Jones is back.
Samuel Lopez
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Alexander Rogers
Letters page
Nicholas Clark
Fucking Billy.
Tyler Baker
ISSUE #36
Parker Thomas
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Chase White
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Aaron Gonzalez
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Wyatt Gray
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Brody Cook
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Levi Phillips
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Zachary Wood
>rocket jumping off the highway niiice
Xavier Morgan
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Evan Cruz
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Henry White
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Aiden Jenkins
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Chase Hill
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Julian Gomez
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Wyatt Flores
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Parker Ortiz
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Angel James
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Brody Gomez
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John James
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Cameron Murphy
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Chase Reed
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Dominic Thompson
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Connor Reed
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Juan Wright
Letters page
Connor Thomas
ISSUE #37
Thomas Cooper
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Samuel Nelson
For all the things that go wrong in this story, the art is not one of them. I should have mentioned that in the OP. "The only positive thing that can really be said about this story arc really is that it featured some really nice cover work on some of the issues AND it had nice artwork."
Joseph Thomas
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Dominic Roberts
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Ryder Brown
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Carson Peterson
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Blake Hill
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Ayden Hughes
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Jacob Hernandez
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Landon Reyes
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Henry Jenkins
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Joshua Cox
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Justin Martin
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Hudson Jackson
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Hudson Taylor
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Jose Reyes
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Lucas Harris
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Michael Parker
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Jayden Perez
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Alexander Adams
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Jaxson Johnson
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Charles Lee
>that frankface
Christopher Garcia
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Liam Bennett
Letters page
Jace Hall
Tourists from /k/ reporting in. Storytime of pain means it's supposed to be bad?
Oliver Mitchell
So far this doesn't seem HORRIBLE, at least not worthy to be considered a full-on Storytime of Pain. It's just kind of disjointed and messy, and the plot is full of holes. It's not awful, just kind of mediocre.
Charles Foster
ISSUE #38
Carson Allen
>Storytime of pain means it's supposed to be bad?
Yep.
Zachary Morgan
Jigsaw looks like a drag queen.
Ethan Ross
Trust me.
Camden Jones
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Angel Clark
>first panel >jigsawgetsraped.jpg
Luis Green
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Josiah Foster
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Aiden Sanchez
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Lincoln Scott
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Lucas Butler
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Michael Nelson
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Henry Williams
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Brody Roberts
>written by the otherwise usually excellent Mike Baron
There was also that stupid arc where Frank turns black, though that was probably forced by editorial to promote the Luke Cage series with a tie-in.
Robert Ward
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Nolan Bennett
This and that are probably the low points of pre-Marvel bankruptcy mass-relaunch Punisher.
Jayden Harris
>mass-relaunch
I probably should have said "mass-cancellation", referring to when Harras gave the bulk of Marvel's books the ax in 1995 and relaunched The Punisher with a single title following Marvel's second bankruptcy of the decade.
