All this year I'll be posting Punisher comics. Most of the focus will be on pre-Ennis era material, but there'll also be some Ennis era stuff at some point or another. Expect at least 1 storytime per week.
So far this week I've storytimed The Punisher's team-up with Ghost Rider and Daredevil, along with the return of Max (appropriate name, lol), The Punisher Dog (both of which you can still read here: ). And then just yesterday I storytimed the return of Mike Baron to The Punisher comics, along with a story about The Punisher fighting a grizzly bear (that thread's still up, too! check it out right here: ).
Today we're picking up right where we left off on the main Punisher series, continuing the "no head writer era" of the title that followed the Abnett & Lanning run, where there'd basically be a different writer on each arc.
Up next is the return of the ORIGINAL Punisher solo-book writer, Steven Grant. You probably know him from the original Punisher miniseries, as well as his (imo, best work) Return to Big Nothing "graphic novel" (both of which are linked below incase you want to check them out). What most people DON'T seem to know is that he actually wrote a fair number of other Punisher issues in the early 90s. He did some stories in the seasonal specials, some random miscellanea, and had a full blown run on The Punisher War Journal following Chuck Dixon's lengthy, excellent run on the series. He also did some random issues of the other ongoings, including a few during the "fill-in era" of The Punisher's main book.
Today we're reading his 1st issues on this particular series, a couple of standalone issues each with a different artist, including the heavily stylized work of Hoang Nguyen. Grant was arguably the most "grounded" off all Punisher writers (INCLUDING Ennis), so you know the stories are satisfyingly gritty as well.
I like how he's loaded with weapons there. Not nearly enough artists bother to draw him with the absurd amount of weaponry that he probably would be carrying around.
Nathan Walker
That is fucked up.
Gavin Hernandez
I genuinely did not see that coming.
Chase Ward
OH SHI-
Blake Cook
That is an INTENSE cover! VERY heavily stylized.
Andrew Allen
Who's narrating this?
Juan Diaz
user, you are doing God's work by showing that Frank had good stories before Ennis.
