PUNISHER STORYTIME
All this year I'll be storytiming Punisher comics. Most of the focus will be on pre-Ennis era material, but there will also be a few Ennis era stories posted at certain points. Expect at least 1 storytime per week.
Back in the 90s The Punisher was so popular that he had a whopping 3 whole ongoings.
Vanilla Punisher was... just that. It was also basically THE book to read if you wanted to follow the "continuity" of the character.
The Punisher War Journal was more or less the same as the "main" book, but with less focus on continuity. Unlike the other 2 Punisher ongoings, it also had irregular team-ups with other superheroes, which were rare in Vanilla, and next to nonexistent in The Punisher War Zone.
But War Zone... That actually had a pretty clear defined concept that was stated right from the beginning of the series. It went like this: Long form stories with name writers and artists.
One of these writers was Larry Hama, of G.I. Joe fame. Hama was one of the most commonly suggested potential writers in the letters pages of Punisher comics for years. Unsurprisingly, because Hama definitely knew a thing or two about The 'Nam, and seemed like the kind of guy who'd be able to write The Punisher from a perspective that most other writer never could.
HOWEVER... Hama also clearly thought superheroes were incredibly stupid and never quite "got" the concept (as anyone who's read some of his infamously bad mutant comics can attest to), and while The Punisher might not quite be a "superhero", he seemed to be close enough for Hama, who basically treated the character like a cartoon character and just flat out was painfully obviously out of his element writing the book.
Now that's not to say Hama's work on The Punisher is bad. It's actually decent-ish, though far from one of the character's highlights. Plus it has possibly the most 90s art ever done on the character, so there's that.
Anyway, let's read this bitch.
PUNISHER WAR ZONE #20-22
STORYTIME
