Amazing Spider-Man Annual 15

Amazing Spider-Man Annual 15

1981

Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?

by Denny O’Neil, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Bob Sharen, Jim Novak

J. Jonah Jameson thinks he has the cover story set for the Sep 12, 1981 edition of the Daily Bugle when circumstances conspire to make him change it more than once. Spider-Man fights the Punisher and Doctor Octopus, who are not working together. Punisher kills a phony mystic. Doctor Octopus tries to kill 5 million people. Spider-Man is unable to prevent the Punisher from committing murder but he prevents the success of the tentacled supervillain’s plan and personally rescues J. Jonah Jameson.

The Punisher (2000) 6

Spit out of Luck
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and Jimmy Palmiotti
Sep 2000

Ma Gnucci gets word of where the Punisher lives and sends several car loads of her men to kill him. They catch Frank by surprise but he is still very deadly. He kills most of them but collapses at the end of the fight and blacks out.

Detectives Doap and Von Richthofen stake out Ma Gnucci's place.

Nothing too special. Not much worse or better than the previous issues.

3/28

GCD: https://www.comics.org/issue/65679/

The Punisher (2000) 5

Even Worse Things
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and Jimmy Palmiotti
Aug 2000

While Frank heals up other people are busy. Ma Gnucci wants blood and she starts with her own family. Detectives Soap and von Richtofen go out for lunch at a dive bar. Father Redondo continues murdering people. A couple new vigilantes Mr. Payback and Elite make their first appearances. One of Frank's neighbors tells Ma Gnucci where he lives.

There are some nice visual gags here but I'm still not loving this book. I just thought I would give it another try.

GCD: https://www.comics.org/issue/65678/

The Punisher (2000) 4

Wild Kingdom
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and Jimmy Palmiotti

- after getting spotted by Ma Gnucci and her gang Punisher gets chased into the zoo; lacking firepower he uses animals as weapons
- Punisher makes out ok, and Ma Gnucci survives, just barely, but her thugs aren't as fortunate
- Detective Soap is still a bit distraught over the suicide of Budd Plugg when he meets Detective Molly Von Richthofen who claims to be the biggest embarrassment to the NYPD
- the murderous priest seems to have found a purpose in life when he finds a newspaper article about the Punisher

- still not sold on this series even though I'm still reading it *sigh*
- it reads very fast, not a whole lot of meat on the bone; Steve Dillon's art is the only thing that really interests me about the series; otherwise it seems fairly pedestrian

9/1

The Punisher (2000) 3

The Devil by the Horns
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and Jimmy Palmiottt
Jun 2000

- Frank tangles with some more of Ma Gnucci's gang; this time he is armed with a flamethrower
- Det. Soap reads through Plugg's psychological analysis of the Punisher and makes a lot of dismissive comments; later Plugg hangs himself
- Frank goes after Ma Gnucci's son Dino who is on trial for murder; Dino is being defended by Franklin and Murdock; figuring that a bleeding heart like Murdock will be able to successfully defend his client Frank decides to assassinate Dino
- Daredevil intervenes but Frank was expecting him to show up and came prepared; Frank takes his shot; DD is unable to stop him because he is chained to a water tower
- the vengeful priest makes a couple more appearances

- I just noticed the pun: Bud Plugg, not sure how obvious it was in the previous ish
- very tongue in cheek, especially the scene with the priest, the nearsighted cleaning lady, and the dead body
- the scene with DD chained to the water tower and the revolver taped to his hand was used in episode 3 of season 2 of Daredevil although on the TV show it was longer and more involved

- not sure about this chapter; I was okay with how it started but the DD bits didn't do anything for me

8/2

The Punisher (2000) 2

Badaboom, Badabing!
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, Jimmy Palmiotti
May 2000

- Ma Gnucci puts a contract on Frank's life for what he did last ish but Frank deals with the would be assassins with comical ease
- the police Commissioner puts his worst detective (Martin Soap) on the job, intentionally, to catch the Punisher
- a new baddie a priest with an ace is introduced

- heavy on humor, love some of the facial expressions (Soap, Frank)
- love Frank's interactions with his neighbors who call him Mr. Smith
- Joan, Spacker Dave, Mr Bumpo
- Doing the town comment
- Tasty Frank's truck

7/25

The Punisher (2000) 1

Welcome Back, Frank
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, Jimmy Palmiotti
Apr 2000

- Frank is back, some reference to his time as an agel of death
- not plot or character development heavy
- Frank is a killing machine, there is very little that's human or compassionate in him in this comic, the closest is when he greets some of his neighbors in the building where he lives
- most horrific moment has to be when he throws the bound gangster off the top of the Empire State Building
- the title is the very last line in this issue, it is "spoken" by the city which seems to be happy to have him back
- for the most part it all kill, kill, kill as Frank first kills some gangsters on the street, then follows up by going to the morgue to kill some other gangsters who are visiting the bodies of the ones he killed earlier, followed by him going to the Empire State Building to kill another gangster (a much bigger shot)

- Steve Dillon's Art is cartoonish and deeply disturbing, I get a real sense of menace from the way he draws people especially their facial expressions

6/27

Spectacular Spider-Man 82

Crime and Punishment!
By Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom, Jim Mooney
Sep 1983

- Part 2
- the Punisher, on a rooftop, dealing out justice to a man who attacks his wife one minute and to a litterbug the next
- Spidey visits the Kingpin to warn him but KP already knows what's coming and has made preparations
- the first to arrive is C&D; Spidey spars with them, in effect defending KP which gives KP a chance to escape into another room where the Punisher is waiting for him
- running from Dagger's light knives Spidey ducks into another room and runs into a bunch of KP's goons who aren't overjoyed to see him and do their best to take him down
- C&D catch up to Spidey and help to end that fight before renewing their battle with web head; Spidey gets sucked into Cloak's cape once again and only escapes when Dagger's light knives follow him in and show him the way out
- for the first (?) time Cloak seems to benefit from Dagger's light knives and says something about feeding off of the light, which creeps Spidey out
- it looks like Punisher has the upper hand but KP manages to defeat him, KP gets especially angry when Punisher threatens Vanessa, his wife

- this is it for Cloak and Dagger, for now, the Punisher's part of the story continues in the next issue

Spectacular Spider-Man 81

Stalkers in they Shadows
By Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom, Jim Mooney
Aug 1983

- part 1 of 2
- with some help from Boomerang who is also incarcerated there, Punisher breaks out of Dannemora State Prison; he double crosses Boomerang at the last minute so only the Punisher escapes
- Peter helps his landlady, mrs. Muggins to fight off some addicts
- Cloak and Dagger tangle with the same addicts a few minutes later, not realizing that Peter (the kid who they saw fighting them off) is also Spider-Man; using her light daggers Dagger cures the junkies
- Punisher shows up just after C&D depart to interrogate them to learn whom they were getting drugs from
- Peter goes to visit Felicia Hardy (Black Cat) in the hospital although he has to change into costume to get past the policemen and women guarding her, including Captain Jean DeWolff
- Spidey investigates a boarded up building that he is swinging by when his spider-sense starts tingling and he finds C&D surrounded by the bodies of the junkies; he suspects them of killing the druggies and also reiterates his belief that Cloak must have some sort of hold on Dagger; after unsuccessfully  trying to take down Cloak, Dagger shows him that he's wrong
- by lighting up the room she enables him to see that they were shot with bullets, laced with a sedative according to Cloak
- the Punisher stands alone on a rooftop and states his plan to kill the man behind the drugs, the Kingpin

- better than the last three issues, possibly due to the inclusion of the Punisher

I now want to read some or most of the stories that fall in between SSM 70 and 81

Punisher
- Punisher is by no means a new character at this point
- he first appeared in ASM 129 (1974) but other than a couple stories in black and white comic book magazines he had only made guest appearances (mostly in Spidey's books) up to this point
- his appearance in this story is about a year after his appearances in Frank Miller's run on Daredevil
- just prior to this story he had appeared in SSM 78, 79 and just following this story in SSM 83 (which is not included in this collection) he goes on trial
- it would be a couple more years before he would get his first mini-series: Circle of Blood

Black Cat
- first appeared in ASM 194 (Jul 1979)
- had about a dozen appearances combined prior to this in ASM and SSM