This 1989 comic is the earliest issue of the War Journel series I have.
It introduces the villain Bushwacker. A former priest who was experimented on by the CIA, which gave him cybernetic arms, covered in a synthetic fake skin, which contain a variety of guns. He then went rogue and began working as a freelancer killer for hire.
The comics opens with an actual kind of interesting structure where on the left side of the pages Bushwacker carries out a hit, and on the right side the Punisher takes out drug dealers at a dock.
Bushwhacker is taking out a high end artist, and he gets some absolutely hammy one liners.
I really think the framing of the shadow of Bushwacker against a bloody victim is really well done.
While Bushwacker is busy with that, Frank is doing Frank things and taking out organized criminals. I really liked the detail of him switching to gas rather than high explosives when he wasn’t sure if the area was clear of bystanders. Frank is crazy, but he’s still notionally a hero.
Bushwhacker is in a rut, but is offered a big score. He is going to take out The Punisher.
Frank and Bushwacker showdown on motorcycles.
After both bikes crash they have a brief firefight leading into a game of cat and mouse in a building where the issue ends.
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Love it. Been reading through all Punisher from the early days. These earlier ones are much better stories and more violent than people might realize.
I haven’t been keeping up with modern comics super tightly but I imagine the average Punisher filler issue hasn’t changed too much. “A bad man exists. Then the Punisher goes sicko mode on him.”
I do really love the Jim Lee era art. I think it’s just so well defined. The coloring and inking on these random issues is not consistently top tier, but in panels where it is good, it is really good. I much prefer the sharp and often not literal color choices to the more grounded colors applied by digital airbrush tools in modern comics.
I am not up on the most recent, but semi recent Punisher like the Becky Cloonan run I felt was excellent, and then Matthew Rosenbergs run was pretty good, especially the War Machine part.
Garth Ennis Punisher is great, but these older ones from the first volume are gems easily overlooked, and they aren’t even all on the subscription app, so I have to read the actual old comics for a lot of it.
The skin color change story though, that sure was something.
