r/80s90sComics

• Written by Mike Baron, art by Bill Reinhold
• Punisher is surveilling the house of Flaco Maldinaro, a coke distributor for the Medellin cartel
• As he watches a squad of men pull up in a van and break down the door, but it’s not the house of Maldinaro
• Punisher decides to investigate, finding that the men murdered a couple, the Pulowskiis but left their daughter Maggie alive
• Fearing the men will return and kill the girl, Punisher takes Maggie with him
• Microchip discovers that the men who killed the Puloskiis are a covert CIA hit squad led by Colonel Ross Whitaker and working with the Korean CIA
• Whitaker knows his men hit the wrong house and he also knows that a third party was involved
• Microchip finds Whitaker’s using Russian spy intel
• Maggie is watching an episode of Robotech!
• Posing as Father Angus McFee, Frank takes Maggie to the Order of Saint Bianca where he hopes she’ll be hidden and safe
• An air force jet crashes into a hotel, killing 24 people, including a senator
• It’s revealed to be an assassination carried out by Whitaker’s operation
• Whitaker and his men don’t have a lead on Molinaro, but they did retrieve a shipment of his cocaine which they intend to sell
• Whitaker is also set to assassinate another politician
• Punisher infiltrates Whitaker’s base, finding a drug lab and leaving explosives in case he gets captured or killed
• Punisher discovers orders to dry run the political assassination, but before he can do anything further, he is captured and taken to Whitaker
• Punisher attempts to fight Whitaker, but is knocked cold and taken to be tortured
• While being tortured, Frank has flashbacks to his time in the military, and further back when he studied to become a priest
• Punisher convinces his torture he’s with the DEA and that Whitaker is dealing drugs in order to be set free
• Retrieving his explosives, Punisher begins to blow up the base, but Whitaker takes off in a jet
• Punisher steals a jet himself, and the two engage in aerial combat
• Despite Whitaker being a better pilot, Punisher pulls a dirty trick and blows him out of the sky
• Frank returns to the Order of Saint Bianca to find the real Father McFee waiting for him
• Father McFee reveals to Frank that Maggie was placed in the home of the DiPattis, the alias of Flaco Malinaro and his wife, who are looking to adopt her
• Frank’s Body Count - At least 2, likely more (He snaps the neck of the man who tortured him, shoots Whitaker out of the sky.  He also plants explosives in the base, likely killing several more people, but it can’t be said how many)

Decided over the summer that I wanted to collect both McFarlane Spider-Man runs. This is the latest haul. Every cover is great.

This is a promo piece for a crossover that never came out from Defiant comics. Art by David Lapham.

Black Panther by Simonson 🦕; Daredevil by Paul Smith; The Punisher by…Ken Steacy? (and a weird Rogue/Mystique story).

Fanfare #1 is maybe my all-time fav comic book, that first year or so of the series was really something else. Made me sad to read these “nothing” stories, not worthy of a last issue, but a good indication of why it got cancelled (but why do a second series?!). Oh well! Fun while it lasted!

quality

Going through some bins to get rid of, but thought I’d show off some fun stuff first!

• Written by Steven Grant, art by Mike Zeck
• Punisher is hiding in the back of a panel van to take down a weapons deal
• Things kick off when the feds arrive unexpectedly
• Punisher blows the truck rather than let the weapons fall into the wrong hands and finishes off the rest of the gang member and dealers
• One of the FBI Agents is still alive, Punisher patches his wounds and drives him to a hospital even though he knows they won’t make it in time
• As they drive, the agent reveals their bust was unauthorized, but they were trying to nail Gorman at Pendleton Base
• Frank remembers Cleve Gorman, a Gunnery Sergeant he clashed with at “Big Nothing” the base he was stationed at before Vietnam
• Before Punisher can question the FBI Agent further, he dies
• Punisher decides to take his identification and pose as Lee Costa to finish his last case
• Gorman thinks he doesn’t have to worry about Punisher as he has dealt with Frank Castle in the past
• Frank, posing as Costa arrives at Pendleton, but Gorman has backup waiting
• Frank is beaten down and taken into the desert where he’ll be executed
• The gang members are meant to blow the car with Frank inside, but he manages to escape before they do and finds a matchbook leading him to brothel
• At the brothel he sleeps with one of the girls and dreams about Maria
• The gang members arrive, and Punisher is waiting to deal with them
• Punisher kills three of the gang members, and the last is killed by a prostitute he was abusing
• Punisher gives the woman some of the money he took from the gang members, wondering if she’ll try to return to a normal life
• Punisher heads to the Ram’s Head in Las Vegas
• Gorman hears about the incident in the brothel and escapes, but Punisher manages to get ahold of his partner Snow
• Once again posing as FBI Agent Costa, Punisher heads to San Joaquin to deal with Khieu Dap, a Cambodian gang leader that Gorman smuggled out of Vietnam
• Punisher takes a guards uniform and fights through Khieu Dap’s men, learning that he and Gorman were smuggling drugs in the bodies of dead soldiers
• After disposing of Khieu Dap, Punisher escapes the prison by blowing a wall
• Gorman has holed up in Big Nothing, the now abandoned army base
• Punisher seemingly makes a frontal assault and is gunned down by Gorman, but it turns out to be Snow, Gorman’s partner in crime dressed as Punisher to serve as a decoy
• Punisher gets the drop on Gorman, shooting him in the shoulder and knee to put him down
• Gorman tosses his weapon and tells Castle to take him in, but Punisher tells Gorman that Castle died with his family and guns him down
• Frank’s Body Count - 15 (He shoots up a gun deal, he takes out 3 gang members at the brothel, he snaps Khieu Dap’s neck, he guns down Gorman at Big Nothing)

Calvin and Hobbes is probably the comic I will name if asking for the best of all time.

I collected just about everything C&H and because of the lack of official merchandising it’s easier than most things to do so.

Bear with me on this, because I am compelled to write a little about this experience, even though I know none of what I am about to say is new. Still, what is new is that this purchase has sent me down a completely new path with collecting, and I’m excited to see what I find!

I just purchased the Wolverine Limited Series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. Trade paperback. First printing.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve owned this series. It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve read it, either.

Years ago, I owned the hardcover, the black slipcase with the gold lettering. I even had it signed by Claremont about ten years ago. He signed the second page in gold Sharpie. At the time, I remember wishing I’d had him sign the cover instead, but when I was getting it signed, he kind of just grabbed it from me and was quick about it. No big deal. Especially since, well… I eventually sold it.

Not for any particular reason either.
Or maybe for a reason I didn’t fully understand at the time.

I haven’t read Wolverine Limited in its original format, the floppies, as they are called, in probably 20 years. Maybe less. Either way, somewhere along the way, I realized there was a hole in my collection.

I didn’t have a copy of Wolverine Limited sitting on my shelf.

And that felt lacking, missing.

I don’t read the book often, but I wanted the ability to reach for it. I wanted it there. So I went looking for my copy.

Now, I don’t know if other collectors think this way, but I have a real hesitation to rereleases. Sometimes they’re fine (I’m really trying to be open minded here), but most often I find them ugly, tacky, cheap, or overly manufactured.

The covers are usually garish. Garish, not my word, but a word that gets used a lot when talking about the colorings. It’s aptly used. The colors are often too bold, sometimes even altered. The recolorings give my head a spin.

At any rate, I was looking for a copy and it didn’t take long before I found this particular collected edition.

Wow.

What a cover. It absolutely knocked me over.

It has presence.

Later editions don’t have the same vibe.

But what really got me wasn’t ONLY the cover. And as I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, it was the:

Paper.

Oh, the paper.

“High quality” NEWSPRINT.

OOOOOOHHHhh I am in HEAVEN. Heaven!

This is what these books need to be printed on.

The smell. The texture. The way the colors sit in the page, not on it, and bleed through the inks. It’s all there. Just as I felt and remembered.

I took a few pictures of the interior pages, just to see the color bleed in.

Love it.

So there we have it. Now I know why my 1st print hardcover, signed by Claremont in that beautiful gold ink, didn’t hold up in my collection. It didn’t present well. I know, and vividly remember, that paper. Oh the hack job of that paper against the colors.

We all know the color options back then were limited. Some magic happened back then for sure, but you can’t replicate it. It’s of the times, and this is one of the few options available to experience it.

Here I am now. Collecting in a new way. I am now on the hunt for the old reads, this time, in the sexy, pulpy paper it was meant to be represented in. Next up, The Dark Phoenix Saga.

Oh, side bar. So funny, since I never had this copy of the Wolvie Limited tpb, I did have this Lone Wolf and Cub tpb, and thought to myself all those years ago, wow, what an excellent presentation in the book. Now I know where Frankie got it from. Himself… many years before.

Haven’t seen this in decades! Think there is a Jack the Ripper element. Know what I’m reading tonight.

I know, I know, one of them is 2000s. This is just a batch of foreign issues of some well known Marvel comics.

• Written by Mike Baron, art by Russ Heath
• Punisher and his ally the whistleblower Herman Wiese are cornered by the nuclear submarine, The Percival
• Punisher pretends to be a KGB officer attempting to defect to the United States in order to get aboard The Percival
• He tells Wiese to print out the documentation they’ll need to take down Chief Officer Robert Morse and his corrupt allies, and to set their own sub, The Piranha to self-destruct
• Punisher doesn’t know that Morse has an agent aboard the Percival whose job is to make sure he and Wiese don’t make it back to shore
• Punisher takes the sailors meant to retrieve him out and locks them in The Piranha while he and Wiese head to The Percival
• With the men hostage, Punisher convinces the Captain of the Percival to allow Wiese to transmit his information about Morse’s corruption
• Morse manages to get the signal jammed, and decides The Percival and its crew may be expendable
• When a second sub arrives to destroy The Percival, Punisher manages to convince the Captain to work with him by aiming nuclear warheads at Morse’s home
• With the threat of a nuclear strike, the President of the United States steps in and relieves Morse and his allies of command, and orders the second submarine to stand down
• Punisher and Wiese tell the Captain to take them back to the Piranha, causing it to self-destruct once they’re in the water so they can avoid being arrested by the Navy
• Frank’s Body Count - 0! (“I’m a Patriot, Captain.”)