Marvel Preview #2
Ah, the 70s, when you could kill men with comic book non guns, a Gyrojet Rocket Pistol, have a hot chick in a mini skirt and go-go boots at your feet, while another goon tries to knife you in the back! And, you could find this in just about any paperback spinner at a grocery or drug store, even if you were too young to be seeing such things!
Nothing says her like a black costume with a death's head on the chest. Well, if your heroes are the SS!
Creative Team: The Punisher: Gerry Conway-writer, Tony DeZuniga-art, Marv Wolfman-editor, Len Wein & Archie Goodwin-Consulting Editors
Synopsis: Mack Bolan.....er, the Punisher, is on a roof, with a sniper rifle, narrating about political assassinations...
Turns out, Bolan....Punisher...is there to stop the assassin, who he shoots after he spots his sniper position. he heads over rooftops to check on him and finds him still alive ('cause Punisher is the good guy!) and recognizes him as Mike Hauley, a buddy from Nam. Mike is killed by others, in a helo, and Punisher escapes. We learn of another assassination, carried out by an ex-GI, with an M-1 Carbine....
from a catwalk. , thus proving that Conway knows jack about firearms! He is killed by a cop as he makes his escape. Another in LA is killed in a firefight with police, also an ex-GI. Punisher heads to Chicago. He checks in with a stoolie and tells him he is paying for info about ex-GIs recruited for assassination work. When he leaves, someone takes a shot at him, from a distance. he sneaks up on the guy and takes him down, relieving him of his Armalite Ar-180...
Which DeZuniga draws as an M1 Carbine. Bolan...Punisher shakes the guy down for into and he trips a switch on his watch, killing himself in an explosion. The Executioner....Punisher goes off to chase more leads.
Punisher's stoolie is also dead. meanwhile, a couple of detectives look at a dossier on a Marine who won the Medal of Honor, Bronze and Silver Stars and the Purple Heart. they also say he was about to be ordered the Presidential medal of Freedom, showing Conway doesn't know anything about medals, either. Said Marine is the Punisher. We cut back to him, in Bolan's...er, his War Wagon, as he flashes back to a picnic in the park, with his wife and kids, when they witness a mob execution...
Bolan...Punisher goes to see Mike Hauley's widow, in Evanston and finds her kids, who let him in, despite having a big skull on his chest. She comes home and freaks out, so he slaps her, like a big manly Marine. He asks about who recruited Mike, when a firebomb crashes through a window. Punisher gets the kids out, then goes back in for the dame and gets her out in time. She coughs up a lung, and a name. Punisher goes after him.
he tracks the man, Christianson, down to a Mies Van Der Roe wannabe house, north of Chicago and infiltrates the place, in a guard uniform. he finds out that he runs an armaments company that has developed precision laser weapons and is planning a coup of the US government, with the ex-GIs as a diversion from the true "army." Punisher shoots a bunch of people and blows the place up, without ever taking a round.
Power Broker Resolution: Len Wein-writer, Howard Chaykin-artist
Synopsis: Hollywood, 1938....
On a ship anchored off the coast of California, outside the 3 mile limit, we see gambling. the Mississippi Queen is a floating casino, flaunting the law, by staying outside the law's jurisdiction. on board, we meet Sabbath Raven, the owner of the ship, and her tennant and chief gambling client, Dominic Fortune. Fortune owes a ton to Sabbath, in rent (the upper deck is his); butm she can't evict him because she gets her money back on the gaming tables. She introduces her friend, mrs Einhorn to Fortune, who wants to hire him to collect $250,000 in back alimony, which her multi-millionaire ex owes her. three process servers have disappeared trying to get it and she provides a map of his mountain estate, complete with mine fields!
Sabbath flies Fortune over the estate and he lands via an early version of a hang glider.
He snoops around and runs into a Japanese soldier! he dumps him over a cliff, then fights another. something is up. He also finds a hidden bomber! More snooping reveals Einhorn, a publishing magnate, offering propaganda in the Japanese cause and then aerial photos of the US Naval base at Pearl harbor. Fortune decides to stop the nutjob. he creates a diversion with a car, to draw away the soldiers, then breaks into the house and confronts Einhorn. he shoots his bodyguard and takes Einhron to the roof. he is wearing a parachute harness and Sabbath turns up in her P-26...
and Fortune creates a primitive Skyhook, which yanks the men into the air. They pass over the hidden bomber and the Japanese soldiers shoot at them, killing Einhorn. Fortune draws his Mauser pistol and fires at gelignite he left on fuel drums, igniting it and destroying the bomber and soldiers.
Later, Fortune is confronted by Mrs Einhorn, who yells about killing her ex, until he presents a diamond necklace he swiped from a safe, which will provide the $250 K she is owed. He and Sabbath then head for the roulette wheel.
The issue also features a brief gallery of the Punisher's previous appearances and an interview with Don pendleton, creator and writer of Mack Bolan, the Executioner, conducted by David Anthony Kraft. This was probably after delivering the payoff to keep Pendleton and his publisher from suing.
Thoughts: Conway is so blatantly and ridiculously ripping off the Executioner series of men's Adventure pulps that it isn't funny. The interview with Pendleton indicates some kind of deal must have been made, as Marvel wasn't sued into oblivion. Pendleton created Mack Bolan, the Executioner, in 1969, with the first novel, War Against The Mafia. Bolan is a Special Forces sniper, an expert at infiltration and assassination. He comes home to bury his family, after his father murders them all and commits suicide. Only Bolan's brother survives, revealing that the father was in deep with a loan company, run by Mafia loan sharks. They went to bolan's sister to offer a chance to work off the debt....as a prostitute. Bolan's father finds out and kills her, his wife, and badly wounds his son, before turning the gun on himself. Bolan infiltrates the mob, learns their secrets, then systematically kills them, using military tactics and weapons. This leads to a long crusade to tear down the mafia, with military firearms and tactics. he is hunted by the police, though many turn a blind eye, allowing him to escape. The series climaxed in The Last Mile, 6 books where Bolan finishes off the major mob factions, before joining the government as a black ops counter-terrorism operative, launching a new series of Bolans.
Pendleton wrote the original 37 books, which included such things as a squad of fellow GIs, who aid him in his second adventure, plastic surgery to alter his face, in the third, and then a cross country journey of death, aided by his War Wagon, a tricked out van filled with weapons and surveillance gear. He is secretly aided by a government agent who is hunting him, as well as a cop who turns a blind eye. Most of these elements would be swiped fr the Punisher.
The Punisher wasn't alone in this, as Pendleton's own publisher produced copies, as did rival publishers. there were Destroyers, Pentrators, Death Merchants, Mercenaries, Exterminators and even an immortal Roman Soldier, Casca, the eternal mercenary. The books were right wing fantasies where Vietnam was lost by corrupt politicians and hippies who spit on soldiers, while good, honest GIs fought new wars against the scum tearing down the country. There was a tone of violence, gun porn and badly written sex (most of the writers were better at scenes of violence and romance never entered the picture) that wouldn't fly in most pornos. Still, many, including the Executioner (and the Destroyer, which had more in common with the old pulp heroes, like The Shadow and Doc Savage) were entertaining pieces of pulp, if you had a forgiving eye. Pendleton was excellent at communicating excitement and meticulous planning in Bolan's missions, staging his gunfights well (he actually used to work out the logistics, on his farm). Bolan was a decent, if a bit shallow character, with much in common with the pulps of old.
Conway swiped the executioner to create the Punisher, in Spider-Man, with John Romita providing the design. The character starts as a villain, hence the death's head, though he figures out he is on the wrong side. Romita drew some wonky firearm, which Gray Morrow reproduces on the cover, while also giving Punisher a Gyrojet rocket Pistol. This was an experimental weapon that launched a rocket-propelled projectile, designed for potential use by the navy SEALs. problem was, the projectile had to build velocity over a distance, to have much killing energy. tests found that a couple sheets of cardboard, held against the barrel tip, would prrevent the projectile from leaving the barrel. The weapon is featured in the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice.
in the story, Conway has a sniper kill a politician, from a great distance, with an M1 Carbine. He was correct that it had a .30 cal bullet; but, it was a blunt pistol bullet, not a rifle bullet. It was basically a sub-machine gun (firing semi-auto, rather than full auto), in a compact rifle form. it didn't have much stopping power and had a far shorter range than the M1 Rifle. It was usually issued to officers and squad leaders, as well as support troops, like artillery and the Seabees. in other words, it wasn't a sniper weapon. At that point in time, the US Army used the M-14 rifle as a sniper weapon, using a specialized scope, as the M21 Sniper rifle. It fired a .308 caliber rifle bullet, and was accurate at over a mile. An M1 Carbine wasn't even accurate within a 100 yards. Well, you could hit something, but, you better hit it several times.
Conway also doesn't know his medals. The Medal of honor is a military medal; but, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is not. it is a civilian award, given by the president, in honor of some service to the nation, in a non-military capacity. The Medal of honor is the highest award given by the military, with the consent of congress (hence the title Congressional Medal of Honor). problem is, if Frank Castle had been bestowed the Medal of Honor, he probably wouldn't have continued in combat, though we don't know anything other than he won it. Most of the Marvel bio of Frank Castle is unrealistic, as they like to pile a lot of non-marine cross training on the character, as well as put him in a non-Marine role. Cross training does happen; but, the Marines were not as heavily involved in Special operations, during Vietnam. they expanded that role, later. In Vietnam, they carried out patrolling duties, within specific areas of operation, such as Khe Sahn. Marines were snipers and Castle could have been detached to serve with the Phoenix Program or Special Operations Group (which was part of the Phoenix Program and ran operations for the CIA and military intelligence; usually, deep penetration recon).
All of that is to say that Conway knows jack doo-doo about the military and it shows. However, he did his homework on the executioner formula (minus the sex) and he conveys that formula well, here. This is the first instance of the origin of the Punisher, which is why the prices on this issue are so astronomical. DeZuniga does a good job with the art; but, apparently didn't have reference for the Armalite, or Conway misidentified what was drawn (which looks nothing like the Armalite). DeZuniga and the other Phillipine artists were great at these black & white comics for the Marvel magazines, as well as warren's offering. They had a ton of experience at reproducing comics in black & white at home and knew the techniques that would use it at the best level.
The Dominic Fortune story is the character's debut. Howard Chaykin had created his own pulp character, the Scorpion, for Atlas/Seaboard. It was essentially the same character, though named Moro frost, who lived in new York, and was implied to be immortal, having served in the Civil War. Chaykin did 2 stories for Atlas, before walking away from broken promises. he came back to Marvel and pitched a new version of the character, set on the West Coast, who was a gambler and lived on a gambling ship, outside the 3 mile limit. He would draw on 1930s Hollywood and events, in a more swashbuckling manner. This story sets things up well, with Fortune continuing his trend in flawed, slightly amoral heroes, that began with iron Wolf and progressed to Cody Starbuck. Cody Starbuck's attire influenced the look of the Scorpion and Fortune (which is virtually identical), while chaykin gave both Mauser pistols. Dominic Fortune would be featured again, in Marvel Super Action magazine, in its sole issue, then in Marvel Premiere, in his first color story (which was intended as a magazine story). he also appeared in color back-up stories in Hulk magazine, including one where he meets what appears to be the Shadow. It is in that series that we learn that his true name is Davey Fortunoff, that he is Jewish, from New York (as is Chaykin). That series did much to develop Fortune and Sabbath raven, influencing fortune's use elsewhere, at Marvel. Chaykin would revisit it for a mini-series and a web series, in the last decade. he is one of my favorite Marvel characters, especially period character, and is just screaming for a movie series!
Marvel advertises Thor for the next issue; but, it will be Blade, instead.
