{"id":8903,"date":"2021-04-28T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T04:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=8903"},"modified":"2020-05-29T19:58:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T23:58:09","slug":"pwj-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/04\/28\/pwj-15\/","title":{"rendered":"PWJ 15"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are back with more Punisher War Journal. Another rare Jim Lee Spider-Man. Same creators inside, as the cultists kill The Daily Bugle\u2019s security guards and use their access to get up to the newsroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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History will show that, whatever faults JJJ has, he really, really hates bigots. But, as you may recall, Spider-Man is not running to the rescue, because he & Punisher are trapped by other Nazis. In spite of the delay endangering his wife and coworkers, Spider-Man won\u2019t let Punisher just kill them all. Instead, Frank turns on some kind of sonic weapon that pushes them back, giving our man space to do his thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back at The Bugle, in spite of a literal gun to is head, JJJ still refuses to print the Nazis\u2019 manifesto… Until they threaten to kill Betty Brant, and he relents. As the guy in the wheelchair and the guy with the crossbow execute another guard, Hartmann uses JJJ\u2019s computer to type up his own story for the paper. He starts with ihs backstory. One of the 3 children from the WWII flashback at the top of last issue, of course. As an adult, he came to America, where an angel appeared to him and told him to begin his mission of hate. While he\u2019s typing all this, a police helicopter approaches the roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Nazis throw an unnamed Bugle staffer out a window to further try to scare off the cops, which makes JJJ lunge for their leader and try to fight him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By 1989, Punisher was one of Marvel\u2019s very most popular heroes, already starring in 2 books a month and a couple years away from a 3rd. As comics took a turn for the dark and violent, who else would rise to the top, after all? Little or no comment was usually made on his own obvious madness. Seeing him and his mission kind of compared to a Nazi in his own book, especially in 1989, is a big surprise, is all I\u2019m saying. Spidey spots MJ, but realizes it\u2019s going to be tough to get in there and stop this before Punisher shows up guns blazing. Frank, for his part, starts at the bottom and starts killing his way up to the newsroom. Some goons confirm they\u2019ve sent out delivery trucks to distribute a Daily Bugle with Hartmann\u2019s screed in it, so he decides the workers on the print level can all be killed. The chaos Frank\u2019s creating gets most of the goons sent down after him instead, giving Spidey an opening. While Frank does his usual shooting stabbing and exploding and whatnot, of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As a creator, if I can even call myself such a thing, I really struggle with, like, dramatic tension versus annoying coincidence. Does this guy just happening to pick Spider-Man\u2019s wife as his hostage up the ante? Sure. Is it a predictable and tired coincidence? Also yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JJJ saves the day! Back in \u201889, the ever changing Marvel timeline hadn\u2019t yet forced a situation where JJJ couldn\u2019t have been alive during WWII anymore, so seeing a guy who witnessed the Nazi terror firsthand tackle this wannabe is a nice moment. Downstairs, Punisher sees wheelchair guy and young guy come out of the elevator, and only now do I notice young guy is blind. That\u2019s why it takes 2 of them to use the crossbow. I guess I\u2019m slow on the uptake. They try to pass themselves off as hostages, but Frank sees the arrows in young guy\u2019s back pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s our show. Contrasting Spider-Man with an obvious loved one vs. Frank walking home through the sewers is a nice touch. A lot of Punisher in this time was wildly over the top, like the creators knew this was all kind of silly, but this was pretty straight. Really lovely art throughout. Ross & Heath made an excellent team. I still can\u2019t believe Russ Heath was doing Punisher comics!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are back with more Punisher War Journal. Another rare Jim Lee Spider-Man. Same creators inside, as the cultists kill The Daily Bugle\u2019s security guards and use their access to get up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[11,891,680,275,13,286,21,894,171,893,892,2],"class_list":["post-8903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-betty-brant","tag-carl-potts","tag-dave-ross","tag-gregory-wright","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-kate-cushing","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-microchip","tag-punisher","tag-punisher-war-journal","tag-russ-heath","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8914,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8903\/revisions\/8914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}