Issue(s): Punisher #10
Cover Date: Aug 88
Title: "The creep"
Credits:
Mike Baron - Writer
Whilce Portacio - Penciler
Scott Williams - Inker
Marc McLaurin - Assistant Editor
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
Since this series was launched, there have been letters asking to confirm that it took place in the Marvel universe, and the response was always, Yes and we even have a crossover with Daredevil coming up. Ironically, this issue has a letter from someone begging for the opposite:

Please, please, don't team him up with your goofy super-heroes. I know that's where the Punisher came from, but I'm 27 and I just can't swallow it! I can't hang with guys in ridiculous looking suits and hokey stupid powers gained in completely absurd and impossible ways. Zam! Pow! Zowie! Snikt! Save it, man. I'll quit buying the comic. The Punisher I can believe, his black suit with white skull, boots, and gloves (even though they never get stained from blood and garbage) I can believe. FBI, CIA, Mossad, guns, rocket launcher, I can believe. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine, and the rest of the cartoonish bunch, no way.

Nonetheless, this is indeed a crossover with Daredevil. In response to another letter writer, though, it's said that "there are no plans to bring Spider-Man into these pages in the near future". And i believe that holds true, with i think 1990's Punisher War Journal #14-15 being the first appearance of Spidey in a Punisher book.

Actually, it's less a crossover than a parallel plot that overlaps at the end. It's a plot that's 'ripped from the headlines' (or Cloak & Dagger #2). Someone is poisoning bottles of pills and other products from the Zum Corporation. And it turns out to be a bodybuilding enthusiast who could easily get a job as a pro wrestler.

Punisher is a little more expository this issue, perhaps in anticipation of some new readers dropping in, but it'll still be in stark contrast to the Ann Nocenti Daredevil part of this story.

Interesting to see him just rule out all women as suspects. This isn't a story where we'll see Punisher's biases challenged, though. In fact, when he sees Daredevil on television talking about how he's going to find the killer (which i'm a little surprised by, since Queens is out of Daredevil's normal jurisdiction, especially lately)...

...the Punisher has all sorts of disparaging things to say about "Ol' hornhead" and his "self-defeating liberalism".

If anything, Ann Nocenti (unintentionally, i believe) will make the Punisher's point for him on her side of the crossover.

I find the layout and perspective choices in that panel above to be a little odd. Switching the Punisher and the killer, Alfred Coppersmith, between the top and bottom panels may have been a deliberate decision, but what's weird is the way they seem to be showing a parallel between them until you realize that Coppersmith is hanging off a chin-up bar while the Punisher is laying down on a bed. So the perspective creates a weird apples to oranges comparison. It's also an interesting choice to show your hero lounging about while the bad guy works out. Is the Punisher just that much of a badass that he doesn't need to make an effort?

The Punisher locates Coppersmith by posing as an FBI agent at the local Jehovah's Witnesses chapter and asking if they've encountered anyone weird in their door to door travels. The Jehovah's Witnesses are able to point him to Coppersmith, and the Punisher stages a stake-out at Coppersmith's neighbor's apartment (the lady in one of the panels at the top; she has a crush on the killer). He waits there posing as a plumber until Coppersmith returns home, and also prevents the neighbor from drinking some mouthwash that Coppersmith had laced with cyanide. But she still tries to warn Coppersmith and stop the Punisher from attacking him.

Punisher still manages to disarm Coppersmith and chase him to the roof. He's about to toss him off the roof when Daredevil shows up.

Punisher finds the fight with Daredevil to be "counterproductive" and then he says that it's going "to be him or me" unless he thinks of something.

So does that mean he throws the fight? Doesn't look like it. But he does lose, and the narration does imply it.

Punisher does get a dig in about Bullseye (basically the "Batman should kill the Joker" argument).

Coppersmith tries to take advantage of the argument...

..but Daredevil takes care of that with little effort.

When Daredevil leaves, the Punisher thinks to himself that Coppersmith will be out a week or a month. When he's leaving, the neighbor starts bawling at him again, and he thinks to himself, "It's a good thing I don't do this for her, or people like her. When you get right down to it, most people are creeps.".

Mostly a typical sparsely worded Punisher issue. Despite his bodybuilding routine, the villain of the piece doesn't put up much of a fight, leaving room for the encounter with Daredevil. What's interesting is seeing the Punisher lose, or at least give up the fight.

The Punisher is reading Poe Must Die by Mark Olden in this issue. Interesting choice for such a grounded character.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Scenes in this issue take place concurrently with Daredevil #257.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I've largely outgrown whatever appeal the Punisher has a character but "I don't waste time. I waste maggots." is still a pretty awesome line.

"a dig in about Bullseye"

Does he remember that Bullseye brought out of Ryker's Island after he informed Bullseye about Elektra replacing him as an assassin and then slew Elektra?

"(basically the "Batman should kill the Joker" argument)".
The latter actually took no lives from about 1941 to 1969.

"Please, please, don't team him up with your goofy super-heroes. I know that's where the Punisher came from, but I'm 27 and I just can't swallow it! I can't hang with guys in ridiculous looking suits and hokey stupid powers gained in completely absurd and impossible ways. Zam! Pow! Zowie! Snikt! Save it, man. I'll quit buying the comic. The Punisher I can believe, his black suit with white skull, boots, and gloves (even though they never get stained from blood and garbage) I can believe. FBI, CIA, Mossad, guns, rocket launcher, I can believe. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine, and the rest of the cartoonish bunch, no way".

Did the writer of this letter realize that Luke Skywalker has "hokey stupid powers" and that the Star Wars films far outgrossed the Death Wish, Rambo, Coffin Ed and the Grave Digger, Shaft, Dirty Harry Callahan, the French Connection, etc.? That the Star Wars novels have started to give Mack Bolan a run for his money as well? With some exceptions, low-powered to less powered heroes have tended not to do that well at the box office (other than The Mask of Zorro), with the Lone Ranger, the Phantom, the Green Hornet, and so forth as examples, usually not reaching their budget at the domestic box office.

Of course, since the 1980's, Spider-Man, (to a lesser degree) Daredevil and Wolverine have seemed to have outgrossed the Punisher at the box office. Even in the 1980's, the Punisher's merchandise did not sell well, per an issue of David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview.

"Zam! Pow! Zowie! Snikt!"

Other than Prince Valiant, most adventure comic books and strips have sound effects drawn in, as per your scans on this entry (this long predates Adam West), so this complaint seems odd.