Issue(s): Punisher #71
Cover Date: Oct 92
Title: "Punisher #71"
Credits:
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writer
Doug Braithwaite - Penciler
Jimmy Palmiotti - Inker
Tim Tuohy - Assistant Editor
Don Daley - Editor

Review/plot:
The Punisher and Micro get home from Europe after a "prolonged absence" to the point where the Daily Bugle has written an article assuming that he's been killed.

Punisher and Micro go to the airport parking lot, and while Micro looks through his stuff for their parking ticket, Punisher notices a drug deal going on. Some kids are turning on their dealers, trying to rob them.

But the dealers are protected by someone named Recoil, who i think may be the Owl's nephew and who is also apparently a big fan of Epic comics.

Having just gotten off a plane, the Punisher has no weapons on him, but he jumps in to the fight and manages to get one of the dealer's guns. Recoil flees in a car.

The rest of the issue is not related to Recoil or the drug deal at the airport, except in the sense that the Punisher recognizes one of the people he kills at the airport as a small timer that he let go once, which spurs him into action now. The issue is really about the Punisher making up for lost time after having been away (note the reference to the Kingpin; that's a continuity snafu that i discuss in the Considerations).

Basically, he kills a bunch of dudes.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue is clearly meant to take place after Punisher #64-70. Punisher and Micro are returning from Europe. Punisher's War Journal at the beginning of this issue says that "The European business Micro and I have been busy with these last few weeks ended well", and there's a footnote to Punisher #64-70, the Eurohit storyline. This all seems obvious. The problem is that this issue has the Punisher saying that the Kingpin is "out of the way", a reference to the fall of the Kingpin. This is almost continuity malpractice. Every issue of Eurohit included a reminder that the story took place before the fall of the Kingpin. And at this point, Punisher #53-62 had (by definition) already been published, and Punisher #60-62 referenced the fall of the Kingpin as something that the Punisher tangentially contributed to due to the events of issues #53-59. So the Punisher can't have been away during the fall, as this story suggests. It can't take place after, since the Kingpin appears during Eurohit. And it can't take place before, since this issue references the fall. Oh, and it can't take place during, because the Punisher gets the surgery that makes him look like a black man between #59-60. I don't know why you would make a reference to the fall of the Kingpin at this point when you know you are continuing from a story that was explicitly meant to take place before it.

One option here is to split this story in half and assume that everything until they get home from the airport occurs soon after issue #70, with it the rest taking place much later, after the fall of the Kingpin (assume it takes some time before the Punisher identifies the guy that he killed at the airport). But the MCP gets clever, and places this after the Punisher's appearance in Motormouth and Killpower #3-6. So essentially this all takes place after the Punisher gets back from a different trip to Europe. And i'm following that.

Regardless of what i've had to do to make it fit, this raises the interesting possibility that intention was for Punisher's appearance in Motormouth to take place while he was in Europe for Eurohit. These Punisher issues (Eurohit and this epilogue) were written by Abnett & Lanning, who may very well have coordinated with the Marvel UK office to get Punisher in Europe, or at least have them take advantage of the fact that he was there. The Motormouth issues were published at the same time as Eurohit. There's no explicit connection, and for continuity reasons too convoluted to get into, they can't line up, but i wanted to raise the possibility that it may have been the intention.

References:

• The Kingpin is "out of the way" thanks to Daredevil #299-300.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A