Issue(s): Punisher War Journal #10
Cover Date: Nov 89
Title: "Second shot"
Credits:
Carl Potts - Writer
Jim Lee - Penciler
Scott Williams - Inker
Rob Tokar - Assistant Editor
Don Daley - Editor

Review/plot:
Punisher and Microchip are at a NATO war games demonstration in Germany. The event is to show simulated combat between the new computerized M1A1 Abrams battle tank and the Apache helicopter. Punisher and Micro are there because they are after Sniper. Someone with his MO has been breaking into NATO computer systems and they think he's going to try to steal something. And he does steal an Apache helicopter. To stop him, Punisher and Micro impersonate army officers (whose names happen to coincide with some Marvel assistant editors)...

...and use the Abrams and a few other tanks to fight Sniper in the Apache.

When Sniper destroys most of the tanks and nearly makes it across the border, Punisher taunts Sniper to get him to return, and paints a skull on his tank so that Sniper knows who to shoot for.

Sniper fails to kill the Punisher but does make it back across the border to East Germany, although the stolen helicopter is destroyed and Sniper is presumed dead.

The point of this story seems to be to allow Carl Potts to namecheck some military hardware, although in re-using Sniper, Potts is building up a continuity for this book in a way that Mike Baron has seemed to be less interested in on the other Punisher title.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I'm placing this before Punisher #23 just to put some space between the Punisher's coincidental run-ins with the Shadowmasters in Punisher War Journal #9 and Punisher #24. The stories are really context free.

References:

• Sniper previously appeared in Punisher War Journal #4-5. We learn that after the Punisher let Sniper escape with a hostage in that arc, Sniper killed the hostage.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I believe this is the beginning of the long collaboration of Jim Lee and Scott Williams. I do like Williams but think that Lee looks even better when he inks himself.

This is what TV Tropes calls an Unintentional Period Piece, since East Germany's Communist government collapsed a few months after this story was published.