Punisher War Journal #4-5 (1989): 1st Sniper

The splash page to this story is pretty powerful.  A guy is shot in the head from an unseen sniper.

We immediately watch his life flash before his own eyes, and see he was part of Frank Castle’s detachment in Vietnam.  

That’s the story: Someone is killing Punisher’s old war buddies. And Punisher has to take the lessons he learned in ‘Nam to go after the killer.

The sniper is trying to cover up the fact that these soldiers were duped into supporting black ops that smuggled drugs into the U.S.  And by the end of these issues, Punisher kills the high level bureaucrat responsible for all that.  But the sniper gets away.

He’ll be back, too.

Good read–this is probably the closest the ’80s could get to a modern Punisher story.

Leave a Comment