Remembering Some Comics: Punisher #47
It was early 1991, and my friend Dan and I were out walking around aimlessly, as 11-year-olds in the Philadelphia suburbs did in early 1991. It was as good a way as any to pass the time back then, especially if you had enough money in your pocket to buy some candy or a soda.
We stopped at the News Agency, a tiny store on Main Street that had shelves of newspapers and magazines. The store smelled of newsprint and ink. After glancing quickly at the music magazines, Dan slowly made his way down to the comic books at the end of the shelf. And he pointed at one in particular -- the cover of which featured a man with a drawing of a skull on his chest holding a machine gun and punching another man amidst a hazy red background -- and he said, "You ever read The Punisher? It's really cool."
At that point in my life, I had not read The Punisher, or any other comic book. I had seen them in stores. I must have paged through one or two of them. I was familiar with Batman and Superman from movies. But the world of comic books was not one that I understood or cared about.
But as a sixth-grader who was growing more insecure every day, I did care about fitting in, so I picked up a copy of that Punisher comic book -- issue #47 -- and I took it to the register and the old man who owned the store wordlessly took my cash and put the comic book in a paper bag.
I had no idea at the time that this purchase would forever change my life.
When I got home, I read the issue I had purchased. Coming in as a blank slate, I struggled to understand what was happening. I was able to discern that The Punisher was a man named Frank Castle. As the text on the top of the first page explained, he was waging a one-man war on crime because mobsters had killed his family. In this particular issue, he went to the Middle East to stop the fictional country of Zukistan from destroying Israel. The story was confusing.
But I didn't regret my purchase. Instead, I saw it as a puzzle to solve, or a cryptic language begging to be decoded. Clearly, others understood and cared about comic books. So I read the issue again. And again a few days later. And I gradually began to appreciate the story and the dialogue and the art.
I was at the News Agency again a few days later. By then, Punisher #48 was out. I convinced my mother to buy me a copy so I could see what would happen next.
As a child, I had spent several years obsessed with dinosaurs. I learned all of their names and drew pictures of them in my notebooks. Then I moved on to airplanes. I could identify all of them. F-14s to A-10s to SR-71s.
And I could already feel that comic books would become my new obsession. I wanted to know all there was to know.
In the subsequent weeks, I picked up a Captain America issue, then the current month's copy of Thor. Then Daredevil. The characters in the Marvel universe were vivid and their stories were fascinating. I could see that there was magic within the pages of each issue.
Within a few months, I was buying multiple issues a week, and the stack of comics on my bedroom floor was alphabetized and put in protective bags and I was officially hooked.
And it was all thanks to Frank Castle and my friend Dan.