I believe I may have found a new motto for this website.
“I don’t need a jetpack — all I need is hate.” If those aren’t words to live by….
Actually, I’ve been poking through a bunch of Punisher 2099 comics as they’ve been getting processed for the bargain bins…and they’re kinda darkly funny. I mostly dismissed the 2099 line as something I wasn’t interested in at the time they originally were released. I sampled the first issues of each of the initial series and not one came even close to grabbing me. But now that I look at Punisher 2099, years after the fact…it was co-created and written by Pat Mills, the co-creator of one of the greatest anti-superhero comics ever published. (EDIT: New link…sorry, that other link was working last night, honest.) It’s just…so over the top with its grittiness and the lead’s hardboiledness and just plain craziness. I was chatting about this with internet pal and professional G4 TV watcher Chris Sims about this very topic, and he sent me a link to this image one of his readers sent him. In it, the Punisher is asked how old he is, and he responds with “thirty-six…caliber!” which is both insane and wonderful.
So I may have to reconsider Punisher 2099, and give a look to the other Pat Mills (and Tony Skinner) issues of the series. I’m intrigued, at any rate.
Also, in the letters page for this issue, mention is made of a coloring choice that I’d noticed in another Marvel title as well:
Okay, if you’re gonna claim you’re a “bad dude,” I’d like to see some documentation to that effect. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I first noticed the “black blood” phenomenon when Groo the Wanderer made the transition from PC Comics to Marvel/Epic (yes, with a pitstop at Eclipse Comics along the way), and the sprays and pools of red blood we used to see in Groo’s earlier adventures were now suddenly colored black. I don’t know if they were absolutely consistent about it, but I certainly remember noticing it at the time.
I’m sure it’s all Comics Code Authority-enforced, and it’s no big whoop. Or as Employee Aaron said: “They’re all comic book characters; of course they’d bleed black ink” — who can argue logic like that? Not me, brother.
One more thing from this ish of Punisher 2099: the Circulation Statement:
Boy, weren’t the early-to-mid-1990s a fun time? Some awfully big numbers there (yes…including the returns; by and large, those returns were higher in number than the print runs of many titles today).
