Episode Details

Note: This episode was recorded before the death of Gerry Conway, who wrote two of the stories we talk about.

The Punisher is gearing up for a busy summer on the big and small screens (with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Punisher: One Last Kill, respectively). So what better time to dive into some key early stories charting the evolution of everyone's favorite gun-toting vigilante?

We start with a look at the Punisher's pop-culture inspirations, including the Executioner and Dirty Harry, before discussing his first appearance in 1974's Amazing Spider-Man #129, where he joins forces with (wait, this can't be right, can it?) the Jackal to take down your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler!

Then it's on to Marvel Preview #2 from that same year, in which we learn the tragic backstory behind his one-man war on crime!

Finally, we jump ahead a few years to Daredevil #183-184 and a gritty, street-level take on the character that's closer to the version we're all familiar with.

Is our (anti)hero just a poor judge of character? What type of story suits him best? And can our surly sentinel of the streets survive a frontal assault from that Whack Attack known as … The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• What happened to Curt on our April 1 episode?
• The Spotmaker
• Punisher War Journal #19
• Punisher: Circle