One of Marvel's most enduring characters is The Punisher, a quite violent comic that is better suited to more "mature readers" and in small writing under the company logo it does say "for older readers". There's not just a lot of violence (to be expected with the story of a man intent on wiping out criminals, permanently) but also more adult themes as Frank Castle finds himself seduced by a beautiful Chinese woman in the second issue.
Compared to some of the video games that today's young-uns play I dare say a lot of people would find this material quite tame. Nevertheless this comic is a product of the time it was produced.
I picked up a couple of early issues to get a measure of what this title was like. It contains just the two features, The Punisher (obviously) and an adaptation of Robocop which was a popular eighties creation.
The Punisher story appears in two parts (both in full colour) with a black & white reprint of Robocop in the middle. Production costs were the obvious reason for this..
In this issue Frank Castle finds himself outside of prison and heads to kill the Kingpin, a foe more familiar to Daredevil fans. It's a trap and he is forced to rely on a group known as The Trust, but can he "trust" them.....
Meanwhile Robocop is starting to remember who he is.
Fun reading for fans of violent crime fiction.
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