1974-2024 : BON ANNIVERSAIRE LE PUNISHER !

[Marko]

@Jim_Laine

des personnages vedettes qui incarnent, chacun à sa manière, la tendance outrée du « grim & gritty » qui s’est imposé dans la décennie précédente

Un trio qui a failli être réuni ailleurs à la même période (sauf que le Punisher n’y fait qu’un caméo).

@Marko

The way I remember it, I was running late, and I wanted to get some fill-in issues done to help me catch up. It was really a fool’s dream, because you think you’re going to use that time to play catch-up, but it never happens. But it was my honourable intention at the time. Art Adams was and is a good friend, and a phenomenal artist to boot, so I asked him if he’d be game to do a three-part FF story, and he agreed. Around the time this was happening, Spider-Man was very hot, and I thought it would be kind of fun to guest-star Spidey in the book. That was how it started.

At some point, I went down to Carol Kalish’s office on the tenth floor. I knew and liked Carol a lot. I thought she was really sharp. Every so often I just wandered into her office and kept her from doing any work by talking to her. I’d like to find out what was going on in the biz and get her perspective on it, because it was a different perspective to mine.
An oral history of Carol Kalish: the most important comic book figure you've never heard of | GamesRadar+
So I was talking to Kurt and Carol ; I don’t remember who else, thought there were two or three people sitting around, shooting the breeze. I told Carol that I was thinking about getting Spider-Man into Fantastic Four, and Kurt was like, « Well, if you’re gonna use Spider-Man, you’re gonna have to use Ghost Rider, the Punisher and Wolverine », because at that time, those were all the hot characters - and we all cracked up.

Now, my memory is that it was said pretty much in jest, but I went home that night, and I felt like Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live - « Spider-Man, yeah, Wolverine, yeah, that’s the ticket ». So I called Art (Adams) up and I said, « How about if we use these guys ? »

Art said, « Well, I don’t like the Punisher - I liked him when he was a vilain, but I don’t like him as a hero », and I said, « So who do you want to draw ? » Arthur replied « I’d love to draw the Hulk. »

@Marko

After that fist ’New FF’ issue came out, the retailers were furious because we didn’t tell them it was going to sell so well. Who the hell knew it was going to sell that well ?

Well, it was a good story. But who knew ? I mean, another funny thing about it was the Punisher. As I mentioned, Arthur didn’t want to draw the Punisher and I didn’t care. But after I thought about it, I said to him, « Well, look, the Punisher is hot right now, and he should really be in the comic, if only for just a second. » I mean, if you’re going to go overboard, you may as well go all the way ! So we worked out a bit where, at the very end of the whole story, the Punisher shows up.

And on the cover, there’s a little inset drawing of the Punisher’s chest showing his skull and uniform with some copy like, « Most exploitative appearance of a guest star ever ! ». You don’t see his head on the cover, just the chest and skull design.

And then on the inside, he’s in a Punisher helicopter, and he’s wearing a flight helmet and sitting in his flight suit. There’s never a whole body shot of the Punisher in the entire comic. He shows up in the end, says, « Well, I guess they’re all done », and he leaves. And that was the whole Punisher bit. Arthur was game to draw that much Punisher !