THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #162
"Let The Punisher Fit The Crime!"
Featuring:Plot Summary:War Journal Entry Number 381, Update: Four people were already dead, murdered by a sniper pretending to be the Punisher. A two-bit gambler named Snake-Eyes had told the Punisher the killer would strike next at the Roosevelt Island Tramway, but when he got there, he found two possible suspects: The Web-slinging Spider-Man, and a night-crawling demon! The Punisher has the drop on both Spider-Man and Nightcrawler from the cable car assuming that one of them is the sniper. Spider-Man and Nightcrawler are both assuming that the Punisher is the killer they seek. After a brief scuffle in the cable car with both Spider-Man and Nightcrawler tag-teaming against Punisher, a mysterious fourth party opens fire on the cable car from a hidden position atop the 59th Street Bridge. Despite the flurry of shots, no one aboard the cable car is hit. Instead of risking his and the other X-Men's secrets, Nightcrawler teleports away rather than answer questions from the Punisher. Once he leaves, the Punisher offers Spider-Man a place in this operation. Spider-Man accepts without hesitation. War Journal Entry #382: The tramcar was a total loss, a bullet-ridden relic that, minutes before, had been the Big Apple's proudest new tourist trap. Spider-Man and the Punisher flee to the Punisher's war wagon parked nearby. After plowing through a police barricade, the two make a battle plan and agree to meet again tomorrow. Then, the web-slinger took his leave with a, "Try not to get yourself killed before then." 
Early the next day, on the campus of Empire State University, Peter and Harry run into MJ and Flash relaxing in the grass. Peter offers his apologies to MJ for running off on her yesterday, but MJ blows him off telling him that she's not going to be a possessive she-cat anymore. Then, in an exceptionally catty move, she gives him the old "you're not the only fish in the sea routine" by running off to a date with Flash. While Peter grumbles about this latest development in his relationship, he spots Jonah wandering around on campus. Little does Peter realize what mischief our favorite publisher is up to today! Jonah stops by the office of Dr. Marla Madison, one of the most eminent electro-biologists in the country. Jonah realizes that she's run out of challenges recently and offers her a new one. He recruits her in a secret plot to help him destroy the wall-crawling menace called Spider-Man! And on that oddly-ominous note, let's jump ahead twelve hours and focus our attention on a certain garbage-strewn corner on Manhattan's upper west side. The Punisher, cautious as ever, calls Spider-Man on a payphone and leads him to the location of the war wagon. After the two hook up, they roll off. "There's a war waiting." War Journal Entry Number 383: Engine Company #35 was going down for the third time, but the residents of this East Side neighborhood weren't going to let it sink without a fight. They'd organized a block party to help rally public support for their cause. The Punisher was here to make certain their party didn't turn into a wake. The Punisher's source has revealed that the false Punisher was going to strike here tonight. Spider-Man and the Punisher split up with the Punisher crawling through the alleyways and Spider-Man scouting out the rooftops. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure ambushes one of the sniper's scouts on a nearby rooftop (Gee, who could that be?). 
A block away, Spider-Man spots a figure lying face-down in the alley. Assuming the sniper has already struck, Spider-Man swings down to aid the victim. Improbably, Spider-Man falls into an ambush set by the sniper's gang. Two men wearing purple jumpsuits and half-masks get the drop on Spider-Man and beat him into unconsciousness. For those of your worried about our hero, the gangsters make a point of telling the reader that the boss wants Spider-Man alive. The mood on the street turns to one of stunned confusion as gangsters with assault rifles hold the crowd hostage and hang an unconscious and chained-up Spider-Man to a handy street light. Finally, the mastermind behind this whole charade steps forward with a bullhorn to call out the Punisher. Its one ugly mug named Jigsaw. A former two-bit punk who was thrown through a plate-glass window head first by the Punisher, Jigsaw vowed revenge and has spent the past months training himself to be as good as the Punisher is. When Jigsaw threatens to start shooting into the crowd, the Punisher fires several warning shots from cover. Jigsaw nimbly dodges the bullets, but is startled when Nightcrawler, disguised as one of Jigsaw's gang, removes his clothing and pounces on Jigsaw. A wild melee ensues with Nightcrawler fighting Jigsaw hand to hand, and the Punisher taking down Jigsaw's men with rubber bullets. Apparently, he's using rubber bullets to avoid injuring any innocent bystanders (What fun is that?). During the battle, Spider-Man regains consciousness; dramatically break frees from the chain holding him, and jumps into the fight. Realizing how badly outgunned he is, Jigsaw makes his getaway on a nearby fire truck. While one of his gang wildly drives the truck through the neighborhood streets, Spider-Man catches the truck and dukes it out with Jigsaw atop the rig. Despite his special exo-skeleton, Jigsaw proves no match for himself when he catches a firehose around the trucks axle and knocks himself and the truck out of commission. Spider-Man has everything under control by the time Punisher and Nightcrawler show up. The gang neutralized, Jigsaw tightly bound by a firehose which just about does it for this issue. Nightcrawler teleports out in his dramatic fashion, and Punisher simply vanishes when Spidey's back is turned. Since his partners don't bother to stick around, why should Spider-Man? And, he swings off into the sunset. Comments:All right, all right, so it's been FOREVER and a day since I had an update. It's been a really hectic month, but here I am trying to do this for you. Whoever 'you' might be. Anyways, in the past month, I did do something cool. I hit the Wizard comic-con in Chicago. While there, I managed to fill in a LOT of holes in my collection of Amazing Spider-Man. In fact, I fill in so many holes, that I'm going to leave off the current issues where there are and go back a ways and start reviewing as far back as I've collected. It's going to be a surprise where I start, but I will leave you a hint. I spent about $400 in Chicago and $300 of that was on three very special (and pricey issues). I'm sure many of you can guess which issues those are though. 
Plot Analysis:Ooooo... What a start to the issue. Punisher has Spider-Man and Nightcrawler corner on a cable car. Now, I know the Punisher is like the end-all be-all ultimate human warrior, but seriously, he really shouldn't be a match for Spider-Man and he's hopelessly out of his class facing off against Spider-Man and Nightcrawler. Despite that the writer sees fit to have him put up a good fight against the two of them, and he even manages to incapacitate Spider-Man by pinning his costume to the wall with a couple of well-thrown knives. All in all, the first three pages are pretty much just a simple slugfest for the sake of showing how cool the Punisher is. The story finally gets underway when the mysterious sniper opens fire from a nearby bridge. Now, the Punisher has no means to get from the cable car to the bridge. Nightcrawler teleports nearby, but the strain of the teleport leaves him too weak to continue, and Spider-Man is pinned to the wall and unable to get free apparently. Actually, the sniper really accomplishes nothing though. No one was hit, and all his did do is clear up any misconceptions are three players have about who is really the villain in this issue. Oh yeah, I should point out that I thought three issue shots just weren't enough to cover one villain and two guest-stars, so I've thrown in a gratuitous fourth issue shot for free. This might be a regular thing from here on out. I've noticed the comic has a distinct pace to it. Opening fight scene, progress subplots involving supporting cast, final fight scene, and closer. It seems to lend itself to a nice symmetry if I cover each of these with an image. And then we come to the scene that won the writer the coveted "most deserving to be beating by a hammer for such a lame plot twist." In this scene, Spider-Man (altruistic hero and all-around good guy) agrees to team up with the Punisher (wanted vigilante and known serial killer) to track down the sniper. Now, why are we tracking down the sniper? Oh, because he's killing people. Why aren't we tracking down the Punisher? Oh, well, he only kills the bad people. The one's who need killing. Yeah, great logic there. In fact, this whole issue the Punisher really wimps out. I mean, last issue, he smokes a bunch of gangsters. Ok, cool, he's a bad-ass. This issue, he uses decidedly non-lethal force against Spider-Man and Nightcrawler, and later uses "rubber stun bullets" against the bad guys. This is almost as funny as the cops using "knock-out bullets" or whatever they were called against Hammerhead a few issues ago. Anyway, all right, so Spider-Man and the Punisher hook up. The writer re-establishes why the Punisher is the "Coolest Marvel Character of All Time" (note: this is NOT my opinion) by having drive his van through a couple of police roadblocks to get away. There's so much going on this issue that it feels like the writer just devoted a couple of token scene to the supporting cast. We have a few pages of MJ being catty and flirting with Flash. We have Jonah meeting with a Dr. Marla Madison (who, I believe he marries later on, but I couldn't tell you when exactly). Anyways, I expect to have hanging around and Jonah's secret plot should be amusing. I'm guessing it has something to do with the photographs, but what those incriminating pictures of Spider-Man have to do with an electro-biologist, I don't know yet. So, the Punisher hooks up with Spider-Man once he gets a word on where the sniper is located next. I'm so happy that the writer makes a point of explaining that the sniper actually WANTS the Punisher to find him. Cause otherwise, Jigsaw would not only be one of the lamest villains in awhile, but also one of the dimmer bulbs of the bunch too. And of course, we can't forget Nightcrawler who's still out to avenge his friend, so he makes a quick appearance too. Spider-Man and the Punisher split up. Again, we need to establish the Punisher as the "second coming of Christ" so instead of having him get lured into an ambush (he's much too cool for that), we'll have Spider-Man fall for the ambush (Spider-sense? What Spider-Sense?). And just to top that off, let's have him get taken down, beaten into submission, and trussed up in chains by two completely average thugs armed with nothing more than lead pipes. "We secretly replaced our regular hero with new Folder's Crystals. Shhh, let's see if the reader notices!" Apparently, this isn't Spider-Man's day. First, the Punisher takes him down. Then, two nameless thugs take him down. Finally, he doesn't even beat the bad guy. The bad guy knocks himself out accidentally. I half-suspect that Len Wein was feeling a lot of bitterness and anger in his life at this point and was taking it out on the main character. Can someone in the know tell me if his wife left him or his dog died or something in mid-'76? Finally, we're introduced to the most hideous-looking villain ever shown Jigsaw. Apparently, he and the Mirage both shop for outfits for themselves and their hired thugs at the same discount outlet. What is with purple and yellow? Is Ross Andru the most color-blind artist out there? What is the point of dressing up a gangster so they stand out like a sore thumb? I've seen pimps on HBO with more class and style than these guys have. Ok, just cause I'm getting tired of this issue. Big fight scene where lameness abound. Jigsaw manages to fight off Nightcrawler. The Punisher shoots a lot of guys with rubber bullets. Spider-Man breaks free and during the huge climatic fight atop a firetruck, Jigsaw manages to knock himself out. Classic. Why again did this require two-issues? 
Art Review:Ah boy, just when I was really starting to enjoy Ross Andru's art. First, he has some sort of sick fascination with the color-combination of purple and yellow. This is the like the 3rd or 4th set of henchmen using that color-scheme in the past twelve issues or so. Maybe Marvel just picked up a bunch cheap and were using it a lot to keep costs down. Secondly, Ross just can't draw vehicles or perspectives well. The panel where Peter is standing on a campus hill watching MJ and Flash enter a cab below is completely wrong. It looks like the cab is parked on a rooftop a half-story above Peter's head. Some of the angles used during the final battle were so screwy that it really detracted from the story as well. Action Factor:All action, but mostly bad action. I mean, it's Spider-Man versus a bunch of punks essentially. There's no suspense. The ending is never in doubt. In fact, this wouldn't have been much of a story if Spider-Man was actually written up to his ability and character. I mean, pinned by the Punisher, captured by two thugs, and can hardly hold his own against Jigsaw? I mean, I think Aunt May would've put up a better fight. Spider-Villain lessons 101:
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©2002 Samuel Smith
Spider-Man ™ and all images © 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.