The Punisher Annual 1 - The Evolutionary War

The Punisher encounters an Evolutionary War on Drugs.

(Due to the large number of creators the labels for some have been put in a separate post.)

The Punisher Annual #1

1st story: Evolutionary Jihad
Script: Mike Baron
Pencils: Mark Texeira
Inks: Scott Williams
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: Janet Jackson
Edits: Carl Potts
Eliminator in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The problem with a line wide crossover, or at least one encompassing all the series with annuals, is that it's going to take in some extremely different series with very different power levels and perspectives. Both this annual and the next one demonstrate the extremities of this as they take in what were in 1988 Marvel's hottest new series.

The Punisher had been running for less than a year when this first annual came along and so it's very likely The Evolutionary War was approved before it was realised there would be an encounter on such a scale. The nature  of this crossover overall is such that individual events can be easily added or dropped from the overall plan but the different power levels can result in some very strange aspects to the plan.

The solution here is to tell a relatively straightforward typical Punisher story in which one faction is armed with high tech weaponry. The High Evolutionary's Eliminators aren't that much more advanced than some of the other more technological foes the Punisher and so don't feel out of place here whilst the Evolutionary himself is never seen, only mentioned. However the goal in this annual is ridiculous.

Here the High Evolutionary has launched a war on drugs and comments by his Eliminators imply that they're going after the whole chain from producers all the way through to users. It just feels absurd that such a broad target would be selected for such physical resources. It would be easy to refine the target to some particular drug variant only grown in the vicinity but as it stands it's an unbelievable goal. Still the practical result is that the Punisher gets to fight some hi-tech guys in Colombia.

This is yet another tale of a fight with a  Latin American drug baron, a cliche even at the time. However Mike Baron's script gives some good development to "El Caiman", presenting him as also a devoted father and popular philanthropist who has done far more for the local people than their own government. He and the Punisher end up in an alliance of convenience against the Eliminators and there's a real sense that they've come to respect one another enough that they'll let each go when the threat is removed. However both know that this cannot be and so when they find themselves in El Caiman's aquarium at the end the Punisher has no option but to fire a bullet to break the glass and feed the drug lord to his own pet from whom he takes his nickname.

As a Punisher story this is a good one-off tale that doesn't require an in-depth knowledge of the character and his continuity to understand it. But as a chapter in The Evolutionary War it's struggling to disguise just how difficult it is to fit that event into this series. The Evolutionary's goals are just too unrealistic to make sense.


2nd story: 3 Hearts
Writer: Roger Salick
Artist: Mike Bosburg
Letterer: Ken Bruzenak
Colorist: Max Scheele

This solo tale for Microchip is named after a Japanese proverb that a person has three hearts - the one they show to the world, the one they keep to themselves and the one they don't even know about. Microchip finds out what he is capable of when he goes to the help of the widow of an old friend whose new husband has become an assassin for hire and is even trying to kill his wife lest she report him. Although Microchip has developed many weapons for others, here we see his private nervousness over whether he himself can pull the trigger when he tracks down the assassin reporting back. We also get the comedy as he smuggles an anti-tank gun into a hotel. And then the story ends with showing his deviousness and ruthlessness as he confronts the assassin and seemingly makes a deal.

It's a good exploration of Microchip's character and capabilities when he doesn't have the Punisher around him but the story's title is rather over laboured with excess dialogue seeking to justify it. But otherwise this is just the sort of piece that super-size annuals should have.


3rd story: The High Evolutionary: Pet Project
Story: Mark Gruenwald
Pencils: Paris Cullins
Inks: Tony DeZuniga
Letters: Ken Lopez
Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Herbert Edgar Wyndham was expelled from Oxford after losing his temper with key professors and then he found his home was insufficiently isolated to carry out his experiments. Salvation came when he met again with Jonathan Drew whose wife had inherited land in the Balkans and so they set up a laboratory there.

It's a relatively straightforward chapter that continues the themes of Wyndham being in a hurry, impatient with the conventional speed of science and being detached from conventional society. But it also exposes a problem with the character's name and aims. Evolution is the development of a species as it adapts to conditions with beneficial mutations coming to dominate as best able to survive. By definition it is not possible to stick an organism in a machine and flick a switch to turn it into what a later evolved descendant will be. Yet that is precisely what Wyndham is shown attempting. At best he can accelerate the individual organism's development to deal with the rays of his machine but nothing more.

This flaw goes back to the character's original appearance and suggests that his creators did not have the strongest understanding of evolutionary science when they named him. It raises the question as to what is the character's actual goal.

Also included is a guide to the Punisher's Battle Van and a diagram of his New Jersey warehouse.

Overall this is a good Punisher annual but a disappointing The Evolutionary War one. The Punisher was always going to be one of the hardest characters to fit into the overall event but even so the draw here just doesn't stand up well. It is unfortunate that both the first two annuals in this event have been disappointing.