Marvel’s Franken-Castle Punisher?

I’m trying to remember the last time I read a monthly Punisher comic and the best I can come up with is . . . 1989? Man, I am really old. It’s not that I dislike the character, it’s just that I don’t read all that many comics these days and nothing has made me care enough to pay attention to the Punisher comics.

Well, that all changes today.

“I’m connecting a lot of dots between things that have happened in Marvel history,” explains Rick Remender, writer of the ongoing PUNISHER series, issue #12 out December 23. “In [issue #12] we first see Monster Metropolis, which is a giant underground city, and in its center is the Hall of Monsters. We’ve seen the Legion of Monsters pop up on occasion, we’ve seen them work together, but what we’ve seen is nowhere near the scope of what’s really gone on.

I’m not sure exactly when or what happened to turn the Punisher into a Frankenstein’s Monster (how odd, I just mentioned the Marvel Frankenstein’s Monster last week), but now I’ve gotta track down some comics and get ready for this new twist.

“The Punisher is dead, so who, or what, is the giant patchwork monster skulking through the tunnels under New York? And what do those strange armored Japanese hunters tracking him want? Criminals are no longer being killed; they are simply vanishing into thin air. Listen closely, you can hear their pleas far below the streets.”

In Punisher: Monster Mash at Marvel.com, Rick Remender goes on to say:

“When you see Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Dracula and even Doctor Voodoo together I think you start to see a very unique group of characters from the Marvel Universe. I’m trying to create a mythology where on occasion we’ve seen these characters work together but there’s been a lot more that’s been going on in the shadows.”

Wow. Yeah, I’m hitting Austin Books today and tracking down some Punisher comics. This sounds like it’s gonna be fun. And the artwork looks great.