Did Somebody Say..."Racism"?

The Punisher: he's not worried about Miranda rights.

Continuing the thread. Now is the perfect time for this post as racism is in the air. In the last comic-related post I found an issue from around 1991 where the theme was related to Rodney King. To spice things up a bit I found another issue from a different comic around 1991 where the theme is related to, uh, Rodney King. I said it before and I'll say it again: the left is patently unoriginal.

This happens to be an issue of the Punisher. Penny mentioned him way back in the comments that inspired the Underverse. At the time I couldn't remember why I soured on the Punisher, because I enjoyed things like the excerpt above a great deal. Then I came across this issue in my garage and it all came flooding back to me.

The back story is that, for some reason, the Punisher needed plastic surgery (supplied by a genius surgeon who was also a hooker...or something) and the surgeon made him black, which he was not expecting. I think the only reason this event happened is so the sequence below could exist. Join the action as the Punisher arrives in the city limits of Chicago:


Uh-oh. The all white police force of Chicago has appeared out of nowhere to pull over a black guy who swerved a little bit. One of them even sounds like a southerner (they are everywhere, you know; like cockroaches) as he gives life to Maureen Dowd's unspoken "boy". I wonder what will happen next?


If you guessed "group of white cops beating helpless minority", award yourself ten points. Things really get interesting when Luke "Power Man" Cage happens to show up because his path is impeded by the four police cars parked in the middle of the exit ramp while they beat someone senseless in broad daylight, as is routine procedure for all random traffic stops. Just so you know, Cage's powers include super strength and virtual invulnerability. Being a fellow super hero, how will he handle this situation? He'll probably find out what's going on and not just charge in half-cocked, right?


Not so much. Well it seems that things are getting out of hand, here. It's high time that the cool head of the Punisher prevails. After all, he punishes evil, and looking at things purely objectively, he was in a stolen car with no ID, was legally pulled over for swerving all over the road, and he did knock the crap out of a cop. Technically the Punisher is the lawbreaker in this situation. I'm sure Frank Castle will get things under control before they go too far.


Hm. Or perhaps he will murder a cop. The Punisher...murders a cop. Then again, the cop was a racist so he deserved to die. Isn't that the lesson for the kiddies here? Well maybe the Punisher and Cage weren't thinking straight for some reason and are going to come to their senses and be wracked with guilt afterwards?


Damn. Wrong again. Looks like they will rest easy tonight. By the way, did you notice where they are headed? To the south side of Chicago, of course, adopted home of Obama. How quaint. It's almost as if they were visiting the manger Jesus was born in, except that Obama wasn't born in Chicago and he wasn't famous when this was written. But if he was, it would be like that.

The only other noteworthy happening in this issue is that Cage demands that nobody die when he and the Punisher take out a gang that has been dealing crack to the neighborhood. Got that, kids? Racist cops: okay to kill. Murderous crack dealers: they deserve mercy (and really, they are victims, too).

Penny, if you're reading this, I think this issue was the exact moment when the Punisher went PC. I at least know it's the last issue I ever bought.