Marvel has revealed Punisher Showdowns, a trio of one-shots written by Tom Waltz, pitting Frank Castle against other Marvel heroes this fall. The first one-shot, Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow, will feature art by Greg Land, and see Frank and Natasha Romanoff clash during a mission to stop a terrorist attack in Las Vegas this October. Wolverine and Winter Soldier, which will respectively have art by Bruno Büll and Edgar Salazar instead, will follow in November and December, and see the characters clash over different missions.
The official Black Widow synopsis says the pair will encounter each other while pursuing an operative of the Wolf Spider (Niko Constantin), who was the Red Room’s only male trainee (first introduced in Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice‘s 2011 Captain America run). Wolverine will find Logan and Castle in New York after the yakuza “unleash a deadly and violence-inducing drug on the streets,” while Winter Soldier is set in the past, with the Soviet Union sending the brainwashed Bucky after Castle when he “targets a death-dealing criminal with political ties”.
The books are only part of a new wave of Punisher comics in the wake of the character’s return to the MCU, both on Disney+, and in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (which also received a final trailer ahead of its release on July 31 yesterday). Waltz himself is writing the character in the new Marvel Zombies series War Zone, starting September 2, and he comments, “[It’s] far from a punishment, let me tell you!”
He adds, “The Punisher has always been one of my favorite comic-book characters, all the way back to the first time I witnessed him doing battle with Daredevil in the classic Daredevil #183 [from 1982]. And now I get to showcase untold Punisher missions, culling from some of my favorite Marvel lore, and featuring three other fascinating super heroes with dark histories: Black Widow, Wolverine, and Winter Soldier. Rest assured, widows will sting, claws will slash, and bullets will fly. I couldn’t be more ecstatic to join my amazing art teams for this bombastic ride!”
Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow will be released on October 21, with a main cover by Land, and variants by Mark Bagley and Joe Jusko. Jusko will also provide covers for Wolverine (November 4) and Winter Soldier (December 2), which will have their main ones provided by Whilce Portacio and Ian Churchill. You can check out most of the covers (save Jusko’s, which haven’t been revealed yet) below in the meantime.
Additionally, Castle’s latest appearances — Punisher #6, Punisher vs. Spider-Man #1, and Spider-Man: Long Way Home #2 — are available now, while the Deadpool crossover “Big Guns” will begin in September.
