Hello Legions of the Unspoken! We’re proud to once again be a part of the Super Blog Team Up, this time taking a look at Christmas stories! Dean and Emily set down and had a nice long chat about the 1991 Marvel Holiday Special! Take a listen, and then take a gander at what the other SBTU folks have cooked up for you during this special time of year!
Check Out the Other Players in the Super-Blog Team Up!
Hello, Legions of the Unspoken! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Solstice, Yule, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate! If you hate the season, I hope you are making it through as best you can! Emily sure did a fantastic job yesterday with her look at the Marvel Holiday Special from 1992! Make sure you take a gander at it right here!
Emily mentioned this in her article yesterday, but it is really important to remember that many folks don’t have a great time during the holiday season. Try and spare a kind word for them, and when it comes to food charity, I encourage you to not only give during the holidays, but it would be swell if you could give during the entire year when you can. People ain’t just hungry at Christmas.
Many comic book characters also do not have a particularly swell time during Christmas, although most have a bad time for reasons other than hunger. Characters like Batman or Punisher don’t care for Christmas for obvious reasons and reasons many in the real world can relate to as well. Having lost family can put a damper on the whole holiday thing.
Which is why it is sort of surprising that Marvel put out three Punisher Holiday specials, and he was prominently featured in several Marvel Holiday Specials in the 90’s as well. The other side of that, though, is that Punisher was so popular then that they milked him for everything he was worth. There were Punisher Summer and Back to School Specials as well during this time, which also don’t seem like prime specials to be propped up by a psychopathic serial killer like Frank Castle.
But that doesn’t mean that this Holiday special has to be bad. In fact, the opposite is very much true. Thanks to the hard work of the creators involved with this special, we have a lot of fun. The first story is a little like the movie Die Hard in that there is lots of action with the trappings of Christmas permeating the background. Also, since this is the 90’s, the special has a gimmick cover.
Stephen (why it isn’t spelled Steven as it should be is a mystery that the world may never know the answer to) Grant writes this fun tale, where we get introduced the world’s whiniest mobster.
That mob guy sort of looks like he could be Murderface’s cousin. You don’t know who Murderface is? For shame, good sir, for shame.
Well, the good news is that apparently even mobsters celebrate Christmas. The bad news is that they have no idea how it is done. Little Tony sounds like such a whiny little douche. We all know someone like him, right? Someone who always gets their way and then the first time they don’t, they wind up making you go deaf from their ability to alternate between screams so shrill they could pierce the dimensional barrier and whines so pathetic that they almost create their own emo albums. One could only assume that all of these qualities would only be worse in the son of a prominent mob boss.
So, these guys set up a plan to ambush Punisher, which he learns about from a drug dealer who appears to have stepped straight out of the Chick tract, The Gay Blade. Don’t get that reference? Well, you can see this work of hilarious hate right here, but compare the following two images and tell me that the guy Punisher is squeezing for information would look out of place at all next to these two:
That lady is reacting like a zombie is going reaching up for her in a Tales from the Crypt comic.
So now that Punisher has dealt with this hippie drug dealer, he has to head to the mall to cut off this plan. Something tells me that the meeting between Punisher and these mooks won’t be quite the same experience as the one I had playing this board game with my little sister.
This game is brutal, and we still play it every now and again. Why? Because we hate ourselves.
The only problem with this plan by Punisher is that Little Tony’s mooks are actually in control of the mall, which seems ludicrous. I love it. When it comes to Christmas Action-Adventure stories, they have to take place at the mall or a Santa theme park. For these stories to work, they almost need Christmas decorations saturating the edges and the background. That way, we never forget that it is Christmas, but we also don’t have to have the main characters addressing it all the time.
The bad guys apparently feel like they were REALLY BAD this year, and Anti-Santa must have noticed, as they are quite gleeful that Punisher is walking into their mall-trap. We as readers know that a criminal being happy over luring the Punisher to them would be the same as a mouse being ecstatic that it had lured a cat to it. That doesn’t stop these guys, though.
Also, Punisher mulls the evolution of mankind. I can’t tell if he thinks we have come a long way or if he thinks we are too far behind, but I can totally tell he hates the mall, which might be the last human quality Punisher has.
Punisher ditches his bag and sets himself up in proper position to stop the robbery he has been informed about. The mooks put their plan in motion as Punisher has one of those Admiral Ackbar moments; you know the one.
Man, I am unsure why that joke never gets old to me, but it never does. That will stay funny even after it gets ruined in the new Star Wars movies coming out. Or it gets elevated into new heights of grandeur. Those were the only two positions people took on the internet about them. But I digress.
With the trap set and Punisher dead in the middle of it, he starts putting on his awesome gloves and taking care of business. Using some small arms fire (because the bad guys took the bag he stashed) and an ingenious car trap, he manages to take out a few of the mooks encroaching on him. They do manage to wound Castle. He also gets to drive one of those mall display cars IN THE MALL, which is just another of many reasons that despite being a bloodthirsty and psycopathic serial killer, Punisher is more awesome than anything else. Don’t deny it; you’ve always wanted to drive one of those cars in the mall. Hell, the fact that this dream might come true for any of us might be the sole reason to keep malls open in the Amazon age.
Things get complicated when the bad guys happen upon a runaway at the mall, who they momentarily hold hostage. Punisher offs a mook (Most of these mooks are dressed as mall security guards, by the by, which sort of precludes them as mooks, right?) which enables her to get away…and in Punisher’s way.
Isn’t there always a runaway at Christmas? Don’t they always mess everything up before it gets saved? Maybe I am just superimposing that girl from Ernest Saves Christmas into every Christmas movie, but man, it seems like a trope that gets in just in time for Christmas, sort of like your uncle. Point being, though, that this young lady is now caught in this death trap with Punisher, which bodes well for neither of them.
Punisher shows us exactly why he went into vigilantism instead of counseling, as his only consolation for this teenager runaway victim of some sort of domestic abuse is to let her know that he would rue killing her. Of course, while she sees what she has been doing as surviving, Frank Castle may only see it as stealing. This is the black and white viewpoint that makes Punisher so fascinating to me, even if he is the most unlikely character to get a Christmas special this side of Anton Lavey.
Also, somehow, the head mook just makes me laugh so much as he blows away his own mall with weapons he and his men do not understand, planning to recoup his loss thanks to insurance. I mean, I am sure I am not spoiling anything by letting you know that does not happen, as there is a Punisher: Holiday Special #2, but no The Mook Who Killed Punisher Holiday Special. I also love how these hardcore security guards also do not seem to understand most of his armory, which seems basic to me. They’re grenades, guys. You’re welcome.
Of course, the seminal moment of the book happens as Punisher is running low on weapons, ammo, and in addition to his munitions shortfall issues, he has been wounded again. This forces improvisation that leads to what is arguably the greatest moment in both Punisher and Christmas history.
When you see the reindeer appearing on the horizon in the dark, does it remind you of that meme where the deer is looking in the window with the macros “SOON” across it? Oh you don’t know that? Never mind.
Yes, Punisher killed someone with a toy reindeer. That canon, folks.
Punisher sends the young runaway to the car he crashed earlier as he attempts to deal with the other mooks. Believe it or not, she gets captured as Frank Castle deals with a henchman whose reputation he knows. Of course, Castle is still in improvisation mode, so we see a use for hardware that I am sure is not approved by Home Depot.
While Home Depot may not approve of use of a a saw in such a manner, I must say that S-Mart from Evil Dead most certainly does.
Punisher also manages to distract these mooks with one of the greatest and oldest tricks in the book, as these hardcore henchmen just seem to falter left and right in the wake of Punisher’s unyielding onslaught. Maybe it is because they are dressed as mall security guards, as such an unimposing position would surely cause one to lose one’s edge. Or maybe Punisher is just so bad ass that he can use trees as hang gliders.
Best use of a dummy since Mannequin 2: On the Move.Check out that one mook/mall cop who went GANGSTA by turning that hat around. You’re cool, bro.
That leaves Punisher, the runaway, and the head mook in the mall, and as I spoiled for you earlier, one of these three doesn’t make it out alive. You can guess which one it is. As far as the young runaway, she returns home, just as Pat Benatar did in her “Love is a Battlefield” video, as both of these stalwart runaways valiantly battled evil, although Pat Benatar never got to team up with Punisher, although that is a team-up I would read. I’d especially be down for that team-up if they fought Nazis like Pat Benatar did in “Shadows of the Night”. Man, for a 90’s comic book blog, I sure have talked about 80’s videos a lot in this paragraph.
Also, to make sure that all is well that ends well, Little Tony gets a present after all. Santa Claus ain’t the one that brings it, though.
Hey, you got a present here too! I’d like to think it is slightly better than Little Tony’s, although that’s really up to you! Be here Monday for The Golden Age #4! Merry Christmas, everybody!
Happy holidays, Legions of the Unspoken! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the Solstice, Festivus, or a holiday of your own creation, I hope you find yourself surrounded by good friends, good food, and good fun. On the other hand, if you find yourself bereft of companionship or, say, in the company of a drunken relative who you’d gladly string up with some tree lights, I hope this article can bring you some semblance of holiday cheer. No matter the season, we here at The Unspoken Decade strive to find something in the realm of 90s comics to be jolly about.
I find the notion of a superhero Christmas story inherently silly, but to be fair, my previous exposure to them is limited to the X-Men cartoon Christmas special. (It’s not a bad episode of what truly is a great show, but it isn’t helped by 1. focusing entirely too much on Jubilee and 2. devoting a fair amount of screen time to Gambit and Jean Grey bickering over how much to season Christmas dinner, one of the only instances in that cartoon in which Jean Grey using her powers didn’t cause her to immediately moan loudly and pass out.)
Don’t think they’re only at the mall because they’re Christmas shopping. I swear half the episodes of this show start with Rogue and Storm getting attacked at the mall.
The comic we’ll be looking at, 1992’s Marvel Holiday Special, is thankfully lacking in both Jubilee and telekinetically-thrown vegetables. What it’s not lacking in is a good mix of funny, heartwarming, and melancholy stories, some of which integrate their superhero subjects into a holiday setting better than others. For instance, if someone had told me that a Thanos Christmas story would be one of the more emotionally affecting moments in this book, I would have been perplexed, but we’ll get to that. First up is Wolverine in Zounds of Silence!
This story opens with several pages, sans dialogue, of Wolverine fighting a bevy of big baddies, from cyborg soldiers to a giant dinosaur. Then, in an ending I enjoyed no less for seeing it coming a mile away, it is revealed that Wolverine’s trials are the product of a child’s imagination, an action figure slipping from his grasp as the child is pulled away by an irate parent. This story put a smile on my face until I noticed what a state they left the vendor’s stall in:
Seriously, if you’re annoyed with your kid for making such a mess, how about, I don’t know, having him clean it up? I like to think Wolverine’s claws are coming out in the last panel so he can go deal with Faceless Entitled Mom.
Another fun story in this collection comes courtesy of Spider-Man, who, as usual, is running late to meet Mary Jane. He finds her just in time for them to watch the lighting of the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a ceremony that is, of course, interrupted by a villainous grinch. Electro shuts down the power to the tree and threatens to make Christmas be neither merry nor bright unless he receives a payoff.
Did Mike Myers read this comic before writing Dr. Evil? Even in 1992, isn’t that a ludicrously small sum of money to demand in exchange for not blacking out New York City?
I would say he has no holiday spirit, but the argument could be made that by demanding a wad of cash, getting into the Christmas spirit is exactly what Electro is doing. Spider-Man employs his own methods in an attempt to turn Electro into a holiday spirit, slinging insults and ornaments at his foe in equal measure. The giant tree’s topper and a dose of Electro’s own voltage put an end to the crisis, and Spider-Man is free to return to his evening of paying for being Spider-Man.
Seriously, I do not understand the appeal of this relationship for Peter Parker. Every time I have ever seen him with Mary Jane, she is giving him a hard time for making the world a safe place for kids to enjoy comically large candy canes. Maybe it was one thing when he was keeping his web crawling ways a secret, but past that, you knew what you were getting into, lady.
Of course, I don’t blame the character so much as the well-worn trope of the lady character whose sole job it is to get annoyed with her fellow for doing whatever it is he has do, affecting everyone from Mary Jane Watson to Skyler White on Breaking Bad. (If you ever doubt that lady characters get the short end of the stick, check out the amount of vitriol directed at the latter because she didn’t want her husband to be a meth kingpin.) But that’s a discussion for another time. For now, let’s just get back to puzzling over that child kissing rather than eating his candy cane.
Maybe Mary Jane should just drive up to Westchester and go to the mall with Storm and Rogue.
The Punisher is up next, and while I scoffed at the idea of a Punisher Christmas story, it works much better than it might by not having the Punisher experience some sort of schmaltzy softening. Christmas does serve as the setting for the story, but it’s still just Punisher being Punisher. No saving orphans or handing out gifts to doe-eyed street urchins here. He does take a decidedly less fatal route than usual to solving his problems, but only because of a bet rather than some sort of forced holiday epiphany.
Punisher wants his pal Microchip to fix up his van to take down some drug dealers, but Microchip will only acquiesce if Punisher can take down a ring of Salvation Army bucket thieves by non-lethal means. There may not be anything sentimentally Christmas-y in this story, but we do get Punisher in a Santa suit.
I would read a comic of nothing but the Punisher awkwardly making small talk as a bell ringer for seven hours.
Punisher tracks down the organizer of the bucket raids and sticks to the letter of the bet with Microchip, using a combination of tactics, such as standing there and smiling while the dude throws everything in his office at him and spraying himself with a solvent that will paralyze him when it comes into contact with his skin. Microchip argues that his methods violate the spirit of their bet, but Punisher, well, just doesn’t give a fuck.
I’m honestly not sure how Microchip expected him to take the guy down. To be fair to Punisher, he does actually try asking him nicely to turn himself in, but that goes about as well as you’d expect. It’s commendable of Microchip to attempt to get Punisher to be less murder-y, but the showdown went about as non-violently as he ever could have hoped, and he totally owes Punisher those van upgrades in my opinion.
If the Punisher can acknowledge that people celebrate holidays other than Christmas, anyone can.
Perhaps my favorite segment in this collection involves a character that I, as someone relatively new to comic book fandom, have had very little exposure to, Doc Samson. Samson visits his former yeshiva to tell the kids the story of Hanukkah, but because small children are pretty much assholes, he is forced to spice up his tale with some of his super-powered colleagues. This story had me chuckling from start to finish, and there’s not much I could add to it that would make it funnier than it already is, so here’s a few pages sans snarky commentary to give you a taste:
I laugh every time I look at Wolverine studying that bottle of 10w30.
I say that these kids are assholes, and they are, but they also remind me a little of myself when it comes to the kinds of stories I enjoy these days. It’s funny how, once you started reading comic books or genre literature, it’s difficult to go back to stories where, like, people just talk and do regular things. I think as fantasy, sci fi, etc. get more popular, we have become far accepting as a society of the idea that these genre works can have just as much depth or show us just as much about the human condition, only with the added bonus of dragons and zombies and people who can shoot lasers out of their hands. If given the choice, why wouldn’t you read those stories instead?
The most bittersweet story in this comic comes courtesy of an unlikely source, Thanos. (I was certainly not expecting this tale to hit me right in the feels, but I suppose it’s because it’s unexpected that the emotion was so affecting.) While cleaning out an old headquarters like he’s having a garage sale, Thanos comes across an old doll he gave to Gamora when she was a child and reflects on memories long past.
The birthdays and Christmas may be for Gamora’s benefit, but those tea parties were all for Thanos.
Sometimes while reading I get caught up in frivolous background details, and in this case, I couldn’t help but wonder how the Mad Titan himself procured Christmas presents for a small child. Did he thumb through the toy section of the Sears catalog? Did he send one of his robot minions to Macy’s? What criteria did a godlike being use to decide what a five-year-old girl would like to play with?
This is fun stuff to ponder, but it can lead you down a rabbit hold that leads to some weird places, and the next thing you know, you’re contemplating how he had “the talk” with Gamora or who bought her tampons for the first time. I’m probably the only one who went off on that particular tangent, and Christmas can be scarring enough as it is, so I’ll just get back to the story then, shall I?
Thanos recounts how a creature with a vendetta attempts to take him out, only for Gamora to throw her doll and distract the would-be assassin long enough for Thanos to off him instead.
I still can’t figure out how you got one green doll – where are you going to get another one??
Thanos says that he should have known from her sentimentality that Gamora was going to make a bad assassin and orders that the doll be incinerated with all the rest of the stuff he does not have time to take to Goodwill. He acts as though he is indifferent to Gamora turning against him, but his manner betrays him. He is clearly lying both to himself and the minion with whom he apparently shares intimate memories.
Strong men also cry…strong men also cry.
Christmas is such a dichotomous holiday, existing both as “the most wonderful time of the year” and the loneliest. Sometimes all the things we get only make what we’ve lost stand out in stark contrast, and being surrounded by loved ones only highlights who isn’t there. The idea that even a creature of unimaginable strength and power is susceptible to these feelings is both comforting and humbling, and ultimately there is great beauty in the notion that the ability to care for others cannot be wished or willed away.
So learn a lesson from Thanos this holiday season and give all the love there is in your heart to those who deserve it most. Don’t forget to include yourself on that list too! This is one of the few times of year most people actually get some time off to recuperate, so treat yourself to something fun!
Since few things are more fun than 90s comics, be sure to come back tomorrow for Dean’s article on some more holiday Punisher stories. That’s right, our gift to you this festive week is even more of your favorite heroes and their holiday hijinks! It’s been a real pleasure to take a close look with you at some of the best comics the 90s had to offer, and I can’t wait to do it again in the year ahead. See you then!
The Unspoken Decade: 90's Comic Book Blog Extraordinaire 