I'm Throwin' Rocks Tonight!

Dragon Bowling Night was an unqualified success. So much so, in fact, that I ended the night puking in the Waffle House parking lot.

Let me start from the beginning.

The day began at work with me descending further into madness on the fastest route known to man: reading a short box full of Punisher comics. I finally finished the Essential, and I'll tell you: Ain't nothin' wrong with that Steven Grant/Mike Zeck mini-series. Before that, the Punisher was just a guy who couldn't remember whether Spider-Man was a bad guy, and changed his mind about it every few weeks.

And while we're on the subject, Spidey doesn't really seem bothered by the fact that Frank's running around killing everybody. They have like five team-ups, and the closest Spider-Man gets to bringing it up is going: "Well, I don't really agree with his methods, but..."

Anyway, that mini-series is no joke. Then I got into the ongoing. So far I'm up to #23, but had to stop when the sheer insanity of that issue overwhelmed me.



(Click to Punish-size it!)

"Capture the Flag"
Punisher #23
September, 1989
Writer: Mike Baron
Pencils and Cover: Erik Larsen

I'm not going to do a whole Dollar Comic Review, but this one was so crazy I had to take notes.

It's Part 2 of a story where Frank, on the trail of a poison expert who rigged a boxing match a few issues previous with murderous results, attends a two-week course at Scully's Ninja Training Camp.

Go back and read the last half of that sentence. I'll wait. The Ninja Training Camp is located in Sloman, Kansas, and if the fact that it's a ninja training camp in Kansas wasn't enough of a tipoff, it's run by three white guys named Scully, Wayne, and Daryl. It's not exactly a legit operation. Scully--who is not in this issue portrayed by Gillian Anderson--has been claiming he's got the stamp of approval from some Ninja Master, but he really doesn't, and so some ninja girl also shows up to exact brutal ninja vengeance.

Anyway, by the time #23 rolls around, Frank's out in the woods being stalked by Scully, our skinhead Ninja master; Daryl, the weapons expert; and Wayne, the martial arts instructor. He fights Wayne in the woods first, and ends up cutting his hamstring with the man's own katana and leaving him to crawl to the hospital.

Later, he's chasing Scully to a grain elevator that's on the camp's property, and who should come busting out of the woods in a pickup intent on running Our Man Frank down than Wayne himself. Apparently he was so mad that he dragged his bleeding ass to the truck with his mind on revenge. That's hardcore. Even the Punisher's pretty shocked by it. Until Wayne gets blown up, anyway.

So Punisher finally gets to Scully and has to fight his dog. To give you an idea of how big a douchebag Scully is, he named his dog "Tanto," and actually says "Tanto's a ninja, just like me." Wow. He gets killed by the ninja girl, and Frank snaps the dog's neck, but feels guilty about it.

The letters page had a few bonus surprises. Letter #1 is from Zeb Wells, who would later win a contest and write some pretty rough books for Marvel. He apparently enjoyed the story where the Punisher, Micro, and a high school teacher took on the Kingpin, and wanted to know when the movie was coming out.

Letter #4 was even weirder, since it was from Chris Sims. Apparently I went back in time, moved to Kentucky, and asked the Mighty Marvel Editorial Staff to not kill off Microchip because of my heretofore undiscovered affection for him. Or maybe there was another guy with the same name.

Anyway, after I'd had my fill of the Punisher for the night, it was time to hit the lanes.

Xtreme Bowling was about as annoying as expected. Luckily we got out of there right when Sir Mix-a-Lot started up, so the evening didn't turn tragic. It was a lot of fun nonetheless, and I probably bowled the best two games of my life. I won both rounds, coming in just over Chad with 105 and 116. Josh, though... I felt for the guy. I'm not going to go into any details, but he referred to his performance as "Josh Disassembled, never to be read again."

After bowling, Scott, Josh and I all went to the Waffle House, because where else are you going to go at 11:30? There's always this kind of Denny's vs. Waffle House vs. IHOP battle going on amongst the crew, with MG3 the most hardcore supporter of the Waffle House. He's got a point, I guess, it's inexpensive and what other place has thirty songs about itself on the jukebox? I like 'em all, but I think I'm switching sides after last night.

As we left, I just started hurling into the bushes, and was afforded the rare opportunity to see my hash browns again. Scott and Josh were nice enough to wait around until I was done, and Scott bought me some water and gum. That's pretty much the signal to end the night, so I drove on home and went to bed.

As to the whys of how I got sick, I'm not really sure. Could've been the grease. Could've been the 13 issues of the Punisher I read. But just between you, me, and the wall, I'm pretty sure it was the sheer exertion of complete bowling dominance.