Licht & Schatten #12
Licht & Schatten #12 holds the distinction of being the final issue of Bastei Verlag's twelve-volume licensed Marvel reprint series, closing out one of the more ambitious oversize-album experiments in the West German comics market of the late 1980s and early '90s. By packaging the Punisher's Acts of Vengeance crossover material — in which Kingpin enlists Doctor Doom to eliminate Frank Castle, a premise that collided street-level crime fiction with high-Marvel superpowered spectacle — into a German-language album, Bastei brought one of the most tonally peculiar match-ups of Mike Baron's celebrated Punisher run to an audience that would otherwise have had no licensed access to it. The issue thus serves as both a capstone to the Bastei series and as a document of how Marvel's late-1980s crossover era reached European readers through regional licensing deals rather than direct distribution.
In "O kleines Städtchen Bethlehem," Cloak and Dagger follow a trail of drugs tied to a weapons trade that leads them to the quiet town of Bethlehem. As Bill Clayton’s hidden role unravels, his desperate attempt to make amends ends in tragedy when he takes a bullet meant for Dagger. Written by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by June Brigman, with inks by Terry Austin and colors by Glynis Oliver, this 1991 issue delivers a poignant, character-driven moment in the duo’s journey, with a cover by June Brigman and Terry Austin.
In "Das goldene Dreieck," Licht & Schatten track a drug smuggling operation to the opium fields of Cambodia, where they’re caught in a brutal conflict between government forces and rebels—and enslaved by the superpowered Warlord.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Bastei Verlag, based in Bergisch Gladbach, produced Licht & Schatten as a licensed German-language Marvel reprint series from 1989 to 1991, publishing exactly twelve oversize softcover albums (approximately 29×22 cm, roughly 50 full-color pages each) under the Marvel licensor credit. The series took its name from the German translation of the Cloak and Dagger characters — 'Licht' (Light/Dagger) and 'Schatten' (Shadow/Cloak) — and began by reprinting Bill Mantlo's Cloak & Dagger material before expanding its content scope. By the time the series reached its twelfth and final volume, it was drawing on 1989 Punisher material tied to the line-wide Acts of Vengeance crossover event, suggesting Bastei was tracking Marvel's then-current publishing output rather than exclusively reprinting older back-catalog stories.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Licht & Schatten was a licensed Marvel reprint series published by Bastei Verlag (Bergisch Gladbach, Germany), running from 1989 to 1991 for exactly 12 issues.
- Issue #12 is the final issue of the series, making it the concluding volume of Bastei's run.
- Albums were published in an oversize softcover format (approximately 29×22 cm) with approximately 50 full-color pages.
- The indexed characters — Punisher (Frank Castle), Kingpin (Wilson Fisk), and Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) — match the cast of The Punisher Vol. 2 #28 ('Acts of Vengeance: Change Partners and Dance,' December 1989) and/or #29 ('Acts of Vengeance: Too Many Doom,' January 1990), the US issues most consistent with this character combination.
- The underlying US source material was written by Mike Baron, penciled by Bill Reinhold, and inked by Mark Farmer, under editor Carl Potts and editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco.
- The Acts of Vengeance storyline reprinted here was part of a Marvel-wide 1989–90 crossover event coordinated by Loki, in which villains were shuffled to fight unfamiliar heroes; the Punisher/Dr. Doom pairing was among the event's most tonally unexpected match-ups.
- In the source story, Kingpin — long the primary antagonist of Baron's Punisher run — enlists Doctor Doom after failing to eliminate Frank Castle himself, resulting in the Punisher taking the conflict all the way to Latveria.
- No English-language key-issue database entry (Key Collector, GoCollect) has been found specifically for this German reprint issue; its significance is primarily that of a regional publishing landmark rather than a US-market key.
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↩ Reprints Cloak and Dagger #11 (1987), Strange Tales #12 (1988)
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