Marvel Preview #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMarvel Preview #2 is one of the most creatively dense single issues of the Bronze Age magazine era, serving double duty as both the Punisher's first solo outing and the debut of Dominic Fortune. The Punisher story, 'Death Sentence,' was the first time the character's full origin was committed to the page — establishing the name Frank Castle, the Costa Family mob massacre of his family, and the personal trauma that drives his one-man war on crime — all years before those details reached the standard comic-book format. Simultaneously, the issue introduced Howard Chaykin's Dominic Fortune, a 1930s pulp-adventure mercenary who represented a genuinely different register for Marvel storytelling: morally ambiguous, period-set, and free of the Comics Code. Together, the two features made this issue a showcase for what Marvel's black-and-white magazine line could do that its color comics could not.
In "Death Sentence," the Punisher tracks a chilling pattern of violence when his old Marine comrades begin turning into lethal snipers, each death echoing a past mission gone wrong. As the trail leads him deeper into a web of betrayal, he confronts a shadowy arms dealer and his ruthless crew, uncovering a conspiracy that tests his resolve and blurs the line between justice and vengeance.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Marvel Preview was published by Magazine Management (the parent company behind Marvel) as a Comics Code-free anthology, rotating featured characters across its run. Issue #2 (1975) was edited by Marv Wolfman and brought together writer Gerry Conway — the Punisher's co-creator — and Filipino artist Tony DeZuniga for the 32-page 'Death Sentence,' the Punisher's origin story. The Dominic Fortune backup, 'The Power Broker Resolution!' (13 pages), was scripted by Len Wein with art by Howard Chaykin; Chaykin had just departed Atlas/Seaboard's Scorpion after two issues over creative-control disputes, and he and Wein reworked that earlier pulp-adventurer concept into the new Fortune character for Marvel's Code-free platform. The issue also included a text feature on Don Pendleton — author of the Executioner vigilante novels that had directly influenced the Punisher's creation — providing editorial context that explicitly acknowledged the character's pulp-fiction roots.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First solo story of the Punisher (Frank Castle), titled 'Death Sentence,' written by Gerry Conway with art by Tony DeZuniga — this was the character's fourth or fifth overall appearance in print.
- First published telling of the Punisher's origin: his real name Frank Castle is established, along with the mob (Costa Family) murder of his wife and children that drives his vigilante campaign.
- First appearance of Dominic Fortune (real name Duvid Jerome T. Fortunov), a 1930s costumed mercenary-adventurer created by Howard Chaykin and co-written/scripted by Len Wein in the backup story 'The Power Broker Resolution!'
- Dominic Fortune was directly derived from Chaykin's prior character the Scorpion (Atlas/Seaboard Comics, 1975); after Chaykin left that title over creative differences, he reworked the concept at Marvel, changing the setting from New York to Hollywood and dropping the immortality element.
- Cover art is a painted piece by Gray Morrow; Howard Chaykin also contributed an interior illo (inside front cover) featuring both the Punisher and Dominic Fortune.
- The issue includes a text feature ('The Executioner Speaks Out!') by David Anthony Kraft referencing Don Pendleton, the author of the Executioner paperback series — a direct literary ancestor of the Punisher character.
- Both the Punisher story and the Dominic Fortune story were reprinted in Marvel Preview #20 (Winter 1980); the Dominic Fortune story was also later collected in the Dominic Fortune trade paperback (2010) alongside the 2009 MAX miniseries.
- The issue was published in the black-and-white, Comics Code-free magazine format by Magazine Management, allowing narrative content — violence, moral ambiguity, explicit character trauma — that would not have passed the Code in standard color comics.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Relatos Salvajes #19 (1974), Marvel Preview #20 (1980), The Punisher #[nn] (1980), Savage Action #1 (1980), Savage Action #2 (1980), Classic Punisher #1 (1989), Strip #20 (1990), Comic Art #82 (1991), Essential Punisher #1 (2004), Dominic Fortune: It Can Happen Here and Now #[nn] (2010), Punisher: Back to the War Omnibus #[nn] (2017), Punisher : l'intégrale #1974-1981 (2021), Thor Epic Collection #9 (2023), Aventuras Bizarras #15, Seriemagasinet #200
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