Punisher #33

Part three of the "Barracuda" arc finds Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov's MAX-era Punisher in unmistakably grim territory. Tim Bradstreet's cover renders two scarred, battle-worn men back-to-back — a lean figure with facial scars gripping a pistol in the foreground, and a powerfully built bald man raising a handgun behind him — the photorealistic paintwork giving both an unsettling, lived-in menace. Marvel's mature-readers MAX line rarely looked this tense, and with three installments still to go, the pressure is clearly just beginning to build.