Punisher #38

Part two of "Man of Stone" arrives in this 2006 Marvel MAX installment, with Garth Ennis and Leandro Fernández delivering the kind of unflinching Frank Castle story the imprint was built for. Timothy Bradstreet's cover does the heavy lifting immediately — a battered, bloodied Punisher is chained to a chair, his skull emblem still visible on his chest, while a large, imposing figure in sunglasses looms behind him with a gun, projecting cold, unhurried menace. It's a stark, tension-soaked image that makes clear Frank's war has caught up with him in a very bad way.