Synopsis for "Escape from New York"

Infamous "Blackface Arc" Part 1 of 3

The plot of the first part of the story basically sets up the three part adventure of the Punisher as a black man and his team up with Luke Cage.

Punisher was captured and put into prison after getting set up by the Kingpin, a whole slew of issues before this arc began. While in Prison he met jigsaw and well Jigsaw cut him up, badly. Frank finally escapes from prison and meets up with a plastic surgeon to fix him so he can hide in public. She goes ahead and makes him a black man. Complete with a completely different hair style and facial structure that doesn’t make sense since he was just injected with pigment. The reasoning for making him a black man is never fully explained but I believe the writers and editors did it for one reason: To set up a Luke Cage book.

Once Frank finds out what the doctor done to him he asks to go to Chicago to lay low for a bit and get his hands on a weapons cache. He drives himself to Chicago from New York City only to find out that he probably should’ve ate something and nearly wrecks the car passing out. This attracts the attention of the police and, well, the beat the living daylights out of him cause he’s black. Yeah few pages in and we have the Punisher undergoing racial police brutality. Frank actually quips that he didn’t care for racism while he was white but now that he’s black it’s more obvious to him.

During the beat down, Luke Cage notices what the police are doing and he jumps in to save Frank. Luke tells Frank his back story and that he’s a hero for hire. Knowing he will need assistance in getting his safe house back from the neighborhood drug lords and that Cage’s special abilities will come in handy. Frank hires Luke to get into the weapons cache. He offers to pay Cage with the money in the safe. Cage agrees and joins Frank on his mission and they both storm the stronghold. The duo get to the bottom of the building only to find out the safe has been cleared out but the weapons and armor are still there. Cage not taking the lack of money lightly tells him that the only way that he’ll be cool with it is if Frank agrees to work for him to help square each other off.

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