Punisher #4

Marvel - Nov. 1987

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Microchip
First appearance of Microchip Jr.
First appearance of Church of the Saved
First appearance of Samuel Smith
First appearance of Keena
First appearance of Ray White
First appearance of Vickie White
First appearance of Melissa White

As most of us already know, The Punisher is going to be coming out on Netflix, hopefully, anytime now, although there has been no official release date as of yet. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how they will have Mr. Castle portrayed and am more excited to see this Netflix series more than I have been for the past few that they have released.

But I digress.

Looking over the key issue notes above, you'd think that there's a lot that make this a worthy key issue, but there is really only one real reason that this comic has any significance at this time. The reason being the first appearance of Microchip. All of the other appearances are very minor, but they are first appearances, and no matter how minor they might be, they still make up a key issue status and therefore, I will make mention of them.

I'm not going to go too in depth for these minor characters. Most of them don't really make any appearances outside of this story line, so there really isn't much to talk about anyway.

The Punisher, Microchip Jr and Microchip

As I already said, The Punisher is going to be released soon and Microchip is going to make an appearance in the show. He is a pretty important piece of Frank Castle's life as the Punisher. Microchip is to him as Q is to James Bond. He is the guy that builds the gadget for Frank and rebuilds the Punisher Van every time that it gets destroyed by everyone's favorite anti-hero. His real name is David Lieberman, but he goes by the alias of Lowell Bartholomew Ori in this issue. I don't know in what issue we learn his real name.

Up next we have the first appearance of Louis Frohike. No relation to Frohike from the Lone Gunmen I'm sure. Louis is the bastard son of David Lieberman, and he is also great with computer programming and hacking, and he took his place by his fathers side as Microchip Jr. Junior only has a handful of appearances in comics so I don't seem making an appearance on the small, or big screen anytime soon.

Ray White

I'm going out of order from the list above a little here. Next I'm going to talk about Ray White. Ray is an ex cop who's wife (Vickie) and daughter (Melissa) was seduced into joining the Church of the Saved. That's really all there is to say about these three characters. In the next issue, The Punisher ends up reuniting them all, and they live happily ever after..... or do they?

Now, what is the Church of the Saved? When I was reading the story, I could only think about the events that happened in Waco Tx. in early 1993. I'll get into why in a second.

The leader of the Church of the Saved is Rev. Samuel Smith. He is a man with a gift. He has a silver tongue, but he also has "abilities". They call it The Touch. It's never really explain what The Touch is, but from what I read, it would seem that Smith has the power of persuasion, as well as the ability to heal others. I know, I know, he doesn't really sound like that bad of a guy, but here's where I got a connection to Waco.

Rev. Samuel Smith

Smith, being the leader of the religious faction, even though he is an atheist, was stockpiling arms to eventually go to war with the "Sodom that is America". I'm not saying that David Koresh was going to go to war with America, but he was stockpiling arms and definitely had a silver tongue. There are a few more similarities that I found in the story as well but I could be here forever going on about them.

Anyway, the Punisher goes up against Rev. Smith and the the Church of the Saved and in the end the, the church is disbanded.

Oops, I almost forgot to talk about Keena. He was a troubled, drug abusing kid that found his way to the Church of the Saved with the intent to rob them. Smith got to him, probably using the "Touch", and eventually Keena joined the church and became Rev. Smith's right hand man and body guard, seeing as how big the dude is.

Keena

That's all there is. Like I said, with the exception of Microchip, all of these characters are very minor and are hardly worth mentioning. But seeing as how I created this site to go over all things key issue, I felt that I have to talk about them, no matter how insignificant the characters might be. I can't see any of these minor characters making their way into live action anytime soon, if at all.

Variants
To the best of my knowledge, there are only direct and newsstand versions of this comic. I couldn't find anything on foreign editions. That doesn't mean they don't exist though.

Newsstand Edition

Census
Even before I looked at the CGC census, I knew that the numbers for this issue were going to be low. This is a relatively minor key issue after all. However, of the 56 copies that are listed, well over half (34) have been graded at 9.8 NM/M. If you're looking for an already graded, high grade copy of this comic, there are some out there, but I would think that your best be would be to find a nice high grade raw copy. Maybe hold onto it for a little while and see if this comic takes off and gets a nice bump in value or not. Because, as of right now, they are not doing much of anything as you will see in the next section.

Values

Values for Punisher #4 on GoCollect

The sales data that I have only goes back to 2013 for 9.8 NM/M copies of this comic. Looking at that first sale, the selling price was a underwhelming $35. As you can see, this wasn't a very sought out book back then. Most of the sales were in 2016 after Netflix announced that they were indeed making a Punisher series. Now, usually after an announcement like that, you will see speculators buying up copies and making some demand in the market, which in turn will usually sent values up. Even though there was a small increase in value, it's pretty negligible. The highest sale was in Dec. of 2016 and it sold for $72. I realize that its double the original sale in 2013, but really, if it's not breaking the $100 mark, it hardly seems worth it. However, if Microchip becomes a more prominent character in the series, we may see this sucker start to creep up in value, but that's some hard speculation right there.

So, if you're looking for a sleeper for a quick flip for a profit, you may want to look for another comic at this time. But, if you want a very high grade key issue comic just to have in your collection, this might be a comic that you could consider. Either way, I wish you luck on your hunt.

Find a copy here
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Amazing Spider-Man #129

Marvel - Feb. 1974

Key Issue Notes
1st appearance of the Punisher
1st appearance of the Jackal


I just started watching season 2 of Daredevil on Netflix and I must say I'm really liking it so far. As most of us know, season 2 introduces us to Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher, and Amazing Spider-Man #129 has his 1st appearance.

Amazing Spider-Man #129 also has the first appearance of Miles Warren as The Jackal. The Jackal isn't a hugely popular villian in the Marvel Universe, but he does play an important role in the Spider Clone saga, but that is another story that I'll get to at another time. Just in case you were wondering, the first appearance of Miles Warren is in Amazing Spider-Man #31. 

The Punisher starts out as an antagonist for everyone's favorite web slinger. He's hired by The Jackal to get Spider-Man out of the picture, but eventually, The Punisher realizes that Spidey isn't the bad guy that The Jackal made him out to be.

There's no shortage of graded copies of ASM #129 out there. There are a staggering 6956 copies graded by CGC so far. I'm sure there are even more with CBCS and PGX copies out there. Unfortunately there isn't any census data from those two companies. Hopefully they will have a census soon. There are 91 copies graded at 9.8 NM/M by CGC. Wow!! Of those 91 copies, 4 are Signature Series and 1 is a Restored copy. You should have no problems finding a nice high grade copy to add to your collection but don't expect it to be cheap.

Values for Amazing
Spider-Man #129
on GoCollect

Even with a large number of graded copies out there, Amazing Spider-Man #129 is a very sought out comic and has been for a long time. The Punisher is definitely a lot of peoples favorite anti-hero. If you're looking to get a nice high grade copy you should expect to shell out some bucks for it as CGC 8.5 VF+ copies are starting to sell around the $900-$1000 range and CGC 9.4 NM copies are going for well over $2000 now. It's not a rare or hard to find comic but as you can see from the chart on the right,  demand for this book is high and all grades are in the green and way above the average sales. You may want to do what I did and take a chance on a raw copy. That could save you a little bit of money, but you never know if you're buying a comic that is complete or if it's been restored. I'll leave that decision up to you.

Find a copy here
eBay - ComicLink - MyComicShop - ComicConnect