COVER "A" FIRST PRINTING Painted cover by Tim Bradstreet Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon/Jimmy palmiotti ? THE SCOOP: Marvel Knights Year 2 starts off with a double-barreled bang as the classic Punisher returns! ? THE STORY: Frank Castle has gone back to basics. Back in New York, back from the dead and back doing what he does best: exterminating bad guys and waging his personal war on crime. The Punisher is here to clean up the mean streets of New York City, and the gutters are overflowing with drug dealers, mob scum and law-breaking skels. And just wait until you check out Frank's new bachelor pad?with his roommate Death! It's a gritty tale of bullet-ridden, gut-wrenching action as you like it! ? THE CREATORS: Brought to you by those majesties of mayhem and murder, the Preacher team of writer Garth Ennis and penciler Steve Dillon! With inks by none other than DAREDEVIL's Jimmy Palmiotti! ? THE FORMAT: 12-issue monthly limited series. ? THE WRITER SPEAKS: "[The Punisher] is a cold-blooded guy who kills criminals because he hates the fact that they're alive. He's not out for redemption in any way, he just does what he does," said Ennis, "He doesn't worry about the super hero code of ethics. He's a massive thug who machine-guns people, then machine-guns some more, then he's got an hour free so he goes to find some drug dealers and machine-guns them." ? THE BUZZ: Out of all the comic books coming out next year, Wizard chose PUNISHER as Book Of The Year and said: "Trust us, PUNISHER won't be just another good book. It'll blow the competition away." Cover price $2.99.