10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About The Punisher
4. That Eminem Team Up
Marvel Comics
Okay, so we know we just mentioned the Archie crossover as being one of the character's weirdest team-ups, but that comes nowhere near close to Eminem's cameo in 2009.
The storyline effectively writes Marshall into the Marvel Universe, providing the rapper with an origin that places him directly next to Punisher bad-guy Barracuda during his formative years. After Castle ambushes the rapper's entourage, Marshall embarks on an alliance of sorts with the villain, before realising he's bait for a trap designed to ensnare Punisher.
The covers for the one-shot are beyond funny, but perhaps the issue's strangest moment comes when Eminem escapes from Barracuda's clutches. Wandering aimlessly through an Arctic tundra, Marshall comes across a sole fisherman who, wouldn't you know it, is listening to one of the Slim Shady's newest albums.
There are worse artists to spotlight in a Punisher comic, we suppose.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
