Amazing Spider-Man #202

Issue Details

Synopsis

ONE FOR THOSE LONG GONE! The Punisher has confronted Peter Parker in his apartment because he believes that Parker has some connection to drug dealer Lorenzo Jacobi. However, Parker manages to convince the Punisher that he has a "special deal" with Spider-Man, and the Punisher leaves apologizing for the intrusion.  Web-slinging to the Daily Globe, Peter changes back to his civilian guise to meet with Barney Bushkin and April Maye over the Lorenzo Jacobi incident, Bushkin wanting them to continue to work together. However, April refuses to work with Peter and both amicably decide to deal with the story on their own. April Maye meets with a junkie and drug runner named Lu Sing, and convinces Lu Sing into letting her take her place for a drug delivery, hoping to get an insiders scoop on the drug ring in the city.   Later, Peter pays a visit to the Daily Bugle, where he finds that Joe Robertson has been hired back on to take J. Jonah Jameson's place as editor of the newspaper. While visiting Joe, the two are attacked by a crazed Jonah who believes that they are all out to get him. The insane Jameson then runs out into the street before anyone can catch him. Fleeing down a dark alley, he trips and smashes his head against a wall knocking himself out, this injury is witnessed by a man hiding in the shadows.   Changing back into Spider-Man, Peter swings through the city and finds another criminal brutalized by the Punisher. Tracking the mercenary down, Spider-Man hops into his Battle Van and the two make an agreement to work together. The Punisher then tells him why he has a personal vendetta against Jacobi. The Punisher tells of years past when he was trying to eliminate a drug manufacturing operation in India that supplied Jacobi with his product. Inexperienced back then, he was captured and injected with an overdose of Heroin and set down a river on a raft to die. He was rescued by a young man named Mehemet, who nursed him back to health. The Punisher later helped the boy get into the United States where he grew up and became part of the Narcotics Agency, and ultimately was killed in the line of duty by Jacobi's men.   As April Maye makes a pick-up for drug dealers, she is disgusted to find that they have been dealing to children no older than 10 years old. She is given money to take to Jacobi himself at his secret hideout. Meanwhile, Spider-Man and the Punisher track down a warehouse where Jacobi's product is distributed and break up the operation. Spider-Man manages to tag one of the crooks with a spider-tracer in the fight. When the Punisher fails to get the Jacobi's location. Spider-Man (not telling the Punisher about the spider-tracer) abruptly leaves, raising the Punisher's suspicions.   Spider-Man tracks the spider-tracer right to Jacobi's hide out and is there just in time to see Jacobi recognize April as a reporter for the Daily Globe and smashes through the skylight to rescue her. During the fight, the Punisher arrives with and kills one of Jacobi's men. When he is about to shoot Jacobi himself, Spider-Man stops the Punisher not wanting him to murder anyone -- not even a drug dealer like Jacobi. Jacobi makes a break for it, and when one of his men arrives with his getaway car the thug accidentally has a fatal collision with Jacobi, killing him. Witnessing this, April Maye faints and Spider-Man parts company with the Punisher to take her to a hospital. Later the Punisher visits the grave of his old friend Mehemet, leaving flows and feeling as though he has avenged his friend's death.