Thursday, March 15, 2018

Is "Rapido" French? He's no Batroc, but then again, who is...


We glanced at the original Eurohit about four years ago; and that run of Punisher featured both Batroc and the Tarantula, as well as the secondary bad guy that would take the lead here, in "Eurohit '94," Rapido! From, well, 1994, Punisher Annual #7, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, pencils by Andrew Currie and Dougie Braithwaite, inks by Art Nichols, Al Williamson, and Fred Fredericks.

Rapido had survived a couple run-ins with the Punisher, in the first Eurohit, then the Suicide Run crossover, wherein the Punisher blew up an office building full of criminals. While presumably Frank gets out somehow, Rapido also survived, and meets up with Chauffard and the Architect, who were late to the mob boss meeting and thus avoided falling into Frank's trap. Rapido is upgraded with a better Gatling gun arm and targeting glasses, and settles in to doing the Architect's dirty work; like taking out supporting characters Morgan Sinclair, Jack Oonuk, and Outlaw!

Or does he? Rapido is rattled by the seeming return from the dead of his old boss, Snakebite; but he's really being gaslit by the Punisher, who had been working with the others and helped them secretly escape their hits. Sinclair takes out Chauffard and Oonuk the Architect, while Rapido and Punisher duke it out on the tracks, and Rapido is hit by a train and busted up pretty badly. He hopes Frank got run over; no luck there, but the issue ends with him in most of a body cast plotting his revenge...which hasn't happened yet. Rapido has appeared since, but not against the Punisher.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Ha. He's probably STILL laying in that body cast, planning his revenge, like the guy waiting on Saul to call in the last episode of Breaking Bad.