'Doctor Strange/Punisher' Combines Magic and Bloodlust

Diversity in superhero comics sometimes leads to some really oddball team-ups: Spider-Man/Deadpool, Power Man and Iron Fist, even Batman/Ninja Turtles. But Marvel’s newest, Doctor Strange/Punisher: Magic Bullets has to take the cake as one of the most “out there” pairings, ever.

Issue 3 will be released on December 7, from writer John Barber, Magic Bullets, and will bring together the Marvel Universe’s eminent sorcerer and its most violent Second Amendment crusader when Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, fights a new organized crime gang wielding magic to control their network. Outmatched and out of his league, Castle seeks help from Stephen Strange, better known as Doctor Strange, to even the odds.

Marvel teases that both Strange and Punisher will adapt to each other’s methods. Meaning, the Punisher might use some magic for the first time, while Strange might have to become more lethal than he’s ever been.

Sporting art from Andrea Broccardo and Jason Muhr, Doctor Strange/Punisher looks surprisingly funny and lighthearted as an “unlikely buddy duo” comic could be. But since it stars two of Marvel’s more darker characters, it’s not far-fetched to think the book might become grittier than it appears.

Although Marvel’s Netflix shows and its blockbuster movies share a continuity, there haven’t been many instances of crossing over. So a comic featuring both Castle and Strange isn’t foretelling an appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch in Netflix’s The Punisher, but if it does happen, at least Magic Bullets gives a glimpse at what could happen.

Check out the previews below, including the book’s cover art.

In the first two previews provided by Marvel, Frank Castle clears out a criminal gang the only way he knows how.

The action spills to the outside, with some of the network’s smaller-time grunts trying to fight Punisher. Which, is never a good idea.

Elsewhere, Doctor Strange, wielding an axe, goes up against a monster fused with a World War I bi-plane.

The fight continues, with Doctor Strange getting his ass handed to him. Because it’s 2016, of course people are recording it on their phones.

Doctor Strange/Punisher: Magic Bullets #1 will be released December 7.