In Nothing Was Delivered, we look at announced comic book projects that never came about. We'll try to find out WHY they didn't come out. I'm sure you all know tons of examples of comic book projects like these, so feel free to write me at brianc@cbr.com to tell me some for future columns.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Mark G., we look at an unfinished Punisher graphic novel by Jim Lee!

I actually wrote about this a couple of years ago in Comic Book Legends Revealed, but when Mark wrote in asking about it, I figured, eh, might as well run it here, too, right?

The project was promoted in the 1991 "Punisher" annual, and here's the weird thing, it included as a promotion TWO FULL, COMPLETE PAGES from the graphic novel!!

We're all used to projects being announced and then they fall through, but when you see ACTUAL ART from the project in question, the project almost always comes out. So what was the deal with this one?

As it turned out, Wright and Lee worked out each detail of the story together, as Wright explained to me, "We actually co-plotted the entire story together and then I wrote it up as a very detailed plot. Jim then actually broke down the ENTIRE GN with my help getting certain sequences exactly as I saw them...coming from a film school background there were LOTS of sequences where panels shapes and pacing were really important. So the ENTIRE book was laid out story wise pretty quickly." Marvel knew that it was going to be a big deal, considering it was a Jim Lee project when he was just becoming a superstar, so they used what little Lee had produced already to promote the project, since they were very excited about it.

That explains why there was actual completed artwork for an uncompleted project. As to why it was not completed, that "problem" was that Jim Lee was just TOO good.

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Gregory Wright explained it to CBR's Chris Arrant back in 2011:

Stuff really looked amazing. But, Jim was staying in New York. Everyone in the office had access to him, and they all kept throwing really cool things at him to do. Our project had no deadline, so he took on several things. But he kept working on this project. And then they gave Jim ‘Uncanny X-Men.’ That took over almost all of his time, and work on the project ground to a halt. The intent was always to finish it, but then Jim and crew formed Image, and Jim later wound up as staff at DC. The project was never officially cancelled as far as I know, just never completed.

Punisher Central had a few more pieces of unfinished art from the series, including the sketched out cover for the book:

The series was going to be about Punisher and Fury teaming up to take down a bad guy named Walter Maddox who was the head of a group called the Blackhearts. Maddox was a drug lord who was trafficking in stolen SHIELD weaponry. Punisher and Fury both wanted him for different reasons and obviously had different ideas on what to do with him.

Years ago, Wright also discussed the genesis of the story with CBR's George Khoury

I had the initial idea of the two characters going after the same foe for different reasons, which would lead them to clash frequently while having to work together. Jim and I had several sit-downs to hash out the characters and sequences. Jim and his friend Brandon Choi had come up with a really cool bad guy named Blackheart that they wanted to use, so he became the villain of the piece. Jim and Brandon had come up with a whole history for the character which made its way into the story. Jim and I sent rough plots and corrections back and forth for a while so all of our ideas would get integrated. I did the final plots stringing together all the different ideas we had come up with and created an actual story.

Amusingly enough, Wright noted that the project began when Tom DeFalco asked the "Punisher" office to come up with some special projects starring the Punisher. Graphic novels and the like. Carl Potts was originally working on this one with Wright and Lee, but Lee said he would draw a second graphic novel with Potts instead. Obviously that didn't happen, so Potts began to work on one with Marc Silvestri and, sure enough, that project also fell apart when Silvestri left Marvel for Image!

Thanks to Gregory Wright, Chris Arrant, George Khoury and Punisher Central for the info!

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark!

If anyone has a suggestion for another interesting comic book series/story that never got published, let me know at brianc@cbr.com!