No, it wasn’t Frank Castle, the violent vigilante of Marvel Comics fame, who visited the Philippines, but it was his monthly series, “The Punisher,” that did so. Specifically, it happened in “The Punisher” #13, which infiltrated comic-book shops in December. In fact, Castle doesn’t even appear in this particular issue; he’s out trying to get back to a crime-infested Los Angeles.

Instead, this issue sheds light on an elite military unit called the Howling Commandos. That’s them on the cover. Yes, this is the modern version of the Howling Commandos (waahooo!) who fought during Marvel’s World War II stories.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Howling Commandos (led by Neal McDonough’s Dum Dum Dugan) accompanied Captain America and Peggy Carter in the movie “Captain America: The First Avenger” and joined Carter on a mission in an episode of ABC’s “Marvel’s Agent Carter.”

Elite team

This modern unit, the top-secret C-Squadron, F-Team, is dubbed “the most elite direct action special operations team on the planet,” who act only on the orders of the President himself. Led by the man codenamed Sidewinder, the Howling Commandos were ordered to bring in the Punisher.

The story in “The Punisher” #13 has a very catchy title: “What I Learned in Cebu.” In it, the Howling Commandos use wing suits to make a combat drop into Cebu City in order to liberate the American Embassy.

I know what you’re saying, there’s no American Embassy in Cebu, but in this continuity, there is. The Embassy has been taken over in a coup by what are implied to be Islamic separatists.

“This isn’t a coup. It’s terrorism,” Sidewinder says. “Terrorists crawled out from under their rocks in the Middle East, scurried into the Philippines.” Remember, this is an issue that came out in December 2014, and had been written much earlier, yet this bit of prescient verisimilitude does hit the target, doesn’t it?

In short order, the Commandos strike the embassy, take out the bad guys and rescue the hostages in a hail of gunfire. What the Commandos don’t realize is that enemy planes are about to carry out an air strike. The planes swoop in, bombs fly, and the Commandos drag the hostages out of the strike zone—but lose one of their own in the process.

The Cebu City in the issue is very different from the real one, though the backgrounds in some panels are somewhat based on actual photos of Cebu. This is pretty much a nightmare version of reality, where the rebels have gathered enough forces—even airborne assets—to carry out a coup d’état and an invasion. It’s serious enough that American special forces had to come in to liberate their own embassy in the southern Philippines.

“What I Learned in Cebu” is written by Nathan Edmondson, who is currently the go-to scribe for anything military-related. For Marvel, he is also writing “Black Widow” (with artist Phil Noto) and “Deathlok” (with artist Mike Perkins).

Edmondson has been writing an extremely realistic version of “The Punisher,” with Castle depicted as a dedicated and experienced soldier carrying out a mission of attrition against criminals. This issue features a guest artist named Moritat. Usually, Edmondson is joined on “The Punisher” by the talented artist Mitch Gerads; Gerads provides the cover for “The Punisher”#13.

This is not the first time Edmondson has visited the Philippines in his work. Edmondson and Gerads really got rocking with the Image Comics series “The Activity,” which follows Team Omaha, a high-tech, highly trained group of armed intelligence operatives, on their missions around the world.

Realistic

“The Activity” is a fantastic series, believable and tense. It can easily be argued that “The Activity”—which is thankfully still ongoing despite delays between issues—prepared the team of Edmondson and Gerads for their tour of duty with “The Punisher.”

Edmondson and Gerads’ first Philippine sojourn happened in December 2012, in “The Activity”# 10, titled “Out With the Trash.” This story happens in Busuanga Island in Palawan.

Most of the members of Team Omaha are on the island pretending to be American waste disposal contractors; they’re really transporting weapons and materiel to fight insurgents.

One Filipino they’re working with says: “Someone has to stop the terrorists from taking up homes in our islands, especially because the security forces are aiding them, like on Maguindanao.”

An American answers: “It’s not just the Ampatuans. Mideast jihadists are swarming to your islands like flies to garbage.”

The mission doesn’t go as expected, and Team Omaha is forced to make a difficult choice. Here, Gerads clearly is using photo references, because his Busuanga Island is accurate down to the uncanny little details. And based on the dialogue, Edmondson clearly knows what he’s writing about.

How good is “The Activity”? The property is being adapted into a feature film and has landed “Black Hawk Down” screenwriter Ken Nolan. However that turns out, writer Nathan Edmondson has already displayed a soft (if hard target-oriented) spot for the Philippines.