Eminem Battles the Punisher in Special-Edition Comic Book

Eminem has primed audiences for his long-awaited Relapse with a bloody video for the single "3 A.M.," a first look at a bloody iPhone game and now a bloody Marvel comic book featuring Shady squaring off against gun-wielding antihero the Punisher. You can read the edited comic — the cuss words are just "####" — on the Marvel site now. Eminem's love of the Marvel Universe's skull-shirted vigilante is no secret, as the rapper recently appeared on two different covers of XXL's June issue, dressed as the Punisher.

Eminem/Punisher: Kill You was written by Fred Van Lente and drawn by Salvador Larroca, both comic-book vets. The first half of the comic comes with the June XXL as a special collectors edition; the second half can be nabbed at Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited for free starting today.

The plot (spoiler alert!): After a concert, Eminem's posse is gunned down by the Punisher. Slim Shady manages to escape with his old convict friend Barracuda and take refuge in a safe house. The Punisher finds them, but Eminem guns down the Punisher first, actually uttering the line, "You don't want to #### with Shady 'cuz Shady will ####in' kill you" as he pulls the trigger. Turns out, Barracuda was hired by the Parents Music Council to kill Eminem, and that Punisher was there protecting the rapper from the murderous wrath of censorship. Barracuda then shoots Eminem, but both the rapper and the Punisher were wearing their trusty bulletproof vests so we move to Act II.

Barracuda takes the unconscious duo and puts them onto a boat and sails them to wherever they film Deadliest Catch, from what we can gather. Barracuda throws Em off the boat hoping he'll sink to the bottom but instead he lands on a fjord of ice and runs away. After Em escapes, he treks across the tundra and finds a grizzly old fisherman who just happens to be a huge Eminem fan (as evidenced by his Relapse-embossed iPod.) This huge fan also happens to have a chainsaw on hand. Anyone who's seen Pulp Fiction knows what happens next.

You have to give credit to Marshall Mathers for tapping every facet of media to promote Relapse, due out May 19th. In addition to his videos and comic, Em also launched the viral Website Popsomp Hills. The rapper's fourth song off Relapse, "Old Time's Sake" featuring a verse from Dr. Dre, is available on iTunes now after leaking yesterday.

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• Eminem Opens Up About "Relapse," Acting in Shade45 Interview: "I Am Back"

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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