Team affiliations Gnucci Family | Place of origin Earth | |
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Full name Isabella Carmela Magdalena Gnucci Similar Martin Soap, Bushwacker, Russian, Spacker Dave, Barracuda | ||
Ma Gnucci (Isabella Gnucci) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is an enemy of the Punisher.
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Publication history
Created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, the character made her first appearance in The Punisher Vol. 5, #4 (July 2000).
Ma was mentioned and heard (through devices such as telephones and intercoms) in the first three issues of The Punisher Vol. 5, and appeared in person in Issue #4; the character was present in the eight subsequent installment of the volume, and also played a part in the events of Deadpool Vol. 1, #54-55, and Punisher War Zone Vol. 2, #1-6.
Ma received entries in Marvel Encyclopedia #5, All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #4, and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4.
Welcome Back, Frank
When the Punisher resumes his war on crime in New York City, he announces his return by killing the three sons of Ma Gnucci, the head of the Gnucci crime family. Ma responds to this by blackmailing the New York City Police Department into creating the Punisher Task Force (which, unbeknownst to Ma, is a sinecure consisting of only two people) while also having her consigliere hire three assassins to eliminate Punisher, who kills the trio of killers, as well as the consigliere. The Punisher follows this up by sniping Ma's brother, Dino.
While spying on Ma and her bodyguards, the Punisher is spotted, and chased into the Central Park Zoo, where he sics the captive animals on his pursuers. Ma loses her scalp and limbs to a group of polar bears, but survives. Ten days after being mauled, Ma offers a reward of ten million dollars to anyone who can kill the Punisher. This leads to one of the Punisher's neighbors tipping Ma off to the vigilante's whereabouts, which prompts Ma into sending dozens of her followers after the Punisher. The Punisher massacres the mobsters, but sustains injuries during the battle that leave him temporarily incapacitated. With the Punisher weakened, Ma hires the Russian, a near-superhuman mercenary and assassin, to finish him off.
The Punisher slays the Russian, drives to Ma's mansion, and intimidates what remains of her soldiers into surrendering by showing them the Russian's severed head. The Punisher then sets Ma's mansion ablaze while she helplessly screams insults at him. As fire consumes the building, Ma throws herself out a window, and tries to attack the Punisher by gnawing on his pant leg. The Punisher punts Ma back into her blazing home, where she is immolated.
Legacy
Peter, Ma's nephew and the last remaining Gnucci, learns that he stands to inherit Ma's fortune, but only in the event of the Punisher's death. To that end, Peter hires Deadpool to kill the Punisher; when the Punisher is falsely assumed to be dead, Peter receives his cheque, which he loses in traffic. While Peter is chasing the cheque, he realizes that he can ask the bank for a new one, and is promptly killed when a truck knocks him onto the horns of the Charging Bull.
Ma reappears nine years after her death, claiming to have escaped from Hell with the intention of uniting all of the New York crime families against the Punisher. In actuality, Ma's "resurrection" is a hoax orchestrated by the new Elite, who believes he can demoralize the Punisher by paying surgically altered quadriplegics to pose as Ma. When his plans fall apart, the Elite has all of the Ma doubles executed; he and his associates are then killed by the Punisher.