| Ma Gnucci | |
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Ma Gnucci. Art by Steve Dillon. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Punisher vol. 4, #4 (July 2000) |
| Created by | Garth Ennis Steve Dillon |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Isabella Carmela Magdelena Gnucci |
| Team affiliations | Gnucci Crime Family |
Isabella Carmela Magdelena "Ma" Gnucci is a fictional villain from the Punisher comics. She was created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and appears in the "Welcome Back, Frank" storyline.
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Ma is the matriarch of the Gnucci Crime Family, a Mafia-like group that controls many of the illegal activities in New York. As such, she has subtle control over both the Mayor and the Commissioner of the NYPD. Other members of the Family include Ma's brother, Dino and her three sons: Eddie, Bobbie, and Carlo.
As the "Welcome Back" story begins, Frank Castle throws Carlo off the top of the Empire State Building. He does this in order to re-announce his presence to the New York underworld. He then ambushes and kills Eddie and Bobbie; Eddie is shot to death when the Punisher raids a drug deal and sets fire to the warehouse where the deal took place, and Bobbie is shot to death by the Punisher after a gunfight in the local hospital morgue. Bobbie dies atop Eddie's charred corpse.[1]
In retaliation for the murder of her sons, Ma hires three professional hitmen — gunman Harry "Heck" Thornton, martial-arts expert Eddie Lau, and sniper "Tall Joe" Small — to try to eliminate the Punisher, but the Punisher kills all of them. Heck is shot to death at point-blank range; Lau is shoved and run over by a subway train; and Tall Joe is driven over twice by the Punisher's vehicle. He murders her consigliori Joe Malizzia (who is forced out of his own car at over 100 mph by the Punisher and run over by an 18-wheeler) and takes the guns and money Ma offered as a down payment to the hitmen. Frank intends to "wear down Ma's defenses" before actually killing her; thus he spends the next several weeks attacking Gnucci soldiers.[2]
Ma's brother Dino is captured by law enforcement; his lawyer is the vigilante Matt Murdock (Daredevil).[3] The Punisher overpowers Daredevil and kills Dino with a sniper rifle. The very next night, Ma and a few of her remaining soldiers find Frank Castle outside the Central Park Zoo. Despite being outnumbered and virtually unarmed, Frank manages to fight them off, killing all the soldiers and luring her and a goon into a polar bear exhibit. Ma's henchman is killed by a polar bear and she is mauled, losing all her limbs, but she survives.[4]
When her cousin Stevie asks her "how she is" after her mauling, she orders one of her men to shoot her cousin. When that man hesitates, she orders another man to shoot her cousin and the first man. When that man hesitates, she orders a third man to shoot her cousin and the first two, and so on until three of her men and her cousin lie dead at her non-existent feet. She puts out a $10 million bounty on the Punisher's head. A man named Al Grummet has a lead on the Punisher.[5]
Ma's goons torture and mutilate Spacker Dave, one of Castle's neighbors who has made himself a close friend of the Punisher. After Castle kills Ma's associates who tortured Spacker Dave, the Russian is summoned by Ma and sent in as a follow-up.[6]
Ma's calls for reinforcements go unanswered, as the other crime families are distancing themselves from her as she had lost so many men and resources. Ma Gnucci tells the Mayor to stay out of the situation, as she has blackmail photos of him.[7] The Russian confronts Castle at his apartment and brutally beats him, but Castle manages to exploit the Russian's weakness (he cannot tolerate heat) and smothers the Russian to death.
Anticipating victory, Ma is shocked to see Frank appear on her front lawn holding the Russian's head. The remainder of her soldiers throw down their guns and leave, saying that she "can't pay us enough to fight that." Frank then burns the Gnucci mansion to the ground (after raiding Ma's safe and stealing about $1 million of Ma's money and secret documents) with Ma inside who is cursing at him all the while. Gnucci manages to attack Frank, but he kicks her into the fires of her burning mansion, where Ma burns to death.[8]
Ma Gnucci's nephew Peter realizes he stands to inherit Ma's money, if the Punisher dies. He hires Deadpool to do this. When it is falsely assumed the Punisher is dead, Peter acquires his money in the form of a check. He loses it in traffic. By the time he realizes he can ask the bank for a new one, it is too late. A truck bounces him out of the road impaling him on the Wall Street Bull statue.[9]
Six years later, it appears that Ma Gnucci has mysteriously come back from the dead; the Punisher does not question this and instantly blows her up with a rocket launcher. She returns again and even again. However, Ma Gnucci's reputation was being capitalized upon by the rich and murderous son of "Elite", a racist vigilante Frank had killed years ago. She had not actually come back; the man was using trickery (such as other disabled women) to make it seem as if she did.[10]
Ma Gnucci is one of the villains in the 2005 Punisher video game. The general plot of "Welcome Back, Frank" remains the same (right down to the home burning down), but the polar bear attack is not included, thus she keeps her limbs. Following the death of both of her sons at the hands of Castle, Ma retreats to the Gnucci mansion with her remaining guards in tow. Frank blasts his way through her forces, and after disposing of Bushwhacker in the library he finds Ma cowering in her office. The crime lord dies when the Punisher tosses her out of the office's third-floor window (other options for her disposal are available to the player).
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