Trouble with a bomb is there's no one to get your hands on, no way to return fire. No one to kill. 
Appearing in "Kitchen Irish, Part One"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Napper French (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Michael Morrison (First appearance)
- Peter Cooley (First appearance)
- Finn Cooley (First appearance)
- Westies (First appearance)
- Tommy Toner (First appearance)
- Maginty (First appearance)
- Nesbitt (Behind the scenes)
Other Characters:
- FDNY (First appearance)
- NYPD
- Al-Qaeda (Mentioned)
- IRA (Mentioned)
- River Rats (Mentioned)
- Angelina Jolie (Mentioned) (Topical Reference)
- Jesus (Invoked)
- Billy French (First appearance)
- Harry Houdini (Referenced)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth-200111
- United States of America
- New York
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Hell's Kitchen
- Kerry Castle
- Hell's Kitchen
- Queens (Mentioned)
- Manhattan
- New York City
- New Jersey (Mentioned)
- California (Mentioned)
- New York
- Vietnam (Mentioned)
- London, England (Mentioned)
- Ireland (Mentioned)
- Dublin (Mentioned)
- United States of America
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Kitchen Irish, Part One"
The Punisher walks through Hell's Kitchen, decrying it's name change to "Clinton" and the recent pseudo-Gentrification of the neighborhood, on his way to the Kerry Castle bar. As he eats his meal an explosion rips through the diner, which he survives--though he is briefly knocked unconscious--through luck alone. He wakes to find most of the rest of the diners have been much less fortunate, and after watching a waitress die, snaps to action helping one of the few survivors. Paramedics arrive, taking over work on the hurt boy, clearing out other survivors, and stitching up and releasing the Punisher.
The police officers that arrive on the scene pin the explosion on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) based on the bombs composure.
Elsewhere, Peter Cooley is talking to his uncle, the faceless Finn Cooley and Michael Morrison about the bombing. Morrison says that had the bomb gone off when they intended they'd have killed all their opposition in one shot, possibly even Maginty. Finn replies that Maginty would have been too smart to show up before complaining about their use of a wireless detonator being disrupted by someone randomly using the same frequency. Peter wonders aloud if their enemies--Maginty, the River Rats, and the Westies--are going to know who set the bomb, and Finn tells him they were never going to speak peaceably anyway. After Peter's questions about who exactly Maginty is are dismissed by sending him into the house, Michael and Finn discuss their plans for Nesbitt's millions when they get them.
At Kerry's Castle the Punisher watches Tommy Toner, leader of the new Westies, with plans to pick him up to question him as to how much his mean have found out about the bombing. Before he can do so, however, Toner is snatched off of the street by a group of men in a van.
At a park, Napper French is watching his grandson Billy play. A black man with an Irish brogue sits on the bench next to him asking him about his past work doing "Houdini's"--cutting dead bodies into so many pieces authorities couldn't find them--for Nesbitt. French yells to tell Nesbitt he's been retired for thirty years, but is told that the old man dies last year. He's then told to look across the park into the back of a van, where he sees his grandson being held with a gun to his head. For the sake of his daughter, French agrees to do anything he's asked. Asked who he's talking to, he's told Maginty "the baddest n*gger ever out of Dublin town" who asks if he's ever done a Houdini on a living person.
Notes
- This is the beginning of the Kitchen Irish storyline. It has been collected twice, once in its own trade paperback (Punisher MAX Vol 2.: Kitchen Irish) and again in a hardback (Punisher MAX Vol. 1) alongside In the Beginning.