Punisher

This article is about the Marvel Comics character. For other uses, see Punisher (disambiguation).

The Punisher
File:PUNMAX031COV colREV.jpg Promotional art for The Punisher #31, art by Tim Bradstreet.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974)
Created by	Gerry Conway Ross Andru John Romita, Sr.
In-story information
Full name	Frank Castle (born Francis Castiglione)
Notable aliases	Mr. Smith, Charles Fort, Frank Rook, Johnny Tower, Frankencastle
Abilities	Tactical expert, highly trained in armed and unarmed combat, demolitions expert, peak human physical condition, exceptionally high pain tolerance.

The Punisher (Frank Castle) is a fictional character, an anti-hero in the

. Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita, Sr. and Ross Andru, the character made its first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974).

The Punisher is a vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture in his war on crime. Driven by the deaths of his family, who were killed by the mob when they witnessed a gangland execution in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all criminals in general by using all manner of conventional war weaponry. His family's killers were the first to be slain. A war veteran, Castle is a master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerrilla warfare and a wide variety of weapons.

The Punisher's brutal nature and willingness to kill made him a novel character in mainstream American comic books in 1974. By the late 1980s, he was part of a wave of psychologically troubled antiheroes and was featured in several monthly publications, including The Punisher War Journal, The Punisher War Zone, and The Punisher Armory. Despite his violent actions and dark nature, The Punisher has enjoyed some mainstream success (although toned down) on television making guest appearances on Spider-Man: The Animated Series and even The Super Hero Squad Show. In feature films, Dolph Lundgren portrayed the Punisher in 1989, Thomas Jane in 2004, and Ray Stevenson in 2008.

Publication history

For complete list of Punisher titles, see List of The Punisher comics.

The first appearance of The Punisher in The Amazing Spider-Man #129.

First appearance

The Punisher was conceived of by Gerry Conway, writer of The Amazing Spider-Man, who helped design the character's distinctive costume:

In the '70s, when I was writing comics at DC and Marvel, I made it a practice to sketch my own ideas for the costumes of new characters — heroes and villains — which I offered to the artists as a crude suggestion representing the image I had in mind. I had done that with the Punisher at Marvel.

Conway had drawn a character with a small death's head skull on one breast. Marvel art director John Romita, Sr. took the basic design, blew the skull up to huge size, taking up most of the character's chest, and added a cartridge bandolier that formed the skull's teeth. Amazing Spider-Man penciller Ross Andru was the first artist to draw the character for publication.

Appearing for the first time in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), the Punisher was initially an antagonist of the titular hero. He was a bloodthirsty vigilante who had no qualms about killing gangsters, something that most superheroes of the time refrained from doing. J. Jonah Jameson described him as "the most newsworthy thing to happen to New York since Boss Tweed". In this appearance the Punisher was determined to kill Spider-Man, who was wanted for the apparent murder of Norman Osborn. This version of the Punisher was shown as an athletic fighter, a master marksman and an able strategist. All he would reveal about himself was that he was a former U.S. Marine. He had a fierce temper but also showed signs of considerable frustration over his self-appointed role of killer vigilante. In particular, he was engaged in extensive soul-searching as to what was the right thing to do: although he had few qualms about killing he was outraged when his then-associate, the Jackal, apparently killed Spider-Man by treacherous means rather than in honorable combat. Spider-Man, who was himself no stranger to such torment, concluded that the Punisher's problems made his own seem like a "birthday party".

The character was a hit with readers and started to appear on a regular basis, teaming up with both Spider-Man and other heroes such as Captain America and Nightcrawler throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. During his acclaimed run on Daredevil, writer and artist Frank Miller made use of the character, contrasting his attitudes and version of vigilante action to that of the more liberal Man Without Fear.

Initial series

In the early 1980s, artist Mike Zeck and writer Steven Grant proposed creating a Punisher series. Marvel published a miniseries whose premiere (January 1986) was bannered on the cover as the first of four - however the series had always been intended to be five issues long, and the banner was an error that recurred throughout the entire run. An important element of the story was a retcon that explains that many of the Punisher's more extreme actions to this point were the result of being poisoned with mind-altering drugs.

The Punisher War Zone #1 (March 1992). Cover art by John Romita, Jr.

An ongoing series, also titled The Punisher, premiered the next year. Initially by writer Mike Baron and artist Klaus Janson, it eventually ran 104 issues (July 1987 - July 1995) and spun off two additional ongoing series — The Punisher War Journal (vol.1) (80 issues, November 1988 - July 1995) and The Punisher War Zone (41 issues, March 1992 - July 1995), as well as the black-and-white comics magazine, The Punisher Magazine (16 issues, November 1989 - September 1990), and The Punisher Armory (10 issues, no cover dates, starting 1990), a fictional diary detailing "His thoughts! His feelings! His weapons!" (as stated on the cover of #1). The Punisher also appeared in numerous one-shots and miniseries, and made frequent guest appearances in other Marvel comics, ranging from superhero series to the Vietnam War-era comic The 'Nam.

During this era, the Punisher was assisted by his then-partner, Microchip. Serving as a Q type figure, he would supply the Punisher with high-tech vehicles and equipment such as armored combat "battle vans" specially built and customized.

Over the next decade the Punisher would be shown fighting virtually every known criminal organization including the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Chinese Triads, Jamaican Yardies, the Irish Mob, biker gangs, street gangs, gunrunning militias, muggers, killers, rapists, psychopaths, violent racists, sadists, pedophiles, and corrupt city officials. He also assaults criminal business enterprises such as drugs, weapons smuggling, money laundering, and human trafficking.

Due to the Punisher's homicidal nature, few of his foes became recurring antagonists, the most notable of these being the severely scarred enforcer Jigsaw. The Punisher also acquired a nemesis in the form of the Kingpin, a longtime Spider-Man and Daredevil foe, and developed enmity with Daredevil himself, who likewise abhorred and fought against the Punisher's brutal methods. Villains such as the Jackal, Bushwacker, Doctor Doom, The Reavers and Bullseye would be used to provide more of a challenge for the character. In addition, heroes such as Spider-Man, Captain America, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, the Hulk, Wolverine, Nick Fury, and Moon Knight would appear. Often the stories would use the appearance of those heroes to provide commentary on the difference between the Punisher and those more colourful characters. During Don Daley's run on The Punisher title, his version of justice was described by the editor as "an eye for an eye".

Decline

In 1995, Marvel canceled all three ongoing Punisher series due to poor sales. The publisher attempted a re-launch almost immediately, with a new ongoing series Punisher, under the new Marvel Edge imprint, by writer John Ostrander, in which the Punisher willingly joined and became the boss of an organized crime family, and later confronted the X-Men and Nick Fury. The series ran for 18 issues, from November 1995 to April 1997. Writer Christopher Golden's four-issue Marvel Knights miniseries The Punisher: Purgatory (November 1998 - February 1999) posited a deceased Punisher resurrected as a supernatural agent of various angels and demons. This version of the character also appeared in a 4-issue mini-series co-starring Wolverine.

Revivals

A 12-issue miniseries by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, again titled The Punisher (April 2000 - March 2001), under the Marvel Knights imprint, revived the character's popularity. An ongoing series (37 issues, August 2001 - February 2004), primarily by Ennis and Dillon, followed, succeeded in 2004 by an ongoing Ennis series under Marvel's mature-readers imprint, MAX. Returning the character to his lone vigilante roots, those series combined crime focused stories with black humor. The look of the Punisher was modified further removing the white gloves and pairing his traditional skull imprinted shirt with combat trousers, black combat boots and a black trench coat. Castle has used this costume on occasion in mid-2000s stories before The Punisher War Journal (vol.2).

File:PunMax44.jpg

Promotional art for The Punisher vol. 7, #44 (March 2007), by Tim Bradstreet. Castle's birth date (February 16, 1950) was redacted on the published cover.

Max imprint

Main article: The Punisher: Frank Castle

Continuing his run on the character, Garth Ennis used the freedom of the MAX imprint to write more realistic and hard-edged stories than had previously been seen. Ennis has stated that he would "like to see less superheroes"; this desire is reflected in the gritty, realistic tone and the anti-heroic portrayals of both the title character and Nick Fury, a frequent guest to the series. The Punisher also made it explicit that Castle's timeline was fixed while Marvel adjusted those of its other characters, with his history never altered or moved up in time. Promotional art for the cover of vol. 6, #44 (March 2007) gave his birth date as February 16, 1950, but that was removed for the published issues. After the departure of Ennis as writer, the series was renamed Punisher: Frank Castle with issue #66.

The imprint depicts the Punisher being active for almost 30 years, with vol. 6, #19 (June 2005) specifying he had killed approximately 2,000 people. Whereas the traditional Punisher stories remained within the United States and involved antagonists and settings of conventional domestic crime, stories of the MAX Punisher often focus on current events, ranging from corporate fraud to sexual slavery and The War on Terror. Many characters are past or current intelligence and military operatives from governmental agencies like the CIA, KGB, Secret Intelligence Service, SAS, militaries and militias from the Balkans and Middle East, also including the IRA, all with agendas rooted in past conflicts like the Cold War or the Yugoslav wars.

The miniseries Born by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson further examines Castle's roots, tracing them back to his third tour of the Vietnam War, where he undergoes a psychological and possibly supernatural transformation into the Punisher to survive a massive assault on his fortification by the combined forces of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The one-shot Punisher: The Tyger, by Ennis and John Severin, went even further and showed that Castle had lived with murders, deaths and criminals from his childhood.

Punisher War Journal (vol. 2)

In November 2006, a new The Punisher War Journal series, written by Matt Fraction and penciled by Ariel Olivetti was released. The first three issues of the book are set during the Marvel Civil War event. It involves Castle taking on supervillains rather than his traditional non-super-powered criminal antagonists. He has also made appearances in the main Civil War series (issues 5, 6, and 7). Wearing both his traditional costume and his Marvel Knights/MAX attire, and a new costume designed to look like his costume and Captain America's combined, the series pitted the character against a series of super-powered foes while also being involved in crossover events such as World War Hulk and Secret Invasion.

File:Frankencastle.PNG

Cover to Punisher #11. Art by Dave Wilkins.

The Punisher and Punisher: Frank Castle

Marvel relaunched The Punisher War Journal in 2009 as Punisher (2009 series), with a thematic link tied to the events of the Dark Reign storyline and, following the departure of writer Garth Ennis, retitled the Marvel Max series (formerly Punisher Max) as Punisher: Frank Castle MAX; and more recently as "Punisher: Frank Castle" or Frank Castle: The Punisher (depending on the source), launching a new series, PunisherMax by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon. As part of his work on the character, Rick Remender wrote the one-shot title Dark Reign: The List - Punisher which as part of the Dark Reign storyline shows the character dismembered and decapitated by Daken.

Following this, the main Punisher series was renamed FrankenCastle and featured a Castle who is resurrected by Morbius and the Legion of Monsters as a patchwork Frankenstein's Monster-like creature. He joins up with the Legion of Monsters to help protect the monsters of Monster Metropolis from the Hunter of Monster Special Force.

Characterization

The character has been described as being obsessed with vengeance; Garth Ennis noted that the character of the Punisher 'sees the world in very black and white terms, he solves his problems with utter finality' and that 'His response to any problem: when in doubt, hit back hard.' The writer Steven Grant notes that

Heidegger, who took Kierkegaard's philosophy further, comes even closer to describing The Punisher: since we can never hope to understand why we're here, if there's even anything to understand, the individual should choose a goal and pursue it wholeheartedly, despite the certainty of death and the meaninglessness of action. That's sure the Punisher as I conceived him: a man who knows he's going to die and who knows in the big picture his actions will count for nothing, but who pursues his course because this is what he has chosen to do.

Weapons and abilities

Punisher is the recipient of multi-disciplinary military training from the U.S. Marine Corps. While a Marine, he also received training from the U.S. Army and Navy as well as cross-training from the British SAS. In addition, since beginning his work as the Punisher, Castle has used his military discipline and training techniques to update and expand his skills in areas that aid in his mission (disguise, acting, use of non-military weapons, etc.). From this training, Punisher is proficient in not only basic infantry skills, but in special operations, which includes the use and maintenance of specialized firearms and explosive ordnance. He is highly trained in infiltration into heavily-guarded enemy territories and structures for the purpose of assassination, capture, and military intelligence. Also, he is trained in various forms of camouflage and stealth.

He maintains multiple safehouses and vehicles around the greater Manhattan area as well as multiple forged identities and bank accounts (most of the funds and equipment aiding him in his work being taken from the criminals he hunts).

The Punisher has a Kevlar uniform which protects him from most gunfire, though he can still suffer concussive injury or penetration from sufficient or repeated impacts.

The Punisher has been using technology derived from super-villains and other costumed characters, such as:

• The Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs and a modified Goblin Glider
• a Doctor Octopus tentacle that he can shrink down for easy storage via Pym Particles
• a Punisher-themed copy of Captain America's shield.
• Owl's Talons
• Ghost's Gauntlets

Since his resurrection, the Punisher has now developed some level of superhuman abilities as described by writer Rick Remender, "When Frank Castle shows up from here on out, he's on an even playing field with the other A-list characters in the Marvel Universe."

Reception

The Punisher was named 19th greatest comic book character of all time by movie magazine Empire saying that he is the "grimmest and most compelling of characters" and praising the Punisher MAX series.

Supporting characters

Despite wanting to work alone, the Punisher has a few supporting characters to help fight crime. Microchip assisted Castle by building and supplying weapons and technology and providing friendship. During the Civil War he was aided by Stuart Clarke for a short time. Various police officers and detectives have assisted the Punisher, most notably Lynn Michaels and Lt. Martin Soap. Lynn Michaels was a police officer who teamed up with Castle to take down a serial rapist and later quits the force to become a vigilante. Martin Soap was secretly allied with the Punisher and gave him information on his targets from the police database.

In other media

Main article: Punisher in other media

The character of the Punisher has appeared in many types of media. Since his first appearance in 1974, he has appeared in television, movies, and video games each on multiple occasions, and his name, symbol, and image have appeared on products and merchandise.

For the film series see: The Punisher (films)

The Punisher has appeared in numerous video games for the arcade, NES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox and most recently the PlayStation 3.

External links

Punisher at Marvel.com

• The Punisher at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)