I’ve seen several punisher movies and TV shows, they all portray him as someone who loved his family deeply and then became vengeful after they died, directing his rage at the people who killed them.
I didn’t read the comics much but I heard in the comics he didn’t really love his family, it was more That having a family held his anti social, sociopathic urges in check. After they died he was free to be his true self (a mass murderer living on the margins of society).
Does anyone know if this is true?
There have been many Punisher comics, by many different writers, and many different interpretations of the character. In some, he was driven insane by the murder. In others, he was always insane. In PunisherMax he was completely unable to adjust to civilian life, and couldn’t relate to his family. He told his wife that he was leaving just seconds before she was shot. That’s out of the standard continuity, though. In Garth Ennis’ telling, he became addicted to War. He fights a war against criminals because he needs to fight a war. I’ve seen one comic where he said that he was always like that, and the murders liberated him.