Frank Castle
http://projectsday.hci.edu.sg/2010/15-FinalsWeb/Cat-06/6-26/punisher.html
vs
Eddie Blake
Both heavily trained in the military arts…weaponry to hand-to-hand.
One is obsessed with vengeance, the other is a sociopath.
Which would win?
My guess is The Punisher. The Comedian showed he can get rattled when he woke up Molok and had his little soliloquy. I doubt the Punisher can get rattled anymore.
What’s the situation?
Taken for granted: They’ve been taken into a neutral third universe (so, no allies, no terrain advantage, less chance more traditional capes will interfere), and have access to the same weaponry.
Assuming they’re both around the same age, we’ve got a real fight going on and I think the two biggest factors will by ‘why are they trying to kill each other’, and sheer dumb luck. If the ‘why’ is ‘someone said they have to’, I’d give it to Eddie, just because, by this point, Frank’s not exactly one for taking orders - he’s used to being the general, not the soldier - whereas Eddie was the good soldier right to the end. Anything else, whoever gets lucky and manages to get a bead on the other first takes it.
If they’re taken from the same time period - mid-70s (when Punisher first appeared) to mid-80s (when Comedian died) - I have to give it to Eddie - he has the advantage of experience.
The Comedian would see Frank Castle as a compatriot and gladly shake his hand…or at least attempt to, because Frank would put a bullet in his head before that hand got waist high.
Eddie is a somewhat realistic government thug. He’s described as being in “great shape for his age.” He’s apparently reasonably skilled with small arms, as we see him using a handgun, a tear gas launcher,and a flamethrower that I can remember for sure. Nothing indicates that he has comic book levels of skill, though. He’s an enthusiastic, if not tremendously skilled, hand-to-hand combatant. Didn’t Ozzy describe him as having a good hook punch and not much else? Mostly, Eddie is just ruthless.
Frank, on the other hand, is very much your comic book one man army/assassin. He’s even come back from the dead, FFS. Eddie never managed that. Frank has comic book levels of skill in use of just about any weapon you can name. He’s a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. Rather than just being “in great shape for his age,” he’s yet another of those “trained to the peak of human ability” guys.
Eddie existed to drive the plot in a really good story that had a beginning, middle, and end. Frank exists to provide one over the top ultra-violent set-piece after another until his character ceases being profitable.
Even though I like Eddie more, I have to give it to Frank.
Skillful feint, devastating uppercut, little else.
Yeah, Frank’s gone toe-to-toe with various super-powered characters in his universe, while Eddie has not (or the one time he sorta did, it ended with him being tossed out a 30-story window). I give a slight edge to Frank, but the encounter could be written such that Eddie’s greater sociopathy wins, i.e. a pregnant woman inadvertently walks between them - Frank hesitates, Eddie shoots through her to get to Frank…
That was the second time he went toe-to-toe with that borderline superhuman. Eddie won the first time, right?
The Comedian is a killer, the Punisher is a killing machine.
Yeah, but the details are sketchy. Veidt said, ironically, that Blake “mistook him for a villain”, suggesting Blake was just being kind of a dick.