The Punisher

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Rod1199

I’ve read Punisher from way back. No version has ever shot or killed innocents. True, he started as a Spider-Man villain, but the only reason he targeted Spidey in the first place was because he was duped into believing that Spidey was a villain.

I believe the issue in question is * Amazing Spider-Man Annual* #15, by Frank Miller. In it, Castle shoots at litterers, a taxicab that runs a red light and (less innocently) a man who is smacking around his wife. At the end, he chooses not to shoot a cop and lets himself get arrested. He’s okay with the prospect because in jail there are criminals. “Lots of them.” In that issue, his biggest issue with Spider-Man was that Spidey was too soft, and getting in the way of pursuing the issue’s main villain; Doctor Octopus.

I have this issue, and I recall at least one later letter to the editor that pointed out that wife-beaters aren’t innocent. These actions of the Punisher were later explained away as him being under the drugged influence of enemy Jigsaw.

[cckerberos]

@Bryan_Ekers

I believe the issue in question is * Amazing Spider-Man Annual* #15, by Frank Miller. In it, Castle shoots at litterers, a taxicab that runs a red light and (less innocently) a man who is smacking around his wife. At the end, he chooses not to shoot a cop and lets himself get arrested. He’s okay with the prospect because in jail there are criminals. “Lots of them.” In that issue, his biggest issue with Spider-Man was that Spidey was too soft, and getting in the way of pursuing the issue’s main villain; Doctor Octopus.

Close. He did get drugged and turn himself into the police in that issue, but the one where he went off the handle and started shooting at people for littering was Spectacular Spider-Man #82. He’s sent to a mental hospital in the next issue.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

There have been maybe six important Punisher writers and they have very different takes on the character.

Gerry Conway, who created the Punisher, never intended him to be anything but a superhero version of Mack Bolan.

Frank Miller, who used the character as a foil for Daredevil and Spider-Man, clearly disliked the Punisher and thought he was maybe half a chromosome away from being an out-and-out psycho.

Steven Grant, who snapped the character up on a rebound from the “shooting litterbugs” story cited earlier (Bill Mantlo?), tried to rehabilitate him as a straight-up adventure hero in his first solo (limited) series.

Mike Baron, who scripted Punisher’s first ongoing series, seemed mainly fascinated by the moral ambiguity of vigilantism. One of his finest moments was when Belasco (One of Marvel’s Satan stand-ins) taunts him with “Hey Frank, how many innocents have you unintentionally killed? Here’s a hint: It’s more than ten and less than a hundred!” He also had Castle deliver a classic Mike Baron line: “If I paid taxes, I’d be outraged.”

Chuck Dixon, the other major Punisher series scripter in the 90s, chiefly used Punisher to highlight the contrasts between military and civilian culture. This was done to particularly good effect in Dixon’s short-lived Marvel Knights team book (“A woman, a blind guy and me. Guess who’ll do most of the heavy lifting?”)

Garth Ennis had two shots at the character, first as a really violent Warner Brothers cartoon (“Welcome Back, Frank”) and later as an incredibly grim and mostly humorless vigilante under the MAX imprint. I’d say Ennis is the best of the bunch, but he kinda lost me when he had Frank kill Microchip. Again.

Punisher’s a pretty complex character and not everyone at Marvel knows how to write him. The series with angels and a glowing tattoo on his face really missed the point. I think it was Mark Gruenwald who pointed out that if you or I were to suddenly fight crime, this is the way we’d do it: with guns and stuff you can mostly snap up at an army surplus store. Handled correctly, he’s one of Marvel’s best characters.