Today I thought I'd write about one of my favourite comic book characters. The Punisher, the man who carries out vengeance on all criminals since his family were killed in a mob hit.
His first appearance was in The Amazing Spider-man #129 in 1974. In that issue he was an antagonist for Spider-man who went about killing mobsters without a care in the world as he waged his one man war on crime. Spider-man was on his kill list as he was wanted for killing Norman Osbourne. From this initial arc The Punisher was found to be a hit with the readers and went on to feature in other titles like Daredevil and Captain America before finally getting his own solo run.
My first encounter with Frank was back in the mid-nineties. After being pulled in to the Marvel universe by the awesome animated X-Men series I decided to go to my local comic book shop, Comics Unlimited, and pick up a few comics. After browsing through the long boxes of X-Men back issues, I decided to broaden my horizons and try something new. The first thing that caught my eye was picture of man in a black uniform that had a giant white skull emblazoned on his chest, emerging from some water while a fire burned behind him. In his hands were a grenade launcher and a machine gun. Even today I still consider it a brilliant piece of artwork. The issue was entitled Fire Fight and was 1 of 3. After a quick check I had all three in my hands.
The story was about The Punisher trying to stop an arsonist who is trying to burn down New York City. Whilst dealing with this problem Frank is being pursued by a vigilante task force who are out to capture him. I loved every bit of these books and would go back and read them again and again. From there I went about researching him where ever I could. This was hard work due to the lack of wikipedia back then!
After about ten years away from comics I returned to them as an adult and the first thing I bought was Vol 1 of the Garth Ennis run on The Punisher Max. The Max imprint is where The Punisher belongs. A place where there is no holding back in terms of language and violence. A place where The Punisher can truly punish. Ennis is the definitive writer when it comes to The Punisher and I especially love his story The Punisher: Born. This is a story that shows the soldier Frank Castle fighting in Vietnam before the death of his family. The dark events he faces in the war is where The Punisher is truly born.
There have been three films made of The Punisher and they go from being ok to god damn awful! The first film made in the eighties is not too bad. It has Dolph Lundgren in the main role and it hasn't aged well to be fair. Then in 2004 Thomas Jane wore the skull and again this was ok but what followed next with Ray Stephenson is just too bad to write about. Maybe now the rights have come back to Marvel they could do him right. I think the best place for him to be brought back would be as a recurring character in the upcoming Daredevil TV show. There they could use the classic stories written by Frank Millar to really establish Castle in the MCU. If all goes well there then maybe even his own show. The following short film shows how to do it right.
I think the thing that makes me really like The Punisher is the fact he is just a normal man, maybe a bit unhinged but still normal. No super power. No money. Just a cold hard desire to stop evil in any way possible.
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