It's time for the next review.

The Punisher (1974-) - Marvel Comics



The Punisher is one of my all time favorite single issue series. In the world of hit or miss story lines at Marvel, Punisher seemed to maintain a pretty strong hold, in my opinion. He started out as a villain in The Amazing Spiderman and was eventually spawned off into his own series in the 80's

In the early 1980s, artist Mike Zeck and writer Steven Grant proposed creating a Punisher series. Marvel published a miniseries whose premiere (Jan. 1986) was bannered on the cover as the first of four. After this first issue immediately sold out, Marvel expanded the miniseries to five issues (as then bannered on the cover of 2) and began active promotion.

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, Nov. 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, Nov. 1989 - Sept. 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.

The series suffered a decline in sales in 1995 and Marvel pulled the plug, the series eventually ended with Castle committing suicide, the only real end for a man like The Punisher.

He was later resurrected in a limited miniseries ran under the Marvel Knights series as a supernatural being that was a pawn between angels and demons.

Frank Castle was a man with established military background. One day, his family is killed and those responsible believed Castle to be dead as well. They were wrong. Castle then became the character known as The Punisher, an antihero who considered killing, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture to be acceptable crime-fighting tactics. He was not blessed with any superpowers, he was just an ex-Marine with a vengeance streak and a thirst for vigilantism. He has encountered some Marvel superheroes over time (Daredevil, Spiderman, Wolverine, Captain America, Ghost Rider, etc) although in most cases, whether or not he bests them, he leaves substantial collateral damage in his wake. His homicidal tendencies leave few of his antagonists to return for later series.

The Punisher has also made appearances in the Marvel Civil War series, although his time line was never altered like most of the other characters.

I remember once, there was a question of the Satanic aspects of The Punisher on a message board I frequent (yes, if you were unaware, I am a practicing Satanist. Let's save that for another time). So here is my response to that discussion:

"Ok, I think that Frank Castle does display some Satanic traits, and I'll tell you why. Frank Castle is a vigilante, who instead of turning his cheek and rolling over dead, decides to extract revenge on those who killed his family and attempted to do the same to him. We can overlook the whole legality behind vigilantism because it's a comic book, a fairy tale if you will.

While he does seem to be rather grumpy, I have seen him show compassion for those worthy of it. He doesn't hate everybody, just those worthy of his hate, such as scumbag criminals. This also in a sense promotes responsibility to the responsible because he is holding those criminals accountable for their actions. Considering this is all he really has to live for, that could be perceived as vital existance, but that could be pushing it.

He definitely treats man as an animal, rather than something superior. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he treats most who cross his path as less than an animal. Which is fine by me.

On the other side, he is manic-depressive and tends to dwell on his troubles and misery. He carries the death of his family on his shoulders and allows it to control him to a level of OCD. He doesn't seem to really enjoy his life. At the same time, he uses that to fuel his new calling as a vigilante. So it's really a matter of perspective.

I could go on and on, but I think I'll leave it at that for now."

Overall, I would have to give The Punisher a four star rating. It was good while it lasted, but I think Marvel may have pushed it a bit.

Until next time,

Stay Evil,

~D