Punisher

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Background

Frank’s age

Due to the “ten years” Marvel timeline, Castle can now no longer have fought in Việt Nam in the 1960s and 1970s.

The current-as-of-this-writing writer ignores the problem by having Frank stay incredibly spry for his age, but this both means the Punisher is 52 or so and serious problems with the continuity of the rest of the Marvel Universe.

Thus, the Punisher has mostly been retconned had having fought a war in South-East Asia some years ago in unspecified circumstances, a war with as much in common with the Việt Nam invasion as possible.

It might be that in the Marvel Universe there was a second Việt Nam War in the late 1980s, or that the usual “let’s bomb some third world country to bits” thing took place in the fictional country of Sin Cong in the late 1980s.

An alternative would have now been for Frank to be involved in the horror of El Salvador.

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Powers and Abilities

Frank is a Recon veteran trained in a vast number of MOS , with UDT certification. He earned a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and four Purple Hearts in ’nam. He also rated a Medal of Honor.

With years of experience in crime fighting and a body count that easily meets that of most major natural disasters, he’s now extremely skilled in urban warfare, CQB , detective and surveillance work, SWAT work, legwork and so on. The Punisher has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to take on large numbers of armed opponents and remain the only one standing at the end.

The Punisher’s endurance and pain threshold are unbelievable. He’s been known to perform surgery on himself without any painkillers.

History

The man who would one day become known as the Punisher was born Frank Castiglione in Queens, New York, to Mario Lorenzo and Louisa Castiglione. His parents were first-generation immigrants who had left Sicily to escape pressure from the rival Bessucho organized crime family.

As a young man, Castle studied for priesthood under Father Angus McFee. However, he left the seminary because he could not understand why God would allow  so much hatred and suffering in the world.

He also disagreed with the church’s teachings. He believed that before there can be forgiveness, there must be punishment. Hoping to make a difference in the world, he joined the Marines and was sent overseas for his first tour of duty. He quickly proved himself a brave soldier – twice decorated with both the Bronze and Silver Stars, and 4 times with the Purple Heart.

The war

During that war, Castle shot a criminal dead for the first time – one Sgt. Mikuta, who was inciting soldiers to desert. He also became aware of many criminal conspiracies among the ranks, most having to do with drugs trafficking from the area toward the US ; as the Punisher, he would later encounter many of those criminals.

Castle was later captured by an enemy soldier dubbed the Monkey, who wore a tiny skull around his neck as a medallion. After escaping, Castle baited the Monkey by painting a skull onto slain enemy soldiers. He finally killed the Monkey, and painted a skull onto his own chest. This skull symbol would later become the Punisher’s trademark.

Fighting alongside such soldiers as Burt Canyon (who would become the Hitman), the mysterious Spook or “Ice” Phillips, Castle was stationed at Firebase Valley Forge.

There, he fought in the analogue of the Tết offensive. During those battles, Castle started hearing a seductive voice encouraging him toward mindless violence. He began doubting his own sanity. Nevertheless, he emerged the sole survivor of his unit from that offensive.

During his early military career, Castle married Maria Elizabeth, who soon became pregnant with Lisa Barbara Castle, usually called by her middle name. On a leave of absence during his third tour, they had a second child, Frank David, a.k.a. Frank Jr.. After completing his fourth and final tour, Castle retired from active duty, eager to be a dedicated father and husband.

Tragedy in New York City

He spent the next few years as a Special Forces instructor in upstate New York, while maintaining his home in New York City. This was a happy time for the Castle family, but it was not to last.

When Barbara was 7, Castle was selected to receive the Presidential Freedom Award for his service to the armed forces. Before heading to Washington, D.C., he and his family stopped for a picnic in New York City’s Central Park. That day that would forever change the course of Castle’s life.

To support the anti-Communist guerilla of San Angelo, Hector Montoya had arranged a drug deal with the Costa Family through a corrupt American banker, Forrest Hunt. After learning of Hunt’s plans to cut him out of the illicit dealings, Montoya sent a shipment of fake drugs through Hunt to the Costas.

Bruno Costa quickly recognized the switch and ordered Hunt’s death, blaming the banker for the soured deal. With 4 of his men — Lou Allegre, Byron Hannigan, Kolsky and Skinner — Costa took Hunt to a secluded wooded area of Central Park, and brutally executed him by slitting his throat and wrists.

The Castles unwittingly became witnesses to the bloody murder scene. When the family was discovered, Costa ordered his men to execute them in cold blood. Caught in a hail of gunfire, Maria, Frank Jr. and Barbara died on site, with only Castle surviving.

Reporter Mike McTeer first discovered the grisly scene and alerted the police. Castle was rushed to Mount Sinai Medical Center . Detectives John Laviano and Stan Witts began the investigation of the murder scene. Castle identified all 5 of Costa’s men, but the mobsters used their connections to halt the investigation.

An abortion of justice

Determined to see justice done, McTeer collected information on the Costa family and turned it over to Castle. To stop McTeer, Bruno Costa’s brother, Frank, sent hitman Billy Russo to take out the reporter and Castle. Castle’s extensive military experience alerted him to Russo’s presence, and he narrowly escaped a bomb.

After finding McTeer dead, Castle realized the legal system had failed him. He decided justice would only be served if he took the punishment into his own hands.

Castle confronted Detective Laviano and convinced him to hand over the police files on the Costa brothers. Unsure he would survive his mission, Castle began a journal to document his activities as the Punisher. Remembering the symbol he had used during his battle against the Monkey, he spray-painted a menacing white skull onto a bulletproof vest.

He then assaulted a Costa party, leaving Russo alive to deliver his message : the Punisher was coming. Castle then kicked Russo face-first through a plate-glass window, disfiguring the killer’s face. As Jigsaw, Russo would later become one of the Punisher’s few long-running adversaries.

Rise of the Punisher

Castle now began his mission in earnest. The first 10 entries in the Punisher’s War Journal covered his vengeance against the men who had killed his family. However, this justice was not enough. Castle still felt his family had not been avenged, and that he could not rest until he had punished every single criminal the law could not touch.

For the first 6 months of his career, the Punisher worked with Reiss, aka the Mechanic. Reiss had been his ordinance man during the war and provided Castle with his first high-tech Battle Van.

The Punisher first encountered Spider-Man when he was tricked by the Jackal into thinking the web-slinger was a criminal. Castle turned against the Jackal after discovering his deceit ; in retaliation, the criminal murdered the Mechanic.

Castle battled Spider-Man a second time, until the hero convinced him of the truth. The 2 teamed up against the Tarantula. To replace the Mechanic and supply him with sophisticated weaponry, Castle recruited Roger Wong, also a former member of his unit. When Wong was killed, Castle worked with 2 men, Martin and Microchip, to acquire weapons.

Trail of blood

Through the years, the Punisher and his harsh methods have been viewed with suspicion by most members of the superhuman community, but Castle is more often regarded with enmity. While Moon Knight and Cage have served as allies, Cloak and Dagger and Daredevil have actively attempted to bring him to justice.

Others – like Ghost Rider II and Wolverine, who themselves employ deadly means to combat crime have grudgingly worked alongside Castle, as have Spider-Man and Captain America. Daredevil has been the Punisher’s fiercest opponent in this regard. The Punisher himself has little love for costumed heroes and even less for their frequent superhuman adversaries.

The Punisher has made a particular effort to avoid injuring police officers, even when they interfere in his war on crime – except for one felonious offense when fighting the Hitman. After helping Spider-Man defeat Doctor Octopus, Castle was surrounded by a squad of police. Unwilling to kill the innocent officers to escape, he allowed them to take him in.

He was tried, convicted and sent to Ryker’s Island prison for the first of several times in his life. Castle escaped shortly thereafter with the aid of an undercover government agent who required his assistance on a covert mission.

Some time later, Daredevil shot Castle to prevent him from continuing to kill criminals. This wound led to the Punisher’s arrest and second incarceration.

Hard cases

During this imprisonment, an agent of Jigsaw drugged the Punisher’s food. After escaping with the help of Boomerang, the drugs in his system affected his mind, and Castle went on an unprecedented rampage. He shot a wife-beater, a litterbug and a motorist who ran a red light.

Following a failed effort to take down New York’s Kingpin of Crime, the Punisher was again arrested without incident and sent back to Ryker’s Island.

The acting warden was secretly a member of the vigilante group known as the Trust and freed the Punisher. They also restocked his arsenal of weaponry. Ultimately, the members of the Trust attempted to force the Punisher to serve their will, but Castle resisted their demands and took down their local leader, Alaric.

Around this time, Martin was killed by thugs sent by the Rev, and Microchip became Castle’s primary assistant. This relationship that continued even after his son, nicknamed Microchip Junior, was killed while working with the Punisher.

The Punisher’s next incarceration occurred after he killed a corrupt cop and drug dealer named Howard Nees, and was subsequently apprehended by the authorities. In Ryker’s, Jigsaw savagely carved Castle’s face to mirror his own grotesque visage.

In excruciating pain, Castle contacted former doctor Melinda Brewer, who used a graft procedure and a pigment-stimulating formula to repair his face. This procedure temporarily granted Castle the appearance of a Black man, but the change quickly faded.

Punishing pursuits

Although Castle’s primary base of operations is the New York area, he has left the city and even the country for a number of missions. He :

• Worked with Wolverine in the Congo to save Mokele-Mbembe dinosaurs.
• Stopped Jigsaw and the Rev from unleashing a sterilization drug on the world from their base in Venezuela.
• Became involved in a Sicilian feud between his uncle, Rocco Castiglione – the last surviving Italian Castiglione – and the Bessuchos Family.
• Worked alongside the supernatural Scot called the Clansman to foil a cocaine trafficking plot.
• Cooperated with his Russian counterpart Dragunov to stop the sale of nukes.
• Worked with the radical environmentalist group Humans Off Planet.
• Stopped a plot involving the Chunnel  along with British vigilante Outlaw and French mercenary Georges Batroc.

As the years of his war against crime passed, Castle’s cold determination elevated into obsession. Learning of a meeting of American and international criminals to plan his assassination, Castle lined the building with explosives, then confronted his would-be killers. After shooting many of them, Castle detonated the explosives, collapsing the building on everyone present.

When Castle disappeared in the wake of the explosion, speculation he had been killed led to a number of copycats trying to fill his role with varying levels of success. Those included Outlaw, Payback, Lynn “Lady Punisher” Michaels, a hitman named Jimmy Pierce working for the Cullen family, a delusional postal worker named Desmond Kline, etc.

Castle did survive, escaping the blast underneath a car that transported him to Laastekist, PA. After learning his location, an alliance of mobsters and criminals converged on the small town, turning the area into a raging war zone. While escaping the carnage, Castle killed the corrupt police officer and VIGIL member Blackwell, sending several members of the superhuman community after him.

Over the edge

At the same time, the Trust broke into the Punisher’s van, stealing his War Journal. As a record of the Punisher’s activities, the diary was pursued by many. A number of fake copies also emerged. The real Journal was later cast into the cement foundation of a new building where it might remain for 100 years.

As Castle became increasingly reckless and violent, Microchip feared he had finally gone over the edge. Micro posed as the criminal Cringe to trap the Punisher in an abandoned prison, where images of his family and past life were displayed in an effort to restore his humanity. During Castle’s imprisonment, Microchip trained Carlos Cruz as the Punisher’s replacement.

Castle escaped (thanks to teen female hackers Mouse and Ponygirl) and tracked down his former partner. Holding a gun to Micro’s head, Castle debated killing him, but Micro apparently sacrificed his life to shield Castle from a rocket launched by Stone Cold.

During a subsequent confrontation with Stone Cold, Shotgun’s timely arrival on the scene saved Castle from death, and an exhausted Punisher willingly submitted to imprisonment by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Psychiatrist Doc Samson attempted to use psychoactive drugs and regression therapy to cure Castle of his obsessive hatred for criminals. However, Samson’s efforts were sabotaged by a corrupt government agent known as the Spook, causing Castle to mistakenly believe that Nick Fury had been the one to kill his family.

After escaping, Castle went after Fury and killed him. The shock of Fury’s death was enough to restore Castle’s sanity, although it was later revealed that the dead Fury was actually an artificial replica known as a Life Model Decoy.

Castle was sentenced to death for Fury’s murder, but crime lord Don Geraci arranged to have his electric chair rigged to merely stun rather than kill him. Castle briefly allied with the Geraci Family in an effort to battle criminals from within their own ranks, but eventually abandoned the family.

At this point he battled the bogus Mutant Liberation Front, actually a front for the anti-mutant group Humanity’s Last Stand, and was briefly rendered amnesiac.

This could be Heaven

Some time after regaining his memory, Castle fell into a deep depression, Castle contemplated suicide. He put a gun to his head and, according to the angel Gadriel, killed himself. However, Castle was resurrected by Heaven’s angels to serve as their agent on Earth.

He assisted Gadriel (and the demonic Hellstorm) against Olivier, a demon who claimed to have arranged the original deaths of the Castle family. Castle quickly tired of this role as a heavenly enforcer and told the angels to find another pawn for their war.

The angelic hosts allowed Castle a teasing glimpse of Heaven, thinking his banishment back to Earth would be a hellish punishment. Unknown to them, a return to punishing the psychos, perverts and killers on Earth was a far better reward for Frank Castle than any post-death realm could offer !

With his mind once more focused and his goals again clear, the Punisher went back to basics, returning to what he does best : killing criminals. No more high-tech weaponry, tricked-out Battle Vans, assistants or partners. Just the Punisher and his guns against the criminal scum plaguing his city’s streets.

Back to the basics

In an effort to let New York City know he was back with a vengeance, the Punisher wasted no time taking down Ma Gnucci’s entire crime family with maximum bloodshed. He later forged a loose alliance with NYPD Detective Martin Soap and waged war on crime whenever necessary, wherever necessary.

The back-to-the-basics Punisher ended the bizarre and grandiose “Taxi War”. He then went to Columbia to rescue Don Thomas Casino. Although he explained he saved Casino to prevent a bloody gang war from being waged for the Don’s succession, his actual plan was just to assemble as many mobsters in one place to take them out.

Casino’s brother Tony led the Little People to fill the void left, but the Punisher wiped them out. He then coerced semi-corrupt NYPD officers Mike Pearse and Andy Seifert into sacrificing their lives to atone. He also slew the sewer-dwelling cannibal Man Down Below, and slaughtered a large number of mobsters at the funeral of the elderly Don Cesare.

Microchip turned up alive. He kidnapped the Punisher and tried to convince him to work with the renegade CIA agent Robert Bethel as a covert agent against America’s enemies and local criminals. However, Castle refused to accept anything resembling compromise or subordination.

Bethel’s team ran into further and extremely deadly problems when 3 incredibly dangerous criminals called Nicky Cavella, Pittsy and Ink were hired to take out the CIA renegades. Most of Bethel’s operatives and the 3 tough-as-nails gangsters ended up dead, and the Punisher killed Microchip in cold blood.

Description

Frank has a strange, haunted look in his eyes.

Personality

Not quite. Frank is in a state of open war with crime, and every single second of his so-called life is just a continuation of war, with no quarters given.

He alternates between intelligence gathering and analysis, assaults, training, weapons maintenance, sanctioning, undercover work, and so on. He’s not a madman, and is extremely rational and coherent, and quite intelligent. Simply, he’s been demolished inside, and is now a fanatic.

He has however, been known to be a borderline lunatic at some points of his career (such as some of Daredevil appearances during Frank Miller’s tenure).

His philosophy has been summed up by Castle himself. He has not dedicated his life to a war on crime to protect the innocent, but because he hates criminals and wants them dead. Every single last one of them.

It has been suggested that on some level Frank Castle revels in the violence he commits. From this perspective, the death of his family is not only a motivation for his war against criminals but also an excuse to fight the never-ending war he dreamed of fighting while in Việt Nam.

In these depictions, Castle even has thoughts of nostalgia under circumstances reminiscent of that conflict, such as firing an M-60 or shooting people from inside a Huey helicopter.

One story even hinted that Castle subconsciously sacrificed his family to allow him to become the Punisher. The voice in his head that offered this Faustian bargain  may well have been a manifestation of Castle’s thirst for combat.

Even when assuming that above is true, Castle is still shown to care greatly for his family. The subject of his dead wife and children is one of the few things that can provoke him to responses that are excessive even by Castle’s usual standards.

The Punisher is often incensed by other vigilantes, and has sometimes even hunted them down. Castle has on at least one occasion asserted that the last thing the city needs is a psychotic vigilante roaming the streets, completely oblivious to the contradiction between such statements and his own actions.

Though he is ruthless and relentless in his pursuit of criminals, the Punisher takes great care not to harm innocent bystanders. He is especially protective of children and when they are involved in one of his missions, he will go to great lengths to protect them not only from being hurt but also from witnessing anything upsetting, if he can do so.

Quotes

“They laugh at the law. But they don’t laugh at me.”

“I had a .45, he had a submachine gun. My night went downhill from there.”

“I don’t smile. Ever. But if I did this would be one.”

“He dodged a bullet. But not 30.”

“You’ve been shot in the femoral artery. Been bleeding out for the past 45 minutes. Save me a bullet. Walk towards the light.”

“Castle is dead. I am the Punisher.”

“Point one. Frank Castle is dead. However, that message hasn’t yet reached his body and who knows what it will do before it stops.”

DC Universe History

The Punisher and the DCU’s Vigilante are quite close – the Punisher being more fanatical, but having none of the paranormal meditation skills. Since many people have taken the Vigilante suit since Adrian tried to put it away, one more person rising up to take the Vigilante’s mantle would not be unlikely.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Punisher comics (Marvel Universe).

Helper(s): Roy Cowan, Philip John Mason, Angel, Hart, Chris Cottingham. The history in v1.4 is based on Marvel Encyclopedia : Marvel Knights . DCA stats by Pawsplay.