Who is the Punisher? A war veteran, Frank Castle became a Vigilante after seeing his wife and children gunned down for accidentally observing a Mafia "hit". Since then he has devoted his life to the task of destroying organized crime wherever he finds it.
He is a fictional anti-hero character of the Marvel Comics Universe. Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita, Sr. and Ross Andru, the character made its first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974).
What are his abilities? sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_versions_of_the_Punisher : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098141/ : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330793/ Master Martial Artist: Castle is a seasoned combat veteran of exceptional skills. He is well-versed in the arts of warfare and hand-to-hand combat. His styles of choice being Nash Ryu Ju Jitsu, Ninjitsu, Shorin-Ryu, Hwarangdo, and Chin Na. He is an exceptional knife fighter who carries up to 3 or 4 different types of edged weapons, preferring the knife: the Ka-bar.
Expert Marksman: He is an exceptional marksman who is sometimes depicted as being ambidextrous in this respect. He is skilled in sharpshooting and knife throwing.
Expert Pilot: Castle received airborne training with the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy Special Forces.
Interrogation Expert
Demolitions Expert: He also received a U.S. Navy SEAL, UDT (Underwater Demolition Team), LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol) training.
Expert Tactician: Armed solely with conventional weapons and motivated by a fanatical hatred for criminals like those who murdered his family, the Punisher has single-handedly incapacitated up to a dozen well-armed and experienced opponents in a single encounter and escaped uninjured. It is his military training and his attention to detail that allows him to achieve this.
Strength levelThe Punisher possesses the normal human strength of a 6'1" 200-pound man, who engages in intensive and extensive physical exercise. Frank is capable of press lifting up to twice his bodyweight and can press lift 400 lbs. Frank engages in a brutal regimen of calisthenics, katas and firing range practice daily, maintaining his combat skills and he does not drink alcohol or do drugs.
While he was Franken-Castle, Castle had superhuman strength to an unknown degree.
Castle once had a bloodstone fragment which had enhanced him in currently unknown ways, it had also given him some degree of a healing factor which has allowed him to recover from serious injuries including restoring him to his old self.
What are the changes he underwent? 1. 1st appearance Writer Gerry Conway had drawn a character with a small death's head skull on one breast. Marvel art director John Romita, Sr. took the basic design, blew the skull up to huge size, taking up most of the character's chest, and added a cartridge bandolier that formed the skull's teeth. Amazing Spider-Man penciller Ross Andru was the first artist to draw the character for publication.
In his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), the Punisher was initially an antagonist of Spider-man. During that time he was a bloodthirsty vigilante who had no qualms about killing gangsters, something that most superheroes of the time refrained from doing. This version of the Punisher was shown as an athletic fighter, a master marksman and an able strategist. All he would reveal about himself was that he was a former U.S. Marine. He had a fierce temper but also showed signs of considerable frustration over his self-appointed role of killer vigilante. In particular, he was engaged in extensive soul-searching as to what was the right thing to do.
2. His own series In the 1980s Punisher got his own series. An important element introduced in these stories was a retcon that explains that many of the Punisher's more extreme actions to this point were the result of being poisoned with mind-altering drugs.
During this era, the Punisher was assisted by his then-partner, Microchip. Serving as a Q type figure, he would supply the Punisher with high-tech vehicles and equipment such as armored combat "battle vans" specially built and customized.
3. Marvel Edge In mid 90s, the Punisher series where doing poor sales and they need to be cancelled. But a Punisher series was re-launched almost immediately under the new Marvel Edge imprint, in this new series the Punisher willingly joined and became the boss of an organized crime family, and later confronted the X-Men and Nick Fury. The series ran for 18 issues, from November 1995 to April 1997.
4. Punisher Purgatory In a four-issue Marvel Knights miniseries The Punisher: Purgatory (November 1998 - February 1999) a deceased Punisher was resurrected and became a supernatural agent of various angels and demons.
5. Punisher Marvel Knight A 12-issue miniseries titled The Punisher (April 2000 - March 2001), under the Marvel Knights imprint, revived the character's popularity. Then an ongoing series (37 issues, August 2001 - February 2004), followed, succeeded in 2004 by an ongoing Ennis series under Marvel's mature-readers imprint, MAX. These series returned the character to his lone vigilante roots, they combined crime focused stories with black humor. The look of the Punisher was modified further removing the white gloves and pairing his traditional skull imprinted shirt (with changes on the skull design) with combat trousers, black combat boots and a black trench coat.
6. Punisher MAX Pretty much a continuation on the Marvel Knights run on the character, The MAX imprint just allows more realistic and hard-edged stories. This series would see less superheroes but more gritty and realistic tones on the Punisher. The Punisher also went back on wearing a more traditional looking skull design on his shirt.
7. Punisher America In 2006, Volume 2 of The Punisher War Journal series was released. The first issues of the book are set during the Marvel Civil War event. The series integrated Punisher back on the main Marvel universe, by having Frank Castle take on supervillains rather than his traditional non-super-powered criminal antagonists. Wearing both his traditional costume and his Marvel Knights/MAX attire, and a new costume designed to look like his costume and Captain America's combined, the series pitted the character against a series of super-powered foes while also being involved in crossover events such as World War Hulk and Secret Invasion.
8. Franken Castle Another Punisher War Journal was relaunced in 2009 now simply known as Punisher. In one of the storylines sees Punisher dismembered and decapitated by Daken (Wolverine's son). Following this, the main Punisher series was renamed FrankenCastle and featured a Castle who is resurrected by Morbius and the Legion of Monsters as a patchwork Frankenstein's Monster-like creature. He joins up with the Legion of Monsters to help protect the monsters of Monster Metropolis from the Hunter of Monster Special Force. At the conclusion of the series, the character was transformed back into a normal human through use of the namesake of Ulysses Bloodstone.
Who has portrayed the Punisher in Comic Book Movies? 1. Dolph Lundgren 1989 seen in: 1989 Punisher film adaptation. The film's most recognizable deviation from the comic books is the lack of the character's signature skull logo. In this version Frank Castle is an ex-cop who lives in the sewers and acts as judge, jury, and executioner to the city's criminals in retaliation for the unpunished murders of his wife and kids.
2. Thomas Jane (2004) seen in: 2004 The Punisher adaptation. Special agent Frank Castle had it all: A loving family, a great life, and an adventurous job. But when his life is taken away from him by a ruthless criminal and his associates, Frank has become reborn. Now serving as judge, jury, and executioner, he's a new kind of vigilante out to wage a one man war against those who have done him wrong.
3. Ray Stevenson (2008) seen in: Punisher: War Zone (2008). Frank Castle, the ex-military man whose family was killed by criminals, who became a vigilante known as the Punisher, goes after a whole mob family and gets everyone except enforcer Billy Russoti. He tracks Russoti down and chases him into a vat that is used for crushing bottles. Frank turns on the crusher hoping it would take care of him but it doesn't. He survives but sustains very severe injuries that even with plastic surgery his face looks like a jigsaw puzzle. So he decides to adopt the name Jigsaw. Frank who killed one of Russoti's people who unknown to him is an undercover Fed, decides to pack it in. But when he learns Russoti didn't die and is looking for the money he entrusted to the Fed and will go looking for it at his home which means his family is in danger. So Frank tries to save them. But Russoti wants revenge on Frank so he breaks out his brother who is so crazed that he is committed to an asylum, to deal with him. And also another Fed who's a friend of the man Frank killed wants him too.
sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_versions_of_the_Punisher : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098141/ : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330793/
"This is not revenge this is punishment."
This is the 3rd article in my Know Your CBM Character series. Any requests and suggestions for an article for this series write it down in the comment section BELOW.
Note: Any error in the article above, if any, just blame it on my age, humanity and ignorance. Just be sure to check the comment section for the corrections, any error I made will surely be pointed out and corrected by much bigger geeks (because there will always be a bigger geek out there). -This has been PollMaster inviting you to the geekside.