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| “ | They hated that old man so much they shot him through my family. The world went crazy on a Summer's day in Central Park, in the time before UZIs and Berettas, before nine millimeter popguns ruled the streets. It was a Thompson, like the ones our fathers carried, and I recognized its rattle even as its big, man-stopping forty-fives punched blood and breath from my lungs. I hit the ground beside my daughter. She'd been gutshot, badly, and when she saw the things that boiled and wriggled from her belly the expression on her face was not a little girl's. My wife bled out later on the operating table, her heart a gaping hole her life drained through. Whenever I get careless, that yearning in her eyes creeps up and brings me to my knees. Right then the old man's soldiers started shooting back. My son dropped wordlessly, without a mark on him. I took a breath that cut like glass, spat blood, rose to my knees, picked up the boy and searched in vain for entry wounds. The bullet had entered through his open mouth. That was our picnic in the park. And now every night I go out and make the world sane. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher, recapping the death of his family. |
Francis "Frank" Castle, best known as the Punisher, is the titular protagonist of The Punisher MAX, written by Garth Ennis. Unlike in Earth-616 where he's a genuine anti-hero, this version of the character is, by his own admission, a glorified serial killer with very few redeeming qualities who mainly kills to satiate his bloodlust rather than to exact justice and rescue their victims (although he is shown to care about that too), and who only manages to be sympathetic by virtue of his enemies and victims being so much worse.
Biography[]
Frank Castle was born in 1947. As a child, he wanted to kill serial rapist Vincent Rosa for indirectly driving his friend Lauren Buvoli to suicide, but Lauren's brother Sal beat Frank to the punch and burned Rosa alive. As an adult, Frank's parents died of natural causes. Soon after marrying his wife Maria, who he met in high school before having a junior son as well as a daughter named Lisa with her, Frank got drafted in the army during the Vietnam War, where he became increasingly consumed with rage and bloodlust, at one point hearing an unknown voice in his head (probably the Grim Reaper or even the Devil himself) saying he'll be able to fight his own war forever but at a personal cost, which Frank agreed to.
Some days later, in 1976, said cost happened to be Frank's own family, as his wife and two children were gunned down before his very eyes in a shootout between rival gangs at Central Park. Following that, Frank waged a one-man war on crime, becoming a vigilante known as the Punisher. At some point in time, David "Micro" Lieberman became Frank's accomplice to avenge the murder of his son, helping him kill over 800 people for a decade before quitting, as he came to realize that vigilantism was self-destructive and did next to nothing to actually rid the world of crime, so he joined the CIA. In 1992, after Nick Fury named the five men responsible for his family's death, Frank turned himself in to the police so he'd be sent to Rikers Island, where he then orchestrates a prison riot that kills inmates and guards alike, using said riot as a distraction so he can take his time avenging his family. He escaped Rikers sometime after.
Aside from killing irredeemable criminals on a daily basis, Frank has saved numerous women and children worldwide from sexual assault, abusive parents, attempted murderers, slavery (including sex slavery), unethical experimentation, and so much more, although he lost public support after sniping a woman jailed for drowning her own three children; not that Frank cared about people's opinions on him. He eventually ended up killing Micro, his former sidekick, for aiding in government-funded heroin smuggling. About a year later, Frank had a second daughter named Sarah with Kathryn O'Brien, the latter of whom died stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan while helping take down General Zakharov along with O'Brien's ex-husband, William Rawlins. When Sarah was kidnapped from a kindergarten by Barracuda, who also killed his friend Yorkie Mitchell, Frank brutally killed him before returning Sarah to her aunt. After 36 years of fighting crime, Frank meets his demise at age 65 after being mortally wounded by the Kingpin, who Frank also killed just before succumbing to his wounds. Before bleeding out on the front lawn of his family home, Frank's last words as he shot Kingpin dead were "your city, my world."
Frank was buried alongside his family, with only Nick Fury speaking at his funeral. After his death, people across New York decided to continue Frank's legacy by dressing up in Punisher-themed attire, exacting vigilante justice on local criminals themselves.
Quotes[]
| “ | Something to think about on your way to Hell. My family are avenged now. I wanted the five of you together so it could be done just right. But the war goes on. It's because of you and Apostolo that it is a war. Men like you, arrogant enough to think the streets are yours. You send your scum out to rob and extort, to fight your battles, to impose your will. You never give a f-ck who might get hurt just for being in the way. Know this: I'm getting out of here. If I can start a riot, I can just as easily escape. And then I'll spend the rest of my life sending more of your people after you, I tell the dead man. Until you and your kind are gone from the world. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher recounting his killing of Francesco Drago. |
| “ | Punisher: Fighting for the people who run the world gets you stabbed in the back. You fight the wars they start and feed. You kill the monsters they create. You die from handling depleted uranium while they get rich on oil. I'm not going back to war so Colt can sell another million M-16s. I had enough of that shit back in Vietnam. Micro: That's not the way it is...! Punisher: There are sixty thousand guys in D.C. who'd say different. Except they can't say anything, because they're nothing but names on a black wall. |
„ |
| ~ The Punisher's reasoning for refusing Micro's offer to join the CIA. |
| “ | When you're on your own -- behind enemy lines -- no artillery, no airstrikes, no hope of an evac -- you don't fight dirty. You do things that make dirty look good. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher's stance on fighting dirty. |
| “ | They like to think they're soldiers, but they're whores. Selling their youth and strength to monsters. Protecting filth, who deal in fear-- in poison-- in the bodies of innocent children. You work for the devil, you better be ready to die for him. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher's stance on henchmen. |
| “ | Later on, she told me the whole story. About the day she left her village. About the old man, about Cristu and Vera. About the thing her father said. About her baby. When she was done, I knew a lot of men would have to die. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher after hearing Viorica's backstory. |
| “ | My name is Frank Castle. They used to call me the Punisher. I had a wife and son and daughter, but they died a long time ago, on a sunny day in Central Park. I blamed evil men for their deaths. I went to war with murderers and thieves, with racketeers and dealers, the parasites who preyed on human weakness. That weakness was a feeding ground that stretched beyond the infinite. The evil that it fed would never end. So I decided: neither would my war. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher, explaining himself in a nutshell. |
| “ | There is no God. There are no souls. All we are is meat and bone. These are certainties I learned long ago. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher's nihilistic viewpoint on the world. |
| “ | The thing that haunts me now isn't the moment they died. The moment my daughter's belly exploded and my son's brains came out the back of his head. No. It's the moment right before that, when I had everything...and I threw it all away. There was a time when I wished I'd died with them that day. But I know the reason I survived. It wasn't so I could seek revenge in their name. So I could wage my little war. It was so I could suffer. Dying beside my family would've been too easy a death for me. What I deserved was pain. Years of it. I deserved to be cast down among the lowest of the low. Surrounded by nothing but horror and death. No rest. No joy. I deserved a lifetime of suffering. A lifetime of punishment. And even now, after so many years, when I dare stop and wonder...has it finally been enough? The answer comes from somewhere deep inside...no. It will never be enough. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher, explaining that he hates himself. |
| “ | Some people would tell you that I'm crazy. They would be wrong. It's not crazy when the state of the world makes you want to kill everyone responsible. It's crazy when it doesn't. | „ |
| ~ The Punisher, admitting that he's addicting to killing scumbags. |
Gallery[]
In general[]
Killed victims[]
External Links[]
- The Punisher on the Marvel Wiki
- The Punisher on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
[]
 Villains
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