Earlier this month, Marvel and Netflix tipped their plans for Daredevil Season 2 by announcing that Jon Bernthal has joined the cast as Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher!
The Punisher is a rare example of a Marvel character transforming from a supporting player into a headliner who could carry his own story. In 1974, Frank Castle was created by Gerry Conway and artists John Romita, Sr., and Ross Andru as an adversary for Spider-Man. Marvel Publisher Stan Lee is credited for coming up with the Punisher name, even though Lee had previously used the same name for a robot that belonged to Galactus.
After appearing as a comic book guest star for over a decade, the Punisher gradually received a higher profile and he was even the star of three simultaneous ongoing comic book series during the ‘90s. The Punisher was also one of the first Marvel creations to get a feature film adaptation. In fact, the Punisher has had three movies, but none of them were box office hits.
Putting the Punisher on the Daredevil series represents a chance to finally get the character right while inserting him within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Former Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight was extremely vocal about his belief that an R-rated Punisher series could be done on Netflix. And it appears that Marvel and Netflix may be going in that direction.
Before the Punisher returns to live action next year, ComingSoon.net has put together a comprehensive look back at the Punisher’s history in comics, film, and television. This is The Punisher: Origins and Evolutions.
The Punisher: Origins and Evolutions
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One Day In Central Park
The Punisher’s origin was first revealed in 1975 during a story in the magazine Marvel Preview # 2. Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway laid out the core backstory for Francis Castiglion, a U.S. Marine who legally changed his name to Frank Castle so that he could illegally return to the Vietnam War for a third tour of duty.
Castle was eventually reunited with his wife, Maria, and their children, Lisa and Frank Junior. During a family outing to Central Park, the Castles accidentally witnessed a mob killing. The maffia then turned their guns on Castle’s family in order to silence them forever. Only Castle survived.
Initially, Castle was going to testify against the men who murdered his family. But when it became clear that corrupt cops would protect his family’s killers, Castle took the law into his own hands and he began his bloody career as the Punisher.
Rather than simply avenging his family, the Punisher decided to wage a one man war on crime by using his military training and state of the art weapons.
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Target: Spider-Man!
The Punisher officially made his debut in 1974, within the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #129. At the time, Spider-Man was wanted for the murder of Norman Osborn and the Punisher vowed to take Spidey down.
From the very beginning, the Punisher was known for killing high-profile criminals. But he was briefly duped by the supervillain known as the Jackal that Spider-Man belonged at the top of his hitlist.
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Enter The Man Without Fear
It’s fitting that The Punisher is making his Marvel Cinematic Universe in Daredevil Season 2. The Punisher and Daredevil have a long history of going head-to-head, dating back to Frank Miller’s iconic run on the Man Without Fear. The biggest conflict between them is that Punisher kills criminals and Daredevil refuses to cross that line. Daredevil has even gone out of his way to save criminals who have been targeted by the Punisher. There’s rarely a definitive winner in their battles, and it usually depends which character is appearing in the other’s book.
But in the early days, Daredevil tended to come out on top, despite the image on this cover.
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'Littering is a Crime against Society'
That is actually a really funny sequence that illustrates just how poorly the Punisher was used during his earliest years at Marvel.
Writer Bill Mantlo had the Punisher completely flip out during a three part storyline that began in Spectacular Spider-Man #81. Castle’s grasp on sanity slipped away and he viewed even minor infractions of the law as killable offenses. Hence the panels above in which he nearly kills a man and his girlfriend for failing to throw away their newspaper properly.
Spider-Man eventually took the Punisher down once again, and Castle was declared insane before he was written out of the title.
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The Punisher Goes Solo
For years, writer Steven Grant pushed for a Punisher miniseries at Marvel. In 1985, the project was finally given the greenlight by Marvel, with Mike Zeck as the artist.
At the time, Marvel viewed the Punisher’s initial five-issue miniseries as a risk. Instead, it turned out to be a hit that transformed the Punisher into a leading character who could carry his own comic book.
Grant also retconned the Punisher’s descent into crazy town as the product of mind-altering drugs that had been given to him by his new nemesis, Jigsaw.
The Punisher has had very few enemies who survived to go up against him again and again. Jigsaw filled that void and has personal vendetta against Castle for hideously scarring his face during their initial encounter.
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The Punisher Gets an Ongoing Series
The success of the Punisher miniseries immediately led to the very first ongoing series for the Punisher in 1987. Writer Mike Baron and artist Klaus Janson were the initial creative team on this Punisher title, which ran for 104 issues and firmly established the Punisher as Marvel’s newest breakout character.
That success eventually led to the Punisher’s downfall when Marvel didn’t know when to stop exploiting a popular character.
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Microchip
Since the Punisher was now a leading character, he needed a supporting character. Enter David Linus "Microchip" Lieberman, a legendary hacker who was also sometimes known as “Micro.” Mike Baron and Klaus Janson created Microchip in The Punisher #4, and he served as Castle’s weapons and technology expert. Microchip was also the closest thing that Castle had to a friend and a conscience.
Microchip originally met Castle while investigating the death of his nephew, who had hacked into the computers of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime. From there, Castle and Microchip had a long partnership that eventually ended badly.
But we’ll get to that soon enough.
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The Punisher War Journal
Only a year after The Punisher launched as an ongoing series, Marvel added a second Punisher ongoing series in 1988. The Punisher War Journal featured writer and artist Carl Potts teaming up with future comic book superstar, Jim Lee as his inker.
However, Lee eventually took over as the penciler, including a memorable meeting between the Punisher and Wolverine of the X-Men.
The Punisher: War Journal was another success for Marvel and it ran for 80 issues before coming to an end in 1995.
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The Punisher (1989)
The thing you need to remember about 1989 is that comic book movies were not that common before Tim Burton’s Batman became a smash hit in the summer of that year. While the Batman movie led to a few additional comic book movies, director Mark Goldblatt’s Punisher was in production before Batman was released…and The Punisher didn’t even get a U.S. release until 1991!
Dolph Lundgren had the honor of being the first person to play the Punisher in live action. But he wasn’t allowed to wear Frank Castle’s signature “skull” insignia on his chest, supposedly because it was too “comic booky.”
New World Pictures and Artisan Entertainment were responsible for this film, which kept most of Frank Castle’s origin story before teaming him up with the mobster who killed his family to take on the Yakuza. Perhaps that twist could have worked with a better script or a better cast than The Punisher actually had. But it is what it is.
Yes, The Punisher was not a good movie. But somehow, Frank Castle made it to the silver screen before Spider-Man did.
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Once You Go Black, You Can Apparently Go Back
If you’re a long time Superman fan, you may remember the ridiculous story in which Lois Lane temporarily became black to better understand the African-American experience.
The Punisher beat that story with an even more outlandish tale in 1992. For Mike Baron’s final Punisher story in 1992, Jigsaw finally got his revenge and viciously scarred Castle’s face.
Castle forcibly recruited Melinda Brewer, a plastic surgeon turned heroin addict/prostitute to fix his face and ensure that he wouldn’t be recognized.
Brewer took that a bit further than Castle intended when she basically turned him into a black man. In short order, the Punisher was pulled over and beaten by cops for driving while black before going on a short team-up with Luke Cage.
Marvel quickly abandoned this change by having the Punisher’s skin tone revert to his former shade of white, but this is one of the all-time examples of comic book logic at its worst.
Thanks to the internet, the Punisher will never be able to fully live down this absurd chapter in his life.
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The Punisher Arcade Game (1993)
The first Punisher video game came out of the NES back in 1990. But The Punisher arcade game by Capcom is more fondly remembered than that one because it was actually really fun to play.
Essentially, Capcom put the Punisher in a Final Fight style side-scrolling action game, and it also added Nick Fury into the mix so that more than one person could play at once.
The game also allowed players to use baseball bats, swords, knives, lead pipes, and other improvised weapons against a seemingly endless army of criminals.
Microchip even made it into the game, most notably in the “continue” screen in which he frantically tried to revive Castle while the player presumably put another quarter into the machine. Over 20 years later, this still one of the best Punisher games ever made.
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Batman and The Punisher (1994)
Because the Punisher was one of Marvel’s flagship characters in the early ‘90s, he was given the honor of teaming up with Batman for the first Marvel and DC crossover in over a decade.
The first meeting between the two characters didn’t include Bruce Wayne’s Batman, since he had been crippled by Bane during the previous year.
Instead, the replacement Batman, Jean-Paul Valley teamed up with the Punisher as they took on the Joker and Jigsaw. Longtime Batman writer and editor Denny O’Neil, provided the script for this adventure, with Barry Kitson as the artist.
Later in 1994, Marvel released a follow-up crossover between Punisher and Batman with Bruce Wayne back in his signature role. And unlike Valley, Wayne had no tolerance for Castle’s casual slaughter of criminals. This time, Marvel’s Tom DeFalco and John Romita, Jr. were the creative team.
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Archie Meets The Punisher (1994)
One of the most bizarre crossovers of all-time is also one of the best comic crossovers ever done.
Archie Meets The Punisher (also known as The Punisher Meets Archie) was written by Batton Lash, and it offers an incredibly odd mix of the Punisher’s signature action and the teen comedy embodied by the Archie characters.
Legendary Marvel artist, John Buscema drew the Punisher and all of his associated characters, while iconic Archie artist Stan Goldberg drew all of the residents of Riverdale, Archie’s hometown.
The story finds the Punisher searching for a deadly drug dealer named “Red,” who looks almost exactly like Archie Andrews. Hijinks ensue, and the one-shot is legitimately funny and enjoyable. The book even ends on a hilarious premise that never materialized: a crossover between Wolverine and Jughead.
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Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1995)
During the second season of Fox’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the Punisher made his Saturday morning debut as voiced by John Beck.
But this was a heavily sanitized Punisher, who only used non-lethal weaponry at the behest of Microchip. Instead of bullets, the Punisher used energy weapons, electrified net launchers, and other gimmick-based weapons.
The death of Castle’s family was also alluded to, but not shown onscreen... because this was a kid’s program! It’s amazing that even this version of the Punisher made it to television.
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Punisher Overload
The continuing popularity of The Punisher and The Punisher: War Journal titles led to a third spinoff, The Punisher War Zone in 1992. This was in addition to a black-and-white Punisher magazine, The Punisher Armory one-shots and a seemingly endless parade of crossover and guest appearances.
Marvel kept milking the Punisher until the fans stopped buying the comics. In 1995, all three Punisher titles were steadily dropping in sales when Marvel tried a last ditch effort to revive interest in the character.
Microchip and Castle had a final falling out, which led Microchip to groom former Navy Seal Carlos Cruz as the “new” Punisher at a time when several Punisher imitators were running around.
Microchip was killed when his battle with Castle was crashed by rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Derek "Stone Cold" Smalls, Stone Cold also killed Cruz before he was dispatched by Castle, leaving the original Punisher as the last man standing. At the conclusion of this storyline, all three Punisher titles were canceled.
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The Punisher: Crime Lord?!
Marvel didn’t waste any time lining the Punisher up for a relaunch. Except this time, writer John Ostrander made Frank Castle the head of the Geraci crime family!
This volume of The Punisher began with Don Geraci getting Castle out of a death sentence before setting him up to be his successor. And amazingly, Castle goes along with it! This is a bizarre, and largely forgotten chapter in the Punisher’s history, largely because it makes absolutely no sense for Castle to side with the mob for any reason. Not to mention that the mob would have to be crazy to accept the Punisher as one of their own!
This Punisher series came to an end after only 18 issues in 1997, and it was revealed in the first issue of the next Punisher miniseries that Castle committed suicide shortly after the events of this series.
But this is a comic book, and nobody stays dead in comics!
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The Punisher: Purgatory
The Marvel Knights experiment was widely credited with revitalizing Daredevil and putting artist/writer Joe Quesada on the path to becoming Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief.
In 1998, Quesada and his creative partner, Jimmy Palmiotti were given nearly carte blanche to revive Marvel characters and boost their sales.
The Punisher: Purgatory was a big creative misfire for Marvel Knights, if not the biggest mistake ever made in the line. Writers Tom Sniegoski and Christopher Golden re-envisioned the Punisher as a resurrected supernatural agent who did Heaven’s bidding in their war against evil. The Punisher even had magical weapons to aid him in this new fight!
This is widely regarded as the most misguided Punisher story ever, even more so than the time that the Punisher turned black! Fans largely rejected this take on the character and it only lasted for one additional miniseries (that teamed up Angel Punisher with Wolverine) before the character went back to basics.
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Welcome Back, Frank
The Punisher: Purgatory nearly ruined the character, but "Welcome Back, Frank" quickly undid the damage in one of the best Punisher stories ever.
In 2000, the creative team of DC Comics/Vertigo’s Preacher, writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon collaborated on a 12-issue Punisher miniseries that deftly undid the Angel Punisher status quo in just a few lines. As Castle executes a criminal in the first issue, he recalls defying the angels. To punish him, they brought Castle to Heaven and showed him his wife and children one last time before casting him back down to Earth. But that only strengthened Castle’s resolve to resume his war on crime.
Ennis and Dillon introduced a new supporting cast for the Punisher, including his neighbors, Joan, Mr. Bumpo, and Spacker Dave, as well as the assassin known as The Russian. The miniseries mixed dark comedy into the Punisher’s war against Ma Gnucci and the rest of the Gnucci crime family before Castle confronted three imitators who didn’t share his worldview or his sense of purpose.
15 years later, "Welcome Back, Frank" is still one of the most influential Punisher stories. It clearly inspired both the 2004 Punisher movie, and the 2005 Punisher video game.
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The Ennis Era
Ennis and Dillon launched a new Punisher ongoing series in 2001 that kept the same tone as "Welcome Back, Frank;" while giving Detective Martin Soap (the hapless detective assigned to the NYPD’s Punisher task force in the previous story) a larger role as Castle’s reluctant source inside the police.
This Punisher series ran for three years and 37 issues before Ennis moved on to his next Punisher project. Before the end of this series, Ennis brought back Joan and Spacker Dave one last time... although Spacker Dave’s fate seems to imply that Ennis has a great deal of contempt for hero worshipers.
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The Punisher MAX
Marvel rewarded Ennis with a chance to completely cut loose on a Punisher title for mature readers. Ennis wrote The Punisher MAX (also known as The Punisher: Frank Castle) for 75 issues, but this series was much bleaker and less funny than Ennis’ previous Punisher run.
The Punisher MAX also holds the distinction of being one of the most violent comics that Marvel has ever published. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, and it existed outside of Marvel’s main continuity. When Ennis left the title for good, it was relaunched as PunisherMAX with writer Jason Aaron teaming with artist Steve Dillon.
Eventually, the Punisher of this universe met his end, but he changed the world in a way that the Marvel Universe’s Frank Castle could never hope to achieve.
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Born
During his run on The Punisher MAX, Garth Ennis was given the chance to revisit the Punisher’s origin in a miniseries called Born, with artist Darick Robertson, But rather than revisit the massacre of Castle’s family, Ennis traced Castle’s transformation into the Punisher back to his third tour in Vietnam.
Alone and facing impossible odds, Castle either has a psychological break or an encounter with a supernatural voice in his head that offered him the choice of dying in battle or accepting the strength to singlehandedly kill the combined forces of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
Upon returning home, the voice in Castle’s head told him that the price of his choice meant that he will fight an unending battle...and it will cost him his family.
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Punisher (2004)
By 2004, it was time to make another Punisher movie, this time with Thomas Jane in the title role. Artisan retained the cinematic rights to the Punisher even after the disastrous release of the first movie. This time, Lionsgate handled distribution and The Punisher actually got a wide release.
To put this in context, the success of Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man allowed this take on the Punisher to be a closer adaptation and gave Frank Castle a variation of his signature costume. But screenwriter and director Jonathan Hensleigh still made significant changes like giving Frank a new archenemy, Howard Saint (John Travolta), and by making Frank a retired FBI agent.
Hensleigh’s film is all over the place, tonally. The script attempts to mix aspects of "Welcome Back, Frank" and a more serious Punisher backstory, which just didn’t work. And the director favored excess. For this story, Frank is the only survivor of his family reunion! It wasn’t enough to kill Frank’s wife and kids? Even his father and distant relatives had to die?!
The reception to this Punisher movie was lukewarm at best. It made only a little $54 million worldwide.
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The Punisher Video Game (2005)
The Punisher movie and the "Welcome Back, Frank" storyline were used as the basis of The Punisher video game that was developed for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2005. Garth Ennis wrote the game’s story, which also had Thomas Jane reprise his role as the title character.
This was the first time that a video game really captured the essence of the Punisher’s character, which included some of the shockingly brutal ways that Castle could interrogate and dispose of his enemies.
Iron Man, Nick Fury, Black Widow, and even Daredevil’s alter-ego, Matt Murdock guest star in the game, but it’s ultimately Frank Castle’s story. And it was an amazing game for its time.
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The Punisher War Journal Vol. 2
In 2006, writer Matt Fraction and artist Ariel Olivetti reestablished Frank Castle’s role in the main Marvel Universe in The Punisher War Journal Volume 2. This series also tied into the Civil War crossover story that featured a conflict between Captain America and Iron Man over the Superhuman Registration Act, and whether S.H.I.E.L.D. should be allowed to control the superheroes of the Marvel Universe.
The Punisher sided with Captain America, but he was rejected by his idol after thoughtlessly murdering supervillains who also wanted to join Cap’s war against Iron Man.
In the aftermath of Civil War, Castle adopted a new costume that resembled a mix of Captain America’s uniform and his Punisher outfit while taking on supervillains instead of the human criminals that he normally targeted.
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Punisher: War Zone (2008)
Isn’t it sad that the best Punisher movie was also a box office bomb? By 2008, Thomas Jane and Jonathan Hensleigh had moved on, but Lionsgate had purchased Artisan…which included the rights to make another Punisher movie.
Ray Stevenson became the third man to portray Frank Castle in live action, while Lexi Alexander took over as the director. Microchip made it in this movie with Wayne Knight perfectly cast in the role, while Dominic West portrayed Jigsaw as Punisher’s personal nemesis.
Punisher: War Zone was a particularly violent film, which seemed to turn off the critics. That wouldn’t have mattered if audiences had turned out for it, but War Zone pulled in only $10 million off of a $35 million budget.
That box office failure led the live-action rights to revert to Marvel. As for Stevenson, he eventually joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he played Volstagg in the two Thor movies.
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Eminem/The Punisher
I believe that comedian Paul Jay had the best description of Eminem/The Punisher : “there’s never been a comic more obviously written by a dude’s entourage.”
The last time I checked, writer Fred Van Lente wasn’t part of anyone’s entourage, but someone must pay for this crime against comics! Artist Salvador Larroca was along for the ride as Eminem is presented as an equal to both the Punisher, and his adversary, Barracuda.
As for the story, it revolves around Barracuda getting hired by the Parents Music Counsel to assassinate Eminem, but Barracuda also uses it as a chance to take out the Punisher too. Eminem actually gets to engage in some gunplay and he also gets the drop on the Punisher as if Marshall Mathers was a big-time action star.
Every copy of this comic should be burned.
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Dark Reign
In 2009, Marvel relaunched The Punisher War Journal as The Punisher, and placed writer Rick Remender on the book as it picked up after the events of Secret Invasion.
Do you remember when I mentioned that Spider-Man was accused of murdering Norman Osborn earlier on this list? Well it turns out that Osborn was never actually dead!
During Secret Invasion, Osborn was given undue credit for turning back the Skrull invasion and he used that to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D. and form H.A.M.M.E.R. to replace it. Meanwhile, Castle found a new ally in Henry Russo, who acted as replacement Microchip in Castle’s crusade against Osborn.
However, the original Microchip was resurrected by the mystically empowered villain known as the Hood as way to strike at Castle. Microchip even actively tried to entice Castle to accept a bargain with the Hood in exchange for the resurrection of Castle’s wife and kids. Castle responded by burning the bodies of his family before they could come back to life.
Eventually, Osborn’s Dark Avengers caught up to Castle and brutally murdered him.
The End?!
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FrankenCastle
Of course it wasn’t the end! Nobody dies in comics!
Former Spider-Man villain and living vampire, Michael Morbius and his Legion of Monsters recovered Castle’s body and resurrected him as a patchwork Frankenstein's Monster-like creature.
The name of the comic was even changed to FrankenCastle, as the title character was unwillingly drawn into a battle to protect the monsters against a force that sought to destroy them.
This was not a popular storyline among Punisher fans, but it appears to have been designed as only a temporary status quo. At the end of the series, FrankenCastle was once again a relatively normal human being.
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Rachel Cole-Alves
Near the end of the Punisher’s original series in the ‘90s, a woman named Lynn Michaels was the first female Punisher when a number of individuals attempted to take on the Punisher’s name for themselves.
However, the 2011 Punisher series by writer Greg Rucka seemed to set up Rachel Cole-Alves as both the Punisher’s partner and his successor. Like Castle, Rachel was a former Marine who narrowly survived the crossfire of a gang war that killed 30 at her wedding reception, including her husband, Daniel.
Castle accepts Rachel’s help in his crusade, but she was more reckless than he was and she ended up killing a cop by mistake.
When Rachel attempted to commit suicide by cop, she realized that Castle had sabotaged her weapons to ensure that she would be captured alive,
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The Punisher vs. The Avengers!
Greg Rucka wrapped up his run on The Punisher with a miniseries that pit Frank Castle against the Avengers. Realizing that his capture was inevitable, Castle arranged for Rachel to escape from prison before the Avengers finally subdued him and placed him in a seemingly inescapable prison.
At the end of the story, Rachel reappeared in Hollywood in the Punisher’s signature skull outfit before she murdered a mugger.
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Thunderbolts
The Punisher’s next appearance came in the pages of Thunderbolts, the superhero team that is usually made up of former supervillains.
For this incarnation, the Red Hulk gathered Deadpool, Elektra, Agent Venom, Punisher, and Red Leader for off-the-books missions.
The Punisher disliked Red Hulk’s methods of recruiting former villains for his team, and Castle was tricked into believing that Red Hulk had attempted to kill him. This led the Punisher to declare war on his former teammates.
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Iron Man: Rise of Technovore (2013)
Did you know that Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) has portrayed the Punisher?
Reedus provided Frank Castle’s voice in the Anime movie, Iron Man: Rise of Technovore; which featured a team-up between the Punisher and Iron Man (Matthew Mercer) against Ezekiel Stane (Eric Bauza).
This animated film also featured Hawkeye (Troy Baker), Black Widow (Clare Grant), and Nick Fury (John Eric Bentley) in supporting roles.
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All-New Marvel Now
In 2014, writer Nathan Edmondson and artist Mitch Gerads launched a new Punisher ongoing series that brought Frank Castle to Los Angeles as a military hit squad was attempting to take him out.
During the same time period, Castle was also tasked with solving the murder of the Watcher in the Original Sin storyline. This led to the very unlikely pairing of the Punisher and Doctor Strange as they investigated the cosmic crime together.
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Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher (2014)
Last year, the Punisher headlined another Marvel Anime film alongside the Black Widow. This time, the Punisher was voiced by Brian Bloom, while Black Widow was portrayed by former Dexter actress, Jennifer Carpenter.
Comic writer and novelist, Marjorie Liu came up with the story for Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher; which finds Castle on a mission with Black Widow on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. after he was offered his release from their custody.
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Daredevil Season 2 (2016)
Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead) will be the fourth actor to portray the Punisher in live action during the second season of Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix.
This will also be the first time that the Punisher has interacted with another Marvel hero in live action. Daredevil and the Punisher’s previous conflicts in the Marvel Universe should give the creative team of this series plenty to work with.
Earlier this year, there were rumors that Marvel and Netflix were considering a Punisher series as part of a Marvel Netflix Phase 2. After the casting of Bernthal, those rumors seem a lot more likely.
But the long term plans for the Punisher in the Marvel Cinematic Universe probably won’t be apparent until after Daredevil Season 2 has been released. If Netflix follows the same pattern that it did with Daredevil Season 1, then the new season should be out in early April 2016.
