Line #12 NightmareFuel/ThePunisher


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_punisher_nightmare_fuel.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:As a punishment, a man was thrown through a window, only to emerge as a monster on the other side.]]
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4	To put it nicely, Frank Castle's world [[{{Understatement}} is not a pleasant one]].
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6	* ''NightmareFuel/ThePunisherMax''
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10	* ''The Punisher'' Vol. 2, #35: After the Punisher destroys his shipment of drugs, the Rev takes his frustrations over this out on a random suburban family, breaking into their home and hacking them to pieces with a knife.
11	-->'''The Rev:''' A series of little deaths, my Lord, to presage the coming cataclysm.\
12	'''Boy:''' M-mom? Dad?\
13	'''The Rev:''' [[MadnessMantra A series of little deaths, my Lord...]]
14	* ''Punisher POV''. Its main villain is a case of BodyHorror thanks to toxic waste, and when he bites a pregnant woman, she gives birth to a mutated baby that slaughters it way out of a hospital and has to be confronted in the sewers below.
15	* Frank Castle's own death during the ''Comicbook/DarkReign'' also counts. There are few sequences in the Marvel universe that so effectively and blatantly present the risks of BullyingTheDragon, as Punisher's stubbornness and arsenal are pitted against the [[HealingFactor regenerating]] Daken, who proves just how useless they are. Daken starts by shooting him and blowing him up with grenades, seemingly just for kicks. Then the mutant closes to hand to hand range, where he pummels Punisher mercilessly, breaks his leg, slices his throat open, hacks off a limb, and, finally bored of it all, cuts him into pieces with the ease of an industrial meat slicer.
16	* The Hood attempts to get the Punisher to leave his organization alone by offering him the single thing he could possibly ever want - the return of his wife and children. Hood brings them back with the same magic he used to temporarily resurrect a group of supervillains (not zombies, their actual living selves), and offers to make the resurrection permanent if Punisher agrees. ''Punisher promptly burns them alive with his flamethrower'' angrily declaring that his family is dead. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Hood is horrified]]. Though mercifully, not only are they not shown on-panel or speaking, a later issue confirms that Frank's family weren't actually brought back anyway - those were fakes.
17	** Frank is understandably plagued with doubt and guilt over his action, uncertain if what he destroyed was really his family or not, and during his time as Franken-Castle, has a nightmare about embracing his burning wife and children, declaring and both they and him "belong dead".
18	* Punisher himself is this in-universe, especially in his early days when superheroes simply did not kill. It just wasn't done. He's especially this to the Maggia and other crime syndicates. While they occasionally run into superheroes (especially Daredevil), they're usually below the concern of the metahuman community who is too busy trying to keep various cosmic threats and mad scientists from destroying the planet. The Punisher on the other hand has made it his life mission to '''annihilate them'''. And unlike their crews of poorly trained greaseballs and thugs, the Punisher is a SOLDIER, an elite fighting machine who is almost impossible to stop.
19	* Frank Castle, despite being a [[SemperFi tough Marine]] and BloodKnight, was still a loving family man until that was all taken away from him. Driven [[DespairEventHorizon over the edge by that loss]], he becomes so committed as The Punisher to a war on criminals and monsters that the abyss has consumed him. Frank is in a dark place now, and he's never coming back...
20	* Pictured above, ArchEnemy Jigsaw, a cruel gangster whose face was disfigured by the Punisher smashing him through a window. He abused his son and helped the Hood beat up Tigra.
21	* Frank decked out in the War Machine armor of the then deceased James Rhodes is this In-Universe to the criminal underworld of the Marvel Universe, turning him into unstoppable KnightTemplar killing machine. The level of carnage Frank wreaks on criminals and anyone else he deems necessary becomes so gratuitous that he officially JumpOffTheSlipperySlope and entire teams of superheroes are forced to come try to stop him with no avail.
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Context NightmareFuel / ThePunisher