The story concerns Michael Goodwin (younger brother of Steve Goodwin from The Punisher: Born) interviewing four USMC veterans of the Vietnam War who were members of 4th Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, and who were once commanded by a young 2nd Lieutenant named Frank Castle in 1968.
The series ran for six issues.
Punisher: The Platoon contains examples of the following tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Le Trong Giap, once again proves a nuanced Sympathetic P.O.V. for the North Vietnamese military, as does Ly Quang, whose family was killed by American soldiers.
- Asian Hooker Stereotype: A few show up when the platoon is on R&R. Frank points out that getting taken out by a bullet or VD is still one less soldier on the field.
- Band of Brothers: What the platoon winds up as under Castle’s leadership.Giap: The Vietnamese fight for their country while the Americans fight for nothing, with no idea why they're doing it at all. [...] No, that isn't fair. The best of them were fighting for each other. But love is not enough to win a war.
- Bar Brawl: One starts between a few soldiers from the platoon and some Green Berets. Castle quickly interrupts it verbally, and the situation de-escalates.
- Bayonet Ya: At the start of the Tet Offensive, when the enemy breaches their perimeters, Castle gives the order to fix bayonets.
- The Big Guy: Castle is massive, with one marine commenting upon seeing him that even if he turns out to be a poor leader, they can still hide behind him.
- Blood Knight: Ly lives only to kill American soldiers, even if this puts the VC as a whole at risk.
- Contrasting Prequel Character: Fourth Platoon in 1968, to the marines of Valley Forge in 1971, reflecting the stage of the war they're in. They're all decent, fairly disciplined, and chiefly interested in keeping each other safe.
- Corrupt Quartermaster: Staff Sergeant Donald. He sells AKs as souvenirs, and seems to be involved in heroin. Castle uses him to replace the platoon’s M16s with the older M14s. Him selling working radio batteries nearly gets the platoon wiped out late in the story, and he's last seen with an unpinned grenade on his pillow after attempting to scam his new unit out of their back pay.
- Deadpan Snarker: Colonel Giap, usually in response to Captain Cuong opening his mouth.
- Death from Above: The marines make use of airstrikes on a few occasions. Castle calling one on his first day ruffles some feathers, and is implied to be why they were sent on dangerous missions later.
- Death Glare: A single glare from Castle is enough to convince Donald not to try anything funny regarding heroin and the men under Frank's command. He also manages to get a very pissed-off Green Beret sergeant to chill long enough to back down.
- Dissonant Laughter: Gleed, an otherwise sane assistant machine gunner, tends to break into laughter during combat to deal with the stress of the situation.
- Eagleland: Discussed. Goodwin’s intent of the book he’s writing and the interview he’s conducting is the perspective of Vietnam veterans initially believing in Type 1, then returning to America with a Type 2 view. Some of them don't have Type 1 to begin with, citing the atrocities conducted against the natives.
- The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Subverted. While Frank is fed up with the M16’s unreliability and praises the AK-47’s durability, it has substandard range and accuracy compared to the M16. The platoon ends up going with the M14 that they all used in basic, but collects AK-47s and trades them for M14s with the Corrupt Quartermaster, who sells them as souvenirs to Soldiers at the Rear.
- Ensign Newbie:
- While the squad expect Frank to be one at first, he quickly proves them wrong by acting smart, neither expecting nor demanding that the men salute him, and asking the right questions, culminating in him calling in an airstrike on a suspicious target rather than lose men.
- While Captain Nguyen Van Cuong is hopelessly incompetent, he is well aware of this fact and does his best to emulate Giap.
- Everybody Lives: Surprisingly, given the author and the subject matter, but the entire platoon comes through both major firefights depicted and complete their tours. However, some die in subsequent tours or from Agent Orange.
- The Faceless: Michael Goodwin is only seen as a silhouette, and is usually speaking off-panel.
- Fatal Family Photo: Subverted: Castle and Dryden show each other pictures of their respective wives, but they both make it out. Of course we all know what happened to Frank's wife...
- A Father to His Men: Castle can be seen as a subdued version of this, in contrast to his later characterization in Punisher: Born, as he respects and protects his men for non-Blood Knight reasons.
- Funny Background Event: As the men are recovering from a booze and sex-filled R&R session, Gleed sticks a cigarette into Fish's ear and lights it.
- Hold the Line: Issue 2 has the platoon fighting during the Battle of Khe Sanh, and noting that despite all the firepower they have available, the Vietnamese will still overrun their first lines of defense anyway. By Issues 5 and 6, the platoon successfully holds off an entire NVA battalion by themselves, having the rare advantage of terrain and surprise on the US side.
- Hufflepuff House: Five of the six prominent enlisted men in Frank's platoon come from First Squad. Second Squad (which also contains the remnants of the disbanded Third Squad) has only one major character, Corporal Bago, who seems to hang out exclusively with members of First Squad.
- Interservice Rivalry: A very much not Played for Laughs example when some men from Frank's platoon run into some off-duty Green Berets who are absolutely livid at the Marine Corps garrison at Khe Sanh for leaving their indigenous allies to die
and looking to wreck any marines they come across, whether they were even at Khe Sanh or not. - I Was Quite a Looker: Fish used to be a real Hunk, but in the present, he's a plump, bald and bespectacled man. It can be hard to tell that his past and present selves are the same person.
- Lighter and Softer: It's still a grim war comic, but it's much lighter compared to Ennis's usual work. Gore is at a minimum, Frank is still human, Everybody Lives at the end of the final battle, and it's a regular war story compared to the sheer darkness of the Punisher Max's typical fare.
- Meaningful Name: Ly, Giap informs us as she jumps from a tree to stab Frank, means Lion.
- Men of Sherwood: Less than a third of Castle's subordinates in the eponymous platoon get names and dialogue, but all of them do pretty well in fights against the North Vietnamese Army and none of them die while serving under him, although some get a Deadly Distant Finale fate.
- The Neidermeyer: Downplayed with Captain Nguyen Van Cuong who is pretty dim, overly jingoistic, disrespects Ly Quang, and is an all-around blowhard who ultimately owes his rank to the fact that his father is an NVA general, but ultimately tries to get her reinforcements since Giap trusts her. He's also seen to be acutely aware of his own incompetence, as he constantly consults with Giap like a sensible officer. The the one time he's left in charge without Giap to tell him what to do he mutters "What would he do..." to himself.
- No Range Like Point-Blank Range: During his first firefight, Castle rushes to a .50 caliber machine gun nest with the NVA behind him. After taking care of the enemies about to fire, Castle takes over the .50 cal and decapitates a North Vietnamese soldier from inches away.
- Nepotism: How Captain Cuong got to be Giap’s adjutant.Giap: "[Cuong] has many good qualities. Unfailingly loyal. Very eager to please. Especially his father, the general."
- Oh, Crap!: Two on each side:
- For the US, it's when the Platoon realized that their .50 caliber machine gun team has been taken out by an RPG, that there's nobody on the machine gun now, and that the NVA are racing to capture it and use it on US Marines.
- For the North Vietnamese, it's when Giap realizes that Cuong sent an entire battalion to fight a platoon on Ly Quang's orders, meaning that she's trying to slaughter Americans again.
- Pet the Dog: Molland talks about the last time he saw Castle, and how he never would expect him to do something as sentimental as wave at him, and that he merely stood there until he disappeared from sight. The last page shows that, while Molland didn’t see it, Castle did wave.
- Reliably Unreliable Guns: The early unreliability of the M16 is brought up. Castle ends up bribing a supply sergeant into procuring the older M14 for the platoon (and threatening him into not selling them drugs). The M14 is a good fit for the marksmanship-obsessed Marines.
- Revenge Before Reason: Ly Quang’s problem. She's a very promising and intelligent Viet Cong commander who Giap thinks is most valuable raising new cadres, rather than risking her life killing Americans, and tries to get her out of the mindset. He fails.
- Seduction-Proof Marriage: Castle and Dryden refrain from engaging in the debauchery everyone else is on R&R, as Castle has a wife and daughter, and Dryden has a fiancée.
- Snipe Hunt: Twice, Giap sends Cuong on one when he wants some distance between him and Ly.
- Unfriendly Fire: Discussed by Dryden, who claims a different unit threatened their commanding officer with such to avoid a dangerous village. And happens to Donald when his schemes go too far.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: The point of the story, showing Frank Castle at his best and the man he could have been before his Blood Knight tendencies set in.
- Wham Line: The story starts off with the author Michael Goodwin interviewing Frank's former subordinates about their experiences in Vietnam. A flashback shows Frank call in an airstrike against an abandoned village where enemy soldiers are waiting in ambush. the scene cuts to a survivor of the airstrike talking about what happened with a superior and swearing revenge. Then, the final panel of the issue shows the veterans looking stunned, and asking Goodwin, "How do you know this?", revealing that was something that the author just told them about. The next issue reveals the (fairly innocuous) answer: Goodwin also interviewed the NVA commander for his book, but at the moment the line is uttered, it's pretty startling and spooky.
- You, Get Me Coffee: Giap has no qualms about sending Cuong away on trivial errands to get some peace and quiet or talk to Ly privately.
- Younger Than They Look: Frank is 18 years old during the entire story.
