Monster / The Punisher

aka: The Punisher Max

"So you go ahead an' scream, homes. You beg. You plead." Screaming is "music to [Barracuda's] muthafuckin' ears."

"Arrogant, greedy, self-serving! Willing to sacrifice so many for petty profit, built on the bones of innocent kids dying in the street! Turning America into an exporter of death instead of ideals!"

— Captain America on Roger Mollech, Blood & Glory issue #3

The Punisher is Darker and Edgier than many comics, and Frank Castle has no qualms over killing his foes. Several of said foes are vile enough to warrant this fate.

• Marvel Knights Vol. 2 (Earth-616); The Punisher 2099; Punisher Noir; & Fury (MAX) can be found here.
• Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher can be found here.
• The Netflix series can be found here.
• The 1989 film can be found here.
• The 2005 video game can be found here.

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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Earth-616 Punisher

Examples

• Billy "The Beaut" Russo was a sociopathic hitman who helped arrange the deaths of the Castles and thought nothing of bombing a city block to get at a target. After his face was mutilated, Russo took the name Jigsaw, murdering innocents to frame the Punisher many times, leaving a massive trail of corpses behind him. Assisting Samuel Smith in trying to wipe out most of humanity, Jigsaw thinks nothing of murdering women and children, even abandoning his own son to die when it becomes a choice between his life and a few extra seconds to murder Frank Castle.
• Vol. 2:
  • Issues #4-5 & #35-40: Reverend Samuel "Sammy" Smith, aka "The Rev", was a Jim Jones-style figure who started his own cult called the "Church of the Saved". Preaching that America is a racist and fascist nation, Smith managed to recruit several disfranchised people to join his church. However, Smith runs his church as a fiefdom, killing members who defy him or try to leave the church and making the women of his church join his harem, while forcing everyone else in the church to be celibate. Punisher tries to kill Smith after he reveals he intends to feed poisoned food to his church membership, killing all 1,000 of his loyal followers. After his initial defeat, Smith decides evil is more powerful than good and begins to worship the demon Belasco, believing him to be Satan. Smith decides to use a drug that causes sterility to destroy the human race. After the Punisher destroys a shipment of his sterility drug, Smith take out his frustration by murdering a suburban family, including the children. Near the end of the story, Smith was trying to dump his sterility drug into the Gulf of Venezuela.
  • Issue #42—"St. Paradine's": Colonel Herbert Fedenia carves a uniquely depraved niche for himself even in spite of his status as a minor, one-shot villain. A seemingly-upstanding man who runs St. Paradine's, a Military Academy for children, Fedenia's true nature is revealed when Frank discovers Fedenia is a child pornographer who uses his unwilling cadets as his subjects, drugging them and having them brutalized on top of routinely having them raped. When one of the young cadets refuses to shoot Frank when he's ordered to, Fedenia simply attempts to murder the child himself.
• Punisher Summer Special issue #1's "Bombs 'R' Us" & issue #2's "Rough Cut": Colonel De Sade is a former military official who served with Frank in Vietnam. After bumping into De Sade at a military hardware expo, Punisher follows him and finds him robbing a bank. De Sade is about to use a knife on one of the customers, when the arriving police force him to flee. Punisher tries to stop De Sade but is captured in the process. De Sade tortures Punisher, but Punisher defeats De Sade and his men. Months later, De Sade escapes from prison, murdering a guard in the process. De Sade starts a new vile business venture producing snuff films. De Sade sends Punisher a video of his work, showing De Sade brutally murdering a young woman with a knife. De Sade's assistant Allison sets up fake auditions to lure in victims with promises of a dance show touring South America. After Punisher kills De Sade's men and saves the women at this fake audition, Allison flees to De Sade's studio, where De Sade forces Allison to be in one of his films when he runs low on extras. Punisher confronts De Sade, who tries to distract him by putting some of the women he captured into death traps, even threatening to kill Allison if Punisher does not back off.
• Punisher/Captain America: Blood & Glory: US Attorney General Roger Mollech and his aide Angela Stone scheme to turn Medisuela into their puppet regime for profit. Helping the ruthless General Miguel Alfredo "Tony" Navatilas turn Medisuela into a dictatorship, Mollech and Stone funnel lethal drugs from his country into America and flood the streets with it, uncaring of the countless lives lost. Arming Navatilas's military with powerful guns, Mollech and Stone coach him to invade multiple nearby countries; they actually have sabotaged the weapons so that they will wipe out Navatilas's own army and pave the way for the US to invade Medisuela. To further along the invasion, Mollech and Stone order a PMC group to use army helicopters to slaughter streets of Medisuelan citizens. Having Navatilas assassinated, Mollech and Stone torture and kill anyone in their way to power.
• Punisher/Black Widow: Spinning Doomsday's Web, written by D. G. Chichester: Peter "Doc" Malum was a US government scientist who invented a weapon system, the Pluto Project, where jets with supersonic engines can deliver H-bombs to any target on the planet at the speed of sound. Malum, however, was secretly a Serial Killer who murdered people in his spare time. When the government finds out, Project Pluto is mothballed and Malum goes on the lam. Years later, Malum is captured by the FBI, but his gang breaks him free, with Malum brutally murdering several FBI agents. When Black Widow tries to stop Malum, Malum beats her up and spits on her to humiliate her. Malum plans to create his own version of Project Pluto, murdering government officials while stealing the parts he needs. When Malum's assistant Cassady states that he thought they are just going to use Project Pluto to blackmail the world, Malum murders him, intending to use Project Pluto to devastate the world, just for kicks.
• War Zone Vol. 1 issues #38-40—"Dark Judgment" arc: Judge DuPrey, is a respected federal judge who is secretly the "Full Moon Killer", who has a double-digit body count. A smug Control Freak who gets off on having power over others, DuPrey butchers women and girls—in one instance killing a victim's dog alongside her—with a Sword Cane on nights with a full moon. A blackmailed mobster named Brazo, who is disgusted by DuPrey, reluctantly provides him with lookouts, and when Brazo is killed and replaced by a rival, DuPrey murders the man because he is not as sycophantic as Brazo was. Going on the run after this, DuPrey guns down two innocent bystanders while fleeing from an FBI agent and the Punisher. While fighting the latter, DuPrey waxes on about how much he enjoyed killing males for a change, and sneers that the Punisher sickens him and deserves to die because of how "mundane" and "unimaginative" his methods are.
• Vol. 4—Purgatory: Lord Olivier is a Hell-Lord banished for his ambition and treachery even among his devilish compatriots. Growing up into a two-bit hood known as Frank Costa and regaining his memory of his demonic life upon his first murder, Olivier reinvents himself as a feared crime boss with a legacy of murder behind him. Desiring to get back at his fellow Hell-Lords, Olivier initiates Frank Castle's fall into the Punisher by having his family murdered, foreseeing that Frank reinvents himself as a brutal, murderous Anti-Hero so Olivier may enslave the souls of every criminal he kills for his army. Along the way, Olivier has angels hunted down by the hundreds and torturously kills many himself, bathing in their blood to rejuvenate himself; tortures his loyal minions for failure; and ravages and conquers the realms of the other Hell-Lords one after another, not intent on stopping until Heaven and Hell are put under his tyrannical reign.
• Vol. 6 issues #1-5—"Army of One" arc: General Kreigkopf ("Warhead") was a former officer in the US Army who was kicked out due to his sadistic behavior. Kreigkopf fled to Grand Nixon Island, an island in the South Pacific, and turned it into a hub for criminals and mercenaries. Kreigkopf resurrects the Punisher's old enemy, the Russian, and sends him after the Punisher. After the Punisher defeats the Russian again, he goes to Grand Nixon Island to deal with Kreigkopf. When Punisher foils some of Kreigkopf's operations, he becomes enraged. There is a French military official on the island, using the island as a fueling depot before going to test a nuclear bomb in the Pacific Ocean. Kreigkopf steals the bomb and plans to drop it on Brussels, Belgium, feeling that no one would mess with Grand Nixon Island after that and he will get several new clients for his services after such a demonstration of power.
• Vol. 10 issues #2-6—"Black and White" arc: Guillermo Del Sol is a leader in the Dos Soles drug cartel, running most of the drug trade in Los Angeles. Guillermo is hired by elements of the U.S. government, who want to enact Martial Law, to commit a terrorist attack in Los Angles. U.S. government officials provide Guillermo with chemical weapons, which he tests on a small Mexican village, killing everyone there. Guillermo begins to mass produce the chemical weapons, planning to create enough to kill everyone in L.A. Guillermo also hired Electro to black out L.A., so emergency services will be busy when he releases the chemical weapons. Guillermo and Electro manage to capture Punisher, with Guillermo having Electro torture Punisher and eventually planning to sell Punisher to the highest bidder. When Punisher escapes, Guillermo flees, shooting one of his men for failing to stop the Punisher and blows up his HQ to cover his tracks, killing all of his men in that building.
• Vol. 11: Face is a psychopathic mercenary working for Condor Private Military Company. Face is in charge of Condor's operation to distribute EMC, an experimental drug that gives people superhuman reflexes but also burns them out over time. Face has set up an office at a local insane asylum, where he is testing EMC on the inmates. Face also likes to remove the faces of his victims and place them on his office wall. Face is tasked with killing Punisher after Punisher attacks Condor's operations. Face kidnaps a DEA agent named Henderson and removes his face. When Punisher and another DEA agent named Ortiz confront Face at the asylum, he reveals he pumped Henderson and the asylum inmates full of EMC and sics them on Punisher and Ortiz. While escaping from the asylum, Face flags down a bus, murders all the passengers inside and hijacks it. After murdering some patients in an ambulance, Face kidnaps Ortiz and plans to cook and eat her, but seemingly overdoses on EMC. Face goes into a coma and awakens some months later, wanting revenge on the Punisher. Face goes to a local movie theater and takes hostages, threatening to murder a hostage every minute until Punisher faces him. Face has murdered half the theater's audience when Punisher confronts him.
• Doctor Strange / Punisher: Magic Bullets: Prentice Mangrove is an Evil Sorcerer hired by the Fussilli crime siblings to superempower them, but is secretly using them for his own twisted schemes. Mangrove controls even the innocent demons of New York and uses them to cut a path of death and destruction across the city. Mangrove has been using the corpses of their victims to create a massive Flesh Golem monster which he intends to unleash on the city. Betraying the Fussillis, Mangrove reveals that his true aim is to use this magical army and monster to wipe the land of all magical creatures and "inferior races" in an act of horrific genocide. Mangrove initiates an attack on the poor non-white areas of New York, with Strange even noting his hypocrisy in using a magical creature to try and wipe them out.
• Vol. 13: The Archpriestess is the religious leader of the Hand and a zealous worshiper of the Beast. Determined to find a new High Slayer, she massacres countless members of the Hand when they refute her claims that a next High Slayer will be born in America. The Archpriestess trains children to be nothing more than killers fully devoted to the Hand and sets her sights on young Frank Castle. She brings Frank's wife Maria back to life and manipulates him into accepting the position of High Slayer by promising to resurrect his children. The Archpriestess mentors Frank in order to awaken the power of the Beast within him and turn him into a mindless killer who will bring about the slaughter of millions upon the world. When a group of agents return from their mission in failure, the Archpriestess has their families murdered before their eyes. When Frank fails to fully unlock the Beast's power, the Archpriestess tries to kill him in order to resurrect him and begin anew, promising to kill Maria. After Frank rejects her one last time, the Archpriestess sets her sights on a mentally unstable teenager as her next candidate.
• Vol. 14: The Director of Jigsaw is the mysterious leader of a terrorist organisation which plans to destroy society and bring humanity under its rule. When the warring countries of Symkaria and Bagalia enter peace negotiations, threatening Jigsaw's profits, the Director plans to stop it and reignite the fires of war. He finances the Fearmaster to create a formula to be used in a plot by using many people in her deadly experiments. When Stephanie Garrison learns that money from the company she works for is being used to finance those experiments, the Director orders a hit on her, resulting in her and her children's death. When Joe Garrison, Stephanie's widower, learns of Jigsaw's operations in his quest for revenge, the Director kidnaps his ally Triple-A and threatens to kill her unless Joe backs down. The Director has his people infiltrate the peace conference and kill security there before unleashing the Fearmaster's formula and watching as delegates tear each other apart, throwing Symkaria and Bagalia back into war.

Other Earth-616 Characters

• Anti-Venom—New Ways to Live, written by Zeb Wells: Jorge Valdez is a nasty cartel leader with a personal harem of drugged-up teenage prostitutes. Completely unhinged, Jorge has his own minions massacred for losing him money and forces Eddie Brock's recovered addict friend Jenna Cole to fall Off the Wagon by injecting her with heroin. Jorge later inducts Jenna into his harem, spites Eddie over the phone by calling him to taunt Eddie how he'll be raping Jenna, and goes as far as to order his henchman to shoot every one of his girls rather than let them run away.

The Punisher MAX (Earth-200111 Frank Castle)

Garth Ennis's run

Examples

• Barracuda, one of Frank Castle's most resilient and persistent enemies, is always ready with a laugh or a joke to conceal the black-hearted, soulless monster he truly is. Showing his sadism by trying to feed Castle and a gangster indebted to him to a great white shark, 'Cuda later betrayed a man who had worked with him for years simply because he got a better offer. After being defeated by Frank once, Barracuda, hungry for revenge, hunted down an ally of Frank's and murdered him and the man's wife for information before kidnapping Frank's infant daughter to torture her to death in front of Frank, with him booby trapping the baby's seat with a mine to kill both her and Frank. In Fury: My War Gone By, Barracuda is revealed to have once been a Green Beret in Nicaragua with a penchant for executing members of the government by chainsaw after trying to psychologically torture them. Perhaps his worst act is the revelation that he assisted in the atrocities of the Contras, entailing the wholesale rape, torture, and slaughter of several defenseless villages, adults and children alike butchered; to show how little the US uniform meant to him, 'Cuda kicked a decapitated child at Nick Fury. 'Cuda is also shown to be a rapist, and even strongly implied to indulge in cannibalism. Defined by selfishness, cruelty and his willingness to betray anyone for a buck, not even the "Barracuda charm" can disguise what a savage Barracuda truly is.
• "Mother Russia", "Up is Down and Black is White", & "Man of Stone" arcs: William Rawlins was a sociopathic, greedy CIA operative who made his living as a leech in war zones. Betraying any ally for a quick buck, Rawlins once even threw his wife overboard to the Taliban rather than give up a shipment of heroin, resulting in her being repeatedly raped, something he later taunts her about. Going deep undercover in Saudi Arabia at the behest of a group of corrupt generals, Rawlins created a terrorist cell and used them to hijack a civilian airliner for a suicide attack on Moscow to create the illusion of a terrorist attack. When he later heads to Afghanistan on business, he has no compunction committing more betrayals and trying to see his vengeful ex-wife dead with Frank Castle. Betraying his benefactor, Rawlins slits the man's loyal second in command's throat and promises to find the man's young son and rape him to death in Moscow. Described as a parasite who lives only to make the world a hellish place he could profit from, Rawlins thought nothing of murder, betrayal or any other crime as long as he could earn more from it.
• "The Slavers" arc: Tiberiu Bulat is one of the titular slavers, and lacks his son Cristu or their associate and Cristu's lover Vera's redeeming qualities. Tiberiu led an Eastern European militia during The Yugoslav Wars responsible for ethnic cleansing, slaughtering several entire villages until Cristu got the idea to take young women captive, an idea that Tiberiu approved of. The countless women were forced into sexual slavery and sent to the United States to export the business, where they were further tortured and raped on a daily basis. Tiberiu is a sadistic, trigger-happy madman who'll kill anyone at the slightest provocation, introducing himself in the present horribly torturing and killing an entire gang of rivals just to send a message that he "isn't an old woman". When Cristu tries to assassinate him for being too volatile, Tiberiu eagerly tries to kill his own son, and holds an innocent at knifepoint in an attempt to ward off the Punisher.

Others

Examples

• "Girls in White Dresses" arc, written by Gregg Hurwitz: "The Heavy"—Jigsaw—is the racist, misogynistic co-leader of a large drug cartel. He and his associates have been terrorizing a Mexican border town by kidnapping women and girls—as young as twelve—and having them work literally to death as slave labor under terrible conditions in his drug lab. Frank notes that the number of crosses in a cemetery indicates the massive scale of the cartel. The Heavy tries to drive Frank away by placing an already-dead little kid at the scene of the shootout to make Frank believe he shot her. Aside from being a very Bad Boss, The Heavy plans to sexually assault one of the workers, and, when Punisher's closing in, orders his men to kill the remaining workers before they can talk to the police.
• Naked Kill, written by Jonathan Maberry: Polly Hu and Mickey Fane's nephew Eleventhree run a horrific human trafficking operation, and unlike Mickey himself, have no redeeming features. Taking monthly shipments of women and making rough pornography with them, they eventually force the women to kill one another until one can go free, only to make her film a video with Eleventhree, named for his massive size, to the point where Eleventhree simply rapes his victim to death. Polly also regularly brings Mickey girls to rape while filming Eleventhree in his movies. When the Punisher arrives, Eleventhree is in the middle of another rape-murder while Polly watches on with smug satisfaction.

Other Continuities

• A Man Named Frank, written by Chuck Dixon: Tuck "Swede" Jurgenson is a bandit leader who becomes Frank Castle's most hated enemy. Tuck leads his gang in an attack the Castle farm, murdering Frank's kids in front of him before Tuck rapes and kills the man's wife. Tuck then orders his men to leave Frank alive with his family's bodies strewn about him, tying Frank to a cart wheel and leaving him to slowly die from the exposure of the desert land. Later allying with Angus MacCauley, Tuck takes a lethal approach to handling mere crooks who cross his path while selling cattle off to enemies of America's military before trying to murder a surviving Frank.

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