What Makes The Punisher 'Cool'?

No goal, just exploring.

Handle: Yeah Garth Ennis took Punisher some really dark places. I can definitely agree to the death metal kind of feel. I couldn't read too many back to back without having to resort to some comedy to lighten up the mood after reading one or two. Honestly it was too dark and numbing to be fully enjoyable.

I like him better in the settings where he exists alongside supers/meta humans a lot better. I can't recall if it was War Journal or War Zone but he winds up in a jungle with Dinosaurs, Dino poachers, lost research team, and Wolverine. He winds up fighting Wolverine which was pretty cool. Then there is the amusing "Fraken Castle" arc. He has much better iterations then his Garth Ennis MAX Imprint.

Punisher as shown in Daredevil TV is pretty interesting as well.

I recall one comic where the Punisher teamed up with Ghostrider.

Frank Castle: Where can I get one of these bikes?

Ghostrider: (stony silence)

Someone out-Straight Man-ing Frankie. The world is full of wonders.

Lol. That is great.

Another way to answer the question: Box fans and lemonade iced tea make the Punisher cool.

I think Chris Kyle said in his autobiography that his team would wear wear Punisher shirts or patches; something in his own words about liking Frank and calling him a righteous dude.

Who?

A Navy SEAL sniper, made famous for having the most sniper kills. And "American Sniper".

I heard plenty of SEAL like those. And pirate motifs for an obvious reason.

edited 5th Jul '16 4:07:18 AM by TerminusEst

Well, when's the last time Frank killed someone who wasn't an Asshole Victim?

The one where he kills pretty much all the supers in Marvel. He winds up killing Daredevil at one point in that one.

edited 5th Jul '16 4:37:10 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Wait when did that happen?

edited 5th Jul '16 4:42:40 AM by GAP

Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe. A What If? story, of course.

There was all those Russian soldiers when he was tasked with saving Galina as well. Most would be just guys doing their job.

What really makes The Punisher, Spawn, and the Anti-Hero trope in general cool is public cynicism. When it comes to a point in time when the public starts to lose faith, you will begin to see people turning to fiction. And anti-heroes are cool because there are times when being dark and taking down criminals delivers a huge amount of Catharsis Factor.

Quite simply, what makes the Cowboy Cop, the Vigilante Man, the Anti-Hero cool is that compared to other heroes in their universe, they get shit done. Take a look at the god-awful 06 Sonic the Hedgehog game. While the two straight-up heroes are busy chasing each other and dealing with idiots, the Cowboy Cop secret agent version of Shadow is stopping the bad guys, with full intentions to do it permanently.

The anti-heroes are cool, because in a world with constant cynicism and actually depraved people, it's very nice to read about a One-Man Army taking them down. As somebody with Wrench on my profile, I definitely find them to be good characters. No matter how psychotic they are, watching them take down the criminals is very cathartic, because it gives one the feeling that they're doing something. And that's why people find them cool. Because it's stories about getting back at people who mess with other people. And that has a value that people can understand.

There is something that bothers me about this character, how does he even have a Rogues Gallery? Considering that he is a pragmatic anti hero who regularly kills his enemies, I am surprised that he even has an archenemy yet alone a Rogues Gallery.

The same way others do. Plot armor.

Be it abnormal or fantastic endurance, something stopping Punisher from killing them, or even the Punisher simply not killing them by choice.

That and Punisher has had more then one iteration.

edited 23rd Mar '17 6:13:05 PM by TuefelHundenIV

It's also noticeable his rogues gallery has a high turnover rate. Because he keeps killing his enemies, very few are recurring. The only real recurring arch-enemy Punisher has is Jigsaw and the writers usually handwave as Jigsaw being Made of Iron to an absurd degree (Jigsaw's origin story is, after all, about him having his face destroyed and somehow surviving heavily disfigured). It's not like Castle himself is a normal guy: Castle keeps suffering wounds that should at least cripple him but comes back alright. Jigsaw, as his resident Evil Counterpart, just has the same skills.

Everyone else lasts one or two arcs at most before dying. I literally cannot recall any other villain than Jigsaw that's still alive in the comics.

But for what it's worth, it shouldn't be impossible for him to have a rogues gallery. The fact your hero kills every villain he can doesn't mean he can kill every villain. It'd be fairly easy for some Punisher archenemy to just go Villain: Exit, Stage Left when the Punisher comes for him, thus justifying his continuing survival.

"FOOLISH WARRIOR! WE WILL MEET AGAIN!" *flaps away*

edited 23rd Mar '17 6:57:40 PM by TheHandle

Yeah pretty much like that.

For what it's worth, the turn-over rate of Punisher villains is precisely the Doylist reason why many super heroes have a code against killing. Super hero writers are loathe to kill off a good villain, so they do whatever they can to justify avoiding it.

And that what is amazing is how The Punisher's villains survive at all. Jigsaw should had been dead ten times over in the Punisher series.

On the other hand, villains like Jigsaw have a baked-in reason why they don't show up in crossovers much: too busy surviving their nemesis in core.

edited 25th Mar '17 4:56:21 AM by Euodiachloris