History ComicBook / ThePunisherMAX

* UncannyValley: Some of the more photo-realistic drawings done by Lewis Larosa can have this effect for some people. [[InvokedTrope Used to great effect]] in the very first issue with Larosa's ghoulish illustrations of Frank's [[spoiler:dead family.]]

* RareGuns: Quite a few actually.
** In one cover, Frank can be seen dual-wielding a pair of Desert Eagles. He puts this gun to good use later on in "The Slavers".
** In "Mother Russia", when Frank has to take care of some Russian gangsters, je uses a SPAS-12 shotgun to get the job done.

* CrusadingWidower: Garth Ennis took this concept in an interesting direction during "Widowmaker", where the widows of several high-level mafiosos Frank had brutally murdered come together to take vengeance on him. However, before Frank can come up against the potentially morally interesting decision of how to deal with them, they are interrupted by another Mafia widow, who is thankful to Frank for killing her husband, an abusive bastard who beat her nearly to death and had his friends rape her, and has nothing but contempt for the other widows (the leader of whom is her own ''sister'') who cruelly abused her. Despite the other widows trying to garner sympathy with the horror of their husbands' deaths, the story points out how selfish and self-centered they are with how the lavish lifestyles they enjoyed were funded by violent crime perpetrated by their vicious husbands.

[[caption-width-right:350: [[TakeOurWordForIt Trust us]], [[AssholeVictim the guy]] [[SociopathicHero Frank's]] [[ColdBloodedTorture studying up for]] ''[[PayEvilUntoEvil really deserves what's going to happen to him]]''.]]

When you take a DarkerAndEdgier Creator/MarvelComics character like Comicbook/ThePunisher, and make him even [[UpToEleven Darker and Edgier]]''[[UpToEleven er]]'', you get what is collectively called "The Punisher MAX".

* DarkerAndEdgier: Obviously. The Punisher was already one of Marvel's more mature and adult oriented characters, and this series takes that basic idea and pushes it as [[UpToEleven far as humanly possible]], taking full advantage of the "adults only" nature of the Max label.

* GeneralFailure: The over-arching of crooked Generals take this to an [[UpToEleven entirely new level]], being a group of incompetent idiots who have ''never seen any real combat'', having ascended through the ranks entirely through mundane service. By the time the final arc takes place, the Generals end up opposing Frank Castle for the sole purpose of saving their own asses from the massively bad decisions they've made throughout their careers. There's even a scene where Nick Fury whips the head general half to death with his belt for his stupidity during one military operation. The entire group is eventually [[spoiler:slaughtered by Castle]].

* ItsRainingMen: When Frank and a Delta Force operative need to sneak into Siberia, they do so by HALO jumping out of a commercial plane. Later on they [[UpToEleven up the ante]] [[spoiler:by HALO jumping out of a launched nuclear missile]].

** Taken UpToEleven with [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower Barracuda]]. Over the course of several fights Frank stabs him, [[EyeScream gouges his right eye out]], knocks out some of his teeth, cuts several digits off his right hand, strangles him with '''''barbed wire''''', shoots him point-blank in the [[GroinAttack groin]], chest, and face, and finally tosses him into shark-infested waters... [[MadeOfIron which he somehow survives]]. When the two meet up for the last time, Frank [[spoiler:blows him up with a claymore, fractures his skull with a wrench, bites off another one of his fingers, breaks his arm, [[ManBitesMan bites off part of his cheek]], stabs him ''again'', wires his testicles to a car battery ad leaves it running '''''for an hour''''', shoots him with an M-60, tears off his nose with some pliers, cuts off his arms with an ax, shoots his head to bits with an AK...[[KillItWithFire then incinerates his remains]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill just to be sure]].]]

--> '''Nick Fury:''' Autopsy's taking forever. I asked the coroner for a cause of death and he just laughs. He's up to [[MadeOfIron eight pages of injuries]] [[UpToEleven with no end in sight]].

--> '''Frank:''' You get the other guy on the ropes. You keep him there. You mangle his ears. [[EyeScream Fill his eyes up with blood.]] Pulp his kidneys, grind his ribs. Don't let up. And if he still won't hit the canvas, [[UpToEleven you go on and bleed him to death.]]

-->'''O'Brien:''' I've been in jail for eighteen months. When we get through here, you want to go jump in the sack?
-->'''Frank:''' (completely deadpan) Sure.

-->'''O'Brien:''' You cold?
-->'''Frank:''' No.
-->'''O'Brien:''' You lonely?
-->'''Frank:''' No.
-->'''O'Brien:''' You want to jump my bones anyway?
-->'''Frank:''' Sure.

-->''(A single shot is heard way off in the distance)''
-->'''Man:''' What was that?
-->'''Frank:''' M-25 sniper rifle with a .303 Winchester cartridge.

-->'''Frank:''' His next step's a reflex action.
-->[''Pittsy keeps walking towards Frank'']
-->'''Frank:''' So's the next one. ''Got to be''.

** Barracuda one-ups Frank in this department. In the beginning of "Long Cold Dark", when he lures dozens of gangsters from dozens of different gangs into one hotel room, Barracude annihilates them with his [=M60=]. ''[[KillEmAll Every last one of them.]]''

** General Zakharov seems to have earned this reputation thanks to the many [[ObligatoryWarCrimeScene atrocities]] he committed during his tour in Afghanistan. The mere sight of him is enough to elicit an OhCrap look from [[SmugSnake Rawlins.]]

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene:
** ''Punisher: Born'' reveals that this happened ''all the time'' during Frank Castle's third and final tour in Vietnam, from Marines executing incapacitated enemy combatants and using overtly cruel attack methods, to one of the Marines actually having a bag full of ''human scalps'' that he keeps as "souvenirs". And that's not even getting in to the part were they tried to gang-rape a female enemy...
** All of the above examples pale in comparison to what General Zakharov got up to in Afghanistan. In "Man of Stone", a British journalist calmly describes to Frank the sort of "tactics" that Zakharov would routinely employ against the Afghan fighters. [[spoiler:The most infamous of these was the way he decided to goad the local Afghan rebels out of hiding. He did this by gathering up the entire population of a local Afghan village and having them forcibly thrown off a cliff one by one, much to the horror of the Afghan fighters. Then there's when an Afghan woman begs Zakharov that he spare her infant son. How does Zakharov respond to this woman's plea? By taking the infant into his hands, and '''''chucking the baby off a cliff'''''.]] The scariest part is that we later learn that he did this to ''another six villages''.

Feel free to check out the CharacterSheet. Contributions are '''''greatly''''' welcomed.

* StunGun: The Delta Force commandos sent to apprehend Frank are all armed with one of these. Unfortunately for them, the tasers have ''no'' effect. In the end, the Deltas are only able to finally bring Frank down after they have shot, beaten and tased him multiple times.

->''"It's Omaha Beach. Wounded Knee. Rorke's Drift, The Killing Fields, the first day on The Somme. World War Three in North Jersey. And only now, pouring automatic fire into a human wall -- do I feel something like peace."''

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: It ranks at 8, thanks in large part to all the blood spurts, gunshot wounds and brutal hand on hand violence.

* EpicFail: During "The Slavers", Frank attempts to ambush the hired guns for the slavery ring. However, he forgot that they were hardened soldiers from the Yugoslav wars, not the usual street punks with poor aim and no tactics, and was was nearly killed.

* HellIsThatNoise: In the initial arc of the series, when the Homeland Security team assisted by Micro captures Frank, the female operative listens outside the door of his interrogation for a chance to hear him speak, admitting she is extremely turned on by deep gravelly voices. When Frank does finally speak, she backs away from the door in visible horror and immediately asks where the suite minibar is.

* ''[[PunisherThePlatoon Punisher: The Platoon]]'' #1-6 (2017) by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov

* ''Punisher: The Platoon'' #1-6 (2017) by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov

* RealityEnsues: To keep in line with the series' more realistic and grounded approach, this trope tends to happen ''a lot''. Usually at the worst possible moment.
** Jason Aaron's final run on the Punisher shows us exactly what effects a 30+ year-long war on the criminal underworld can have on your mind and body: it makes you slow, arthritic, unable to shrug off injuries that would have barely fazed you years before, and that much more prone to slipping up. And the more you slip up, the less intimidating you are to the criminal underworld that you hunt.
** A big emphasis is placed throughout the series on how the Punisher's success rate is at least partly owing to the fact that the majority of his targets are just low-level gangsters - intimidating to the average Joe, but completely out of their depth when it comes to actual combat. So in "The Slavers", where he attempts to attack what he later realizes are a group of battle-hardened Bosnian war vets who ''do'' know what they're doing, he quickly realizes he's made a huge mistake and is forced to flee for his life. See ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy above for more details.
** A more (darkly) humorous example occurs later on during Bullseye's introduction, where he threatens to kill a man with a toothpick. He flicks it at the guy's forehead... and it bounces right off.
-->'''Bullseye:''' Don't be stupid, even I can't kill someone with a toothpick. [Pulls out a gun] But I can with ''this''.

* BaitTheDog: In General Zakharov's first appearance, while there's some whispering of his reputation and he does use the WeHaveReserves trope (though he was trying to dislodge terrorists from a nuclear silo), Zakharov in the end did stop a nuclear confrontation and showed '''way''' more patience with TheStarscream than he had a right to. Later, when we see him again, we find out [[MoralEventHorizon just how]] [[InfantImmortality he fought]] [[SubvertedTrope in Afghanistan]].

* InfantImmortality: Averted with '''''[[DeathOfAChild extreme prejudice]]'''''. In fact, it seems like the series goes out of its way to avert this trope whenever possible. Notable aversions include:
** Frank Castle's children, Lisa and Frank David Castle. The former was shot in the belly, while the latter was shot through the mouth.
** The fate of Joseph Kai's youngest son. See ImAHumanitarian below for more details.
** In "The Slavers", one escaped victim recounts the time when a pair of slavers sent her an email... that included an image of '''''her baby's lifeless corpse'''''.
** Wilson Fisk's 8-year old son has his throat slit by Don Rigoletto. Fisk realizes that he doesn't really care that his son is dead. Unfortunately for him, the death of their son also set his wife Vanessa against him, which would eventually result in his downfall and gruesome death.

** He's on the end of another during the "The Slavers" arc. Frank attempts to ambush the eponymous slavers the same way he would his normal gangbangers, forgetting that these are the normal skittish drug dealers he's used to. They are hardcore survivors of the Yugoslavian wars and well-versed in tactics of battle.