History ComicBook / ThePunisherTheEnd

''The Punisher: The End'' is a 2004 Marvel comic book written by Creator/GarthEnnis, illustrated by Richard Corben and published through [[Creator/MarvelMAX Marvel's MAX imprint]].

A dark AlternateUniverse comic featuring Comicbook/ThePunisher, which was written by Creator/GarthEnnis, and published through [[Creator/MarvelMAX Marvel's MAX imprint]].

In a world desolated by nuclear war, Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, exits a fallout shelter to embark on a mission to bring the people responsible for the destruction to justice.

* ManOnFire: [[spoiler:Frank at the end.]]

->''"Soon..."''
-->-- '''Creator/GarthEnnis'''

A dark AlternativeContinuity comic featuring Comicbook/ThePunisher, which was written by Creator/GarthEnnis, and published through [[Creator/MarvelMAX Marvel's MAX imprint]].

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/puthen.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Judge, jury and executioner, even after the nuclear apocalypse.]]

->''"[[HumansAreTheRealMonsters You see what I mean about the human race?]]"''

!!''The Punisher: The End'' provides examples of:

* BadAssDecay: Downplayed. Frank gets old enough that he managed to get arrested and firmly locked up in Sing Sing for some time before the story starts (admittedly one of the guards explains he transitioned quite well to cutting a bloody swathe through the inmate population), while his younger-Max and Earth616 self is generally shown to be capable of escaping prison fairly consistently.

* BadAssDecay: Downplayed. Frank gets old enough that he managed to get arrested and firmly locked up in Sing Sing for some time before the story starts (admittedly one of the guards explains he transitioned quite well to cutting a bloody swathe through the inmate population), while his younger and prime universe self is generally shown to be capable of escaping prison fairly consistently.

* BadAssDecay: Downplayed. Frank gets old enough that he managed to get arrested and gets firmly locked up in Sing Sing for some time before the story starts (admittedly one of the guards explains he transitioned quite well to cutting a bloody swathe through the inmate population), while his younger and prime universe self is generally shown to be capable of escaping prison fairly consistently.

* BadAssDecay: Downplayed. Frank gets old enough that he managed to get arrested and end up being firmly locked up in Sing Sing for some time before the story starts (admittedly one of the guards explains he transitioned quite well to cutting a bloody swathe through the inmate population), while his younger and prime universe self is generally shown to be capable of escaping prison fairly consistently.

* BadAssDecay: Downplayed. Frank gets old enough that he managed to get arrested and end up being firmly locked up in Sing Sing for some time before the story starts (admittedly one of the guards explains he transitioned quite well to cutting a bloody swathe through the inmate population), while his younger and prime universe self is generally shown to be capable of escaping prison fairly consistently after short times.

* UncertainDoom: Frank mentions that William Teach made it to the shelter along with several guards and a doctor (it's also unclear if the guards killing the D-Block inmates and any remaining inmates besides Peters were spared by the Punisher). While at least four of them were dead (Teach and the three men mentioned under ImAHumanitarian, one of whom may have been the man who stabbed Teach), it's never specifically stated that there was no one else left alive when Frank and Paris left (although even if there was, their long-term chances of survival are questionable).

->''"You see what I mean about the human race?"''

!!This comic has examples of:

* EverybodyDiesEnding: Taken UpToEleven and beyond. After a nuclear apocalypse, the Punisher and his sidekick venture out of a bomb shelter when the radiation has gone down enough for them to make it to the people responsible for turning the world into a nuclear wasteland. Once he gets there [[spoiler:he massacres ''all of them''. Including the [[KickTheDog scientist]], and the [[PunchClockVillain security guards]] who were only doing their jobs. He then strangles his sidekick to death after he confirms that he inadvertently caused the deaths of dozens of children. The story ends with the Punisher, now engulfed in flames, walking off into the wasteland]].

* ImplacableMan: Frank takes this UpToEleven. ''Nothing'', not old age, not World War III, not imminent death from radiation poisoning, [[spoiler:not even the knowledge that he's condemning the human race to extinction,]] will stop him from delivering punishment. [[spoiler:Even when all this is done, he walks off through the ruins of New York, hallucinating that it's 1976 and he's heading to Central Park to avert his family's deaths... completely ignoring the fact that ''he's on fire''.]]

* KillEmAll: Taken UpToEleven and beyond. After a nuclear apocalypse, the Punisher and his sidekick venture out of a bomb shelter when the radiation has gone down enough for them to make it to the people responsible for turning the world into a nuclear wasteland. Once he gets there [[spoiler:he massacres ''all of them''. Including the [[KickTheDog scientist]], and the [[PunchClockVillain security guards]] who were only doing their jobs. He then strangles his sidekick to death after he confirms that he inadvertently caused the deaths of dozens of children. The story ends with the Punisher, now engulfed in flames, walking off into the wasteland.]]

* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: The Coven's Washington bunker was exterminated by the President of the United States, who snapped and went on a rampage screaming about wanting "more ass" as he shot everybody there.

In a world desolated by nuclear war, Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, exits a fallout shelter to embark on a mission to the bring people responsible for the destruction to justice.

* ApocalypseHow: Class 5; the narration specifies that the nuclear war killed all visible life outside of the specially-made bunker.

* BadFuture: The comic shows us an alternate universe where UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror escalated into all out nuclear Armageddon.

* HumansAreBastards: Lampshaded by Frank when he says "The human race. You've seen what that leads to."

* IntroOnlyPointOfView: The first pages are told from the POV of a man referred to as the governor (it's vague whether he's the actual governor of New York or the Warden of Sing Sing) as he tells his assistant about how the negotiations have failed, war is imminent, and the missiles will be flying soon after calling Sing Sing and ordering them to shoot all the prisoners to prevent them from somehow taking over anything that's left afterwards.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: We're not given an exact year, but the story begins with the simple, yet chilling word "Soon"...

* BodyHorror: By the final part of the story Frank is so damaged from his terminal radiation poisoning that he looks like some kind of ghoul.

* TheElitesJumpShip: The Coven, the richest and most influential people on Earth, hide out in bunker during a nuclear world war. It's suggested having such a safety net was what made them so reckless as to ''cause'' said war.

* BadFuture: The comic shows us an alternate universe where TheWarOnTerror escalated into all out nuclear Armageddon.

* IntroOnlyPOV: The first pages are told from the POV of a man referred to as the governor (it's vague whether he's the actual governor of New York or the Warden of Sing Sing) as he tells his assistant about how the negotiations have failed, war is imminent, and the missiles will be flying soon after calling Sing Sing and ordering them to shoot all the prisoners to prevent them from somehow taking over anything that's left afterwards.

-->"One each in L.A., Dallas, Washington and New York City: Nice and close for when you needed them. Deep enough to survive a nuclear attack, capable of supporting life for over a hundred years. Each one containing a store of frozen human embryos -- provided by you and the scientific personnel to oversee them. You could sit out the war you knew was coming, the way you were running the world. You could stay down here and breed, and if the women couldn't conceive, you knew you had a back-up plan.\\
One way or another, the future would be yours. Everyone else could burn."

* TakeThat: The Coven's Washington bunker was exterminated by the President of the United States, who snapped and went on a rampage screaming about wanting "more ass" as he shot everybody there. Of course, we don't know which President it could be (especially because it's set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture), but Garth Ennis doesn't really have anything kind to say for ''any'' of them.

* AlliterativeName: Paris Peters, a former con man and a fellow atomic war survivor along with the Punisher.

* ImAHumanitarian: During the one year spend in the fallout bunker under the Sing-Sing prison, Punisher shot two former guards sharing the space for trying to eat a deceased third guard (whom the Punisher also shot).

* IntroOnlyPOV: The first pages are told from the POV of a man referred to as the governor (its vague whether he's the actual governor of New York or the Warden of Sing Sing) as he tells his assistant about how the war has reached its peak, and the missiles will be flying soon after calling Sing Sing and ordering them to call all the prisoners to prevent them form somehow taking over anything that's left afterwards.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: We're not given a exact year, but the story begins with the simple, yet chilling word "Soon"...
* UncertainDoom: Frank mentions that William Teacher made it to the shelter along with several guard and a doctor (its also unclear if the guards killing the D-Block inmates and any remaining inmates besides Peters were spared by the Punisher). While at least four of them were dead (Teacher and the three men mentioned under ImAHumanitarian, one of whom may have been the man who stabbed Teacher) it's never specifically stated that there was no one else left alive when Frank and Paris left (although even if there was, there long-term chances of survival are questionable).

* BadassGrandpa: Frank Castle got old enough to be captured and sent to Sing Sing, but he was still badass enough to overpower the guards that were about to kill him during the eve of world-wide nuclear destruction, and eventually prepare himself for his final vigilante mission.

* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: [[spoiler:He tracks down the sole survivors on a post-nuclear apocalypse Earth and executes them, because they're the various corrupt and amoral power players whose greed led to the war in the first place. What makes this example worse is that Frank Castle knows that their bunker also has a stockpile of preserved human embryos(sired by them) and [[UterineReplicator the devices to bring them to term]], meaning that this bunker could be used to restore the human race... and he still kills everyone. Not just the fat cats, but the doctors who could look after that stockpile. His rationale boils down to: "They're trying to buy me off by saying they'll save the human race... from the apocalypse they started specifically so they could rule the world. ''Fuck that.''"]]

* TakeThat: The Coven's Washington bunker was exterminated by the President of the Untied States, who snapped and went on a rampage screaming about wanting "more ass" as he shot everybody there. Of course, we don't know which President it could be (especially because it's set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture), but Garth Ennis doesn't really has anything kind to say for ''any'' of them.

-->''[[spoiler:"We are the last people left alive on Earth"]]'' - Coven leader\\
''"[[spoiler:How does a small-time con-artist end up in D-Block?"]]'' - The Punisher