The Punisher: War Machine Vol. 1

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The Punisher ( Francis " Frank" Castle, born Castiglione) is an antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru. The Punisher made his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 ( cover-dated February 1974), originally depicted as an assassin and adversary of the superhero Spider-Man. During Iron Man's 1988 Armor Wars story arc, Rhodes accompanies Iron Man in his mission to fight those who had acquired the Iron Man armor technology. [15] Rhodes again served as a replacement for Stark beginning in Iron Man #284 (1992), while Stark was in suspended animation. [16] He began using the War Machine armor at this time, continuing as Iron Man until Stark returned the following year in issue #289. Keeping the War Machine armor, Rhodes was established as a new superhero, War Machine. He subsequently appeared in Avengers West Coast beginning in issue #94, but the series ended shortly afterward. [17] Iron Man writer Len Kaminski did not intend to give Rhodes the War Machine armor permanently, but editor Nel Yomtov insisted after it was well received. [18] Gilbert, Laura, ed. (2008). Marvel Chronicle: A Year By Year History. DK Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7566-4123-8.

Kill the Poor: The Elite, a rich vigilante who starts out targeting any drug dealers who try to move into his neighborhood, but eventually branches out into anyone he considers "lower class", including a hot dog vendor. His personal philosophy is basically Nazi Lite. His son is even worse.

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Chased by Mafia goons through a zoo, Frank runs through the polar bear enclosure, punches the first sleepy one he sees, and keeps running. By the time the goons get there, they are facing three very pissed-off polar bears. Weaponized Stench: One comic has Frank deal with two mooks following him around by hiding in a diaper treatment center, where the horrible smell distracts them long enough for him to ambush them. In The Punisher: Assassin's Guild oneshot comic, Frank guns down thinly-disguised counterparts of Lupin III and his gang. The Punisher's appearance in Runaways, which isn't too surprising, as Joss Whedon kind of hates him, infamously referring to Frank as a killing and firearm-glorifying "coward" in an interview with Wizard. Frank's Ultimate Marvel counterpart is even more fanatic about his crusade than Frank is. Even having the Ultimate Marvel version of Ghost Rider, an agent of Satan, telling him " keep up the good work" doesn't dissuade him from his killing spree. He thinks the message comes from his family, or maybe even God himself. He's also even more suicidal than the regular Frank, to the point that, when he thinks he's accidentally killed an innocent person, he demands to be "Punished".

Slasher Smile: Many of the Punisher's Psycho for Hire foes and Frank himself occasionally sports one in the mainstream Marvel universe. The keeper would have to be punching out a polar bear to anger it into taking out a mob boss, and using a pizza and the morbidly obese Mr. Bumpo on The Russian. In a Take That! to several real-life police groups that have begun superimposiong the Punisher logo over the "Thin Blue Line" flag, another story features a couple cops who come across him proudly displaying his logo on their cars, who are a part of a group of other officers who want to emulate Frank's example. Frank is not amused, and tells them in no uncertain terms if he finds out that they've broken their oaths as officers, he'll be gunning for them next because the police are supposed to be better than him, not sink to his level. Well-Intentioned Extremist: Frank's uncompromising morality is mixed with the fact that he's quite nuts.Cultural Translation: One of the early arcs had a Carnival of Killers, one of which was described by Frank as shooting "faster 'n greased lightning". The French translation has " shoots faster than his own shadow". Several encounters with Thou Shalt Not Kill superheroes end with him on the receiving end of a Curbstomp Battle, but he says that until they start killing criminals (starting with him), he's going to keep killing criminals (even in prison). Gerry Conway was writing a script and he wanted a character that would turn out to be a hero later on, and he came up with the name the Assassin. And I mentioned that I didn't think we could ever have a comic book where the hero would be called the Assassin, because there's just too much of a negative connotation to that word. And I remembered that, some time ago, I had had a relatively unimportant character ... [who] was one of [the cosmic antagonist] Galactus' robots, and I had called him the Punisher, and it seemed to me that that was a good name for the character Gerry wanted to write—so I said, 'Why not call him the Punisher?' And, since I was the editor [sic; Lee had been named publisher in 1972], Gerry said, 'Okay.' [22] Liu, Narayan (2022-09-12). "Don Cheadle Reveals He's No Longer Under Marvel Contract". CBR . Retrieved 2023-09-09.

The Punisher: Purgatory (1998) — A miniseries that Re Tooled the character into a sort-of agent for heaven.

The Punisher provides examples of the following tropes:

Born (2003) — A four issue mini series that details Frank's third and final tour of duty in Vietnam, which was later became the starting point for the MAX series. Also written by Garth Ennis.