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Posted by gryphon Promoted 20 days 9 hours ago 643 views
Informative / Informative General
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6 comments
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MY look at the Marvel Comics character with a critical view
The punisher is one of the most notable characters of the anti hero phase of comics. While characters like wolverine show the superhero aspect of the anti hero or rather the anti-superhero, the punisher shows the darker side of it.
His origin is simple for the most part, with some more stuff that is not necessary to know. The punisher is Frank Castle, an ex Vietnam veteran who signed up fro the war and even did a second tour and after the war ended did black ops for the marines and other things necessitating him to be a killing machine. When he comes home to his family they have a picnic in the park and they witness a mob hit. The mob has his family killed and he is the only survivor, and despite his testimony those involved get off scot free due to connections. He then becomes hardened against criminals and feeling the justice system is useless, takes matters into his own hands and wages a one man war against crime.
While heroes like wolverine, spider-man, and batman all have lives away from what they do, the punisher is utterly devoted to what he does. There is debate when it comes to superman about whether Clark Kent or superman was the real identity and which was the mask. Lately it has been shown that superman is the mask and Clark the real person, while the opposite is shown for batman.
When it comes to batman, it is shown that Bruce Wayne is nothing more than a mask and rehearsed act for the batman persona. Thus batman is the most similar to the punisher but still removed as the punisher does not wear a mask of another identity, either for protection or for keeping their two lives separate.
The punisher does not do this at all, rather he is always the punisher, it is his whole persona and everything about him is devoted to being the punisher. His identity as Frank Castle is known to the government and criminals, and while he can and had taken on aliases, it is more for his never-ending war.
The punisher is an interesting look into the human mind. He is a what-if that can be applied to many people. His origins reveal things people would find surprising about him. Depending on the writer, and also given that I have not read in a few years and am just starting to read the collections of the newer series, Frank either trained to be a priest or was a priest. In some explanations of why he left the priesthood, the reasons were given as him being unable to accept the concept of forgiveness.
As mentioned above, he is similar to Batman in many ways; for example, both lost family to crime and both have dedicated themselves to fighting crime, however they are still different in many ways. Batman masks his identity to protect himself and the ones he loves as well as to put distance between the two worlds, as mentioned above. The punisher on the other hand, eschews a dual identity and instead the punisher identity is the only identity there is with him. The punisher has no life away from his war on crime, as is perfectly stated in the comics and the recent movie, when he says that Frank Castle died with his family, there is only the punisher.
The punisher deep down is a psychological character who represents something we all want to do. The desire to strike back at those who wrong us, even if it means going to great extremes that would disturb many. The punisher is a criminal in many ways as he commits mass murder at times and does thing that no one person should have the power to do, and that is act as the law.