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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.
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- Punisher in Film
Learn about Frank Castle, a former Marine who became a vigilante known as the Punisher, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Find out his biography, appearances, aliases, enemies, and more.
- Overview
- History Early Life
- Personality
- Attributes
- Paraphernalia
- Notes
- Trivia
- See Also
- Links and References
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
They laugh at the law. The rich ones who buy it and twist it to their whims. The other ones, who have nothing to lose, who don't care about themselves, or other people. All the ones who think they're above the law, or outside it, or beyond it. They know all the law is good for is to keep good people in line. And they all laugh. They laugh at the law. But they don't laugh at me.
—Punisher
Early Life
Born in Queens, New York, to Sicilian immigrants, the young Francis Castiglione was very violent and aggressive inflicting extensive injuries on bullies. This violence would cause him to be observed by The Hand. After being haunted by the deaths of a couple that were brutally murdered by a mafioso, ten-year-old Frank killed the mafioso by setting him on fire after dumping homemade napalm on him. This was his first kill. He later studied in the seminary for a time. While in high school, he met his first friend Steadman Sternberger after protecting from a gang of bullies and continuously protected him afterward. In return, Steadman convinced Castle to channel his anti-social behavior into peewee hockey. During a hockey match, Castle met Maria Falconio. Castle was smitten with her but too afraid to talk with her. So, Steadman fixed them up through trickery, and Maria's influence suppressed Castle's bad behavior. When Steadman died in a traffic accident after being left behind by the driver and passengers, Castle killed those involved to avenge his friend. He married his wife, Maria, who was already pregnant with their first child, before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, eventually rising to the rank of Captain.
Marine Corps
During his time in the USMC, Castiglione graduated from boot camp and then went on to United States Marine Corps School of Infantry. While still in training, Castiglione met Phan Bighawk, an American Indian scout. He was assigned to be Castiglione's guide, and through Phan, he learned how to survive in the wilderness. Following his training, Castiglione served for the Marines for four tours. Despite being one of, if not the best sniper in the corps, it is generally implied that many of his superiors didn't like him and put him in situations where they hoped he would be killed. At one point, his friend from training, Roger Wong, was found to be running a black market supplying the locals with weapons. To keep him away from the trial Frank was sent stateside for a month, running a recruitment office. It was here that he met Linus Lieberman, who would soon become Microchip, for the first time, when he disqualified him from the draft for having flat feet and being overweight. He did not remember this meeting later, but Microchip did.[citation needed] He fought in the decades-long Siancong War in the country of Siancong alongside the likes of Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and James Rhodes.
Death of His Family
After returning from overseas, Frank became distant from Maria and his children due to what he had experienced. While Maria managed to convince Frank to attend couples counselling and even give confession at church, Frank ultimately grew more distant and began sleeping in a tent in their backyard. Frank later started to show signs of improvement, but it wasn't long before Frank returned to his old habits. Frank took up work in the meatpacking district in order to provide money for his family and slowly grew closer with his children. However, it got to the point that Maria planned to ask for a divorce on their next trip to Central Park. Frank took his wife and two small children to Central Park in New York City. Coincidentally, the family happened upon the scene of a mob killing on the Sheep's Meadow green in the park. Fearing witnesses, the mobsters murdered Castle's family in cold blood and escaped. Castle managed to survive the attack but was deeply traumatized by the incident. He was going to testify in court to identify the shooters, but Castle was denied this since the New York City Police Department were deeply connected with the Mafia. He decided not to return to Marine duty. When mobsters slayed his family, Frank Castle vowed to spend the rest of his life avenging them. Now equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, he wages a one-man war against crime as the Punisher. Castle uses his combat experience, guerrilla and urban warfare techniques, as well as detective skills to achieve his mission. This includes using the Mafia's own tactics against them to track down and kill those responsible for the death of his family.
Frank Castle is a vigilante/anti-hero who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of intense violence, and torture in his battle against crime. His brutal nature and willingness to kill has made him one of the most dangerous men alive.
Powers
Nick Fury's intel classified him as being power level 6 or greater due to his fighting skills, his weaponry, and his use of lethal force.[213] Former Powers The Punisher's resurrection by a Grigori named Gadriel imbued him with divine essence, enough to grant him a number of Angelic qualities such as Biological immortality, accelerated healing, a sixth sense for the supernatural, and dream-based precognition. Castle was also given access to a "Hammerspace" portal to Heaven, which he typically used to produce special firearms (the strength of which responded to the wielder's thoughts) that lacked the drawbacks of conventional ones, and which were capable of killing both mundane and paranormal threats.[126][127] These powers were removed when Frank wouldn't work for Heaven and the Angels. While he was Franken-Castle, Castle had superhuman strength to an unknown degree. That form's warped physiology also rendered him immune to Lady Gorgon's telepathic mind control and Daken's pheromones.[168][169] Castle once had a Bloodstone fragment which had enhanced him in currently unknown ways, it had also given him some degree of a healing factor which had allowed him to recover from serious injuries including restoring him to his old self after being Frankencastle.[170] After joining the Hand, Castle gained one of the five gifts of the Fist. He eventually lost these powers after these were purged from him by Doctor Strange and using up what little power he had to escape. These powers include: •The Eyes of the Beast: This grants him a form of clairvoyance. He was able to see the evil things a member of the Apostles of War had done in the name of his master Ares, as well as the evil things he had yet to do. Castle was also able to sense a bomb wired to the Apostle member's heart and the locations of criminals around the world.[214] •Fire of the Beast: This ability allows him to unleash demonic energy. This allowed him to imbue a dagger with this energy to kill Lord Deathstrike instantly.[209] He could also unleash blasts of fire that could go out in all directions.[215] •Marrow of the Beast: This ability enhances Castle's physical strength and endurance. The demonic power enhances Castle's strength to the point where he was able to match the strength of the god Ares and even harm with the force of his blows[210][216] as well possess enough strength to shatter someone's head apart and rip another person in two with his bare hands. He could also lift a grown off the ground with one hand.[217] His durability is as such that he could withstand being hit by a Banner Cannon, which would normally turn someone into a skeleton[216] and shrug off the Black Widow's Widow Sting and Moon Knight's crescent darts.[214] •Healing Blood of the Beast: This power allow Castle to recover from injuries that would normally be fatal to a normal person, though he still needed some recuperation afterward.[210] He could survive being impaled with a sword and not even as much as flinch.[215] •Flight: Castle can float through the air.[218][216][214] •Teleportation: Castle could teleport, including into other dimensions.
Abilities
•Maximum Human Conditioning: The Punisher is in peak physical condition. Through his rigorous training & exercise regimes, he developed levels of strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, healing, longevity, metabolism and immune system efficiency near the absolute limits of human capability.[219] •Peak Human Endurance: Castle's endurance is unbelievably high. He frequently performs surgery on himself without pain medication. •Peak Human Durability: Castle's durability is unbelievably high. He was hit by Black Widow, a Russian super-soldier,[220] and Captain America so strongly that it passed through a thick wall and is shown only with minor wounds.[221] •Master Martial Artist: Castle is a thoroughly seasoned veteran in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat. Specifically, he is highly adept in American-style CQC (close-quarters combat), Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Systema,[222] ninjutsu, Shorin-ryu Karate, Hwa Rang Do, Chin Na and Nash Ryu Jujutsu, his style of choice being the latter.[106] •Weapons Master: As an authority on modern warfare, the Punisher is a recipient of multi-disciplinary military knowledge from the United States Armed Forces. Thanks to this and continued training, the Punisher is a master of many weapons, favoring daggers and long-range shooting weapons. The Punisher's ever-changing arsenal of weaponry includes various automatic and semiautomatic rifles, and an array of handguns, fragmentation and tear gas grenades, other explosives, and combat knives. A personal favorite is his ballistic knife, which can launch its blade with lethal force. He commonly uses M16 .223 caliber automatic rifles, Sterling Mark 6 9 mm, semiautomatic rifles, 9 mm Browning Llama automatic pistols, .45 caliber automatic frame re-chambered for 9 mm ammunition, .223 caliber Derringers, and Gerber Mark 2 combat knives. •Blade Weapons Training: Castle has extensive knowledge of blade weapons from his years of training in various martial arts disciplines as well as his military training. He tends to carry with him up to 3 or 4 different types of edged-weapons, preferring the knife he learned to fight with in the USMC: the Ka-bar.[citation needed] Castle received training from the Hand in how to use a katana. •Master Marksman: He is a sharpshooter and exceptional marksman with many types of firearms, often depicted as being ambidextrous and rarely missing his target.[223] Trained as an elite sniper, he's skilled enough to hit a target from 4 km.[224] He is skilled in knife throwing as well. •Expert Pilot: Castle received helicopter training with the U.S. Army and U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command. He has been shown flying both helicopters and airplanes.[225] •Interrogation Master: Castle uses his skills at interrogation to get information from people linked to criminals through creative use of torture as well such as water boarding, electrocution, suffocation, sleep deprivation, starvation, etc.[226] •Extensive Special Operations Training: As part of his Marine Force Recon training, Castle completed U.S. Navy SEAL (SEa Air Land), UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) and LRPA (Long Range Patrol) training, EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) training, graduated the Army's Ranger School, completed the U.S. Army Airborne School (AKA "jump school"), graduated the U.S. Army Special Forces Qualification Course, and LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol) training. He also took part in cross-training with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment. He's also a qualified HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jumper. •Master Tactician: Armed solely with conventional weapons and motivated by a fanatical hatred for criminals like those who murdered his family, the Punisher has single-handedly incapacitated up to a dozen well-armed and experienced opponents in a single encounter and escaped uninjured. It is his military training and his attention to detail that allows him to achieve this. Castle possessed this skill even from a young age as he killed a criminal as a child after carefully planning out to do it. •Indomitable Will: Frank has complete control of his mind and consciousness, providing a strong resistance against telepathic powers that are used against him. When Letha tries to control Frank's mind, he scoffs at their attempt saying "It doesn't feel different from any other day."[227] •Bilingual: In addition to English, Frank is able to speak Spanish.
Weaknesses
Non-Superhuman Physical Conditioning: Castle is as susceptible to physical injury and disease as any other normal human, often having to rely more on strategy than strength when up against a superhuman opponent. However, different characters like Nick Fury have commented on how extraordinarily high his pain tolerance is.[213] Frank does not even take over-the-counter painkillers, believing that their benefit of dulling pain isn't worth the side effects of drowsiness or slowed reflexes.[228]
Equipment
Punisher's Equipment: In the vast majority of cases, Castle utilizes a wide variety of modern military equipment that is specifically curtailed to each situation as needed, although he has also been shown to be highly adaptable and make the most of whatever may be at his current disposal. Punisher's Clothing: Castle most often chooses not to wear any sort of costume beyond a black shirt with a white skull splashed across the front. His other clothing, which normally includes combat boots, blazers, leather jackets, trench coats, bulletproof vests, body armor, black battle dress uniforms and camouflaged outfits, are worn for the sake of protection or subterfuge in urban and wilderness environments. His body armor protects him from most gunfire, though he can still suffer concussive injury or penetration from sufficiently powerful or repeated impacts. In regard to his earlier costumes, each tooth of the skull on his chest was actually a spare magazine for one of his firearms.[229] Former Equipment War Machine Armor: Castle utilized a War Machine Armor stolen from a U.S. Marine Corps storage warehouse on a mission to kill the new leader of Chernaya, General Petrov, on Nick Fury's behalf.[230]
Weapons
Punisher's Arsenal: Castle employs a truly expansive array of conventional firearms and weaponry, including machine guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives and explosives, a great many of which have been culled from both common and organized criminals, as well as military sources during his operations. He often customizes these weapons for greater effectiveness, with both standard and custom attachments including magnified optics, reflex sights, night vision scopes, flashlights, grenade launchers, sound and flash suppressors, bipods/tripods, drums and high-capacity/extended magazines, including non-standard types of ammunition such as hollow-point or armor-piercing bullets. His secret armory locations house everything from common guns and ammunition to modernized blowguns capable of piercing 15-layer Kevlar vests, light anti-tank weapons, explosives of various types, and even crossbows, which can offer a combination of silence and precision. Former Weapons After joining the Hand, Castle began learning how to use the Hand's traditional weapons, including a katana and shuriken.[231]
Transportation
Former Transportation Punisher's Battle Van: Castle has utilized a number of vehicles, both standard and customized, as a means of transport, refuge, and supply storage, most commonly gravitating toward large vans that can hold a great deal of firearms and ammunition, as well as be used as a ramming device. During his time with the Hand, he was provided with a helicopter.
•For most of the Punisher's publication history, he was depicted as a veteran of the Vietnam War, and it became an integral part of his backstory. However, Marvel's use of a sliding timescale to compress all the events that have happened ever since the Silver Age of Comic Books, into a period that started roughly 20 years ago from the present, resulted in the issue that Frank would eventually be too young to have fought in Vietnam. In Punisher (Vol. 9) #4, Frank's origin was effectively retconned, and the Vietnam War was dropped from his militaristic background. His origin had been altered to have fought in the Gulf War in the 1990s and the War on Terror in the 2000s and 2010s. In History of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #2, this has since been changed to the fictional Siancong War.
•Then-Punisher writer Greg Rucka explained the retcon stating the following: "[Editor Stephen Wacker] and I went round and round on this, but ultimately, he really wanted to make Frank younger because if he fought in Vietnam, he's in his 70s, and I get more mileage out of him being in his early 40s. I don't think that takes anything away from his origin. In the Marvel U, the conflict matters only because he was asked to go and serve his country, and he did. When he returned, the society he was essentially defending betrayed him and murdered his wife and children in front of him. The conflict matters less than the fact that he gave his service, and this was the reward. In that broad brush vague Marvel Universe sense there's always 'the war' whatever it was. If that put him in the Middle East rather than South East Asia I think that matters less for the purposes of the Marvel Universe. I really want to emphasize though that I'm only talking about the Marvel Universe Punisher and not PunisherMAX."[232]
•Frank used to have a guard dog named Max, whom he saved from animal poachers.[233] Max was shot by the Kingpin's lieutenant George, and Frank put Max down himself with a knife. He later had a Rottweiler also named Max.[234] Frank also used to have a pet coyote named Loot, whom he saved from gang members.[235]
•According to Don Daley, then editor of Punisher (Vol. 2) #98, in his response to a fan mail, he stated that the Punisher's version of justice is classically based as "an eye for an eye."
•The demon Olivier claimed that the skull icon that Castle often wears on his body armor is based off of the demon's own face due to their connection.[236]
•Punisher would have teamed-up with the Death's Head II in Death's Head & The Punisher #1, but the issue was cancelled.
•The Punisher was based on the fictional vigilante Mack Bolan, the protagonist of Don Pendleton's The Executioner novel series that began in 1969.[237]
•In early mentions, Frank's daughter's name was given as Barb or Barbara.
•Castle's eye color was originally given as grey[238] and sometimes shown as brown.
•Decades before the Punisher commandeered the War Machine Armor in Punisher (Vol. 2) #218, and even a few years before the creation of the War Machine Armor itself, Dwayne McDuffie and John Rozum wrote the pitch for a prestige format miniseries called Killing Machine, in which Castle steals a Guardsman Armor and customizes it, painting it black with his skull insignia on the chest-plate, mounting a Gatling gun on one shoulder and a retractable missile launcher on the other.[239]
•Frank hates his alternate future counterpart known as The Rider, due to the Rider not preventing the death of their family;[240] however, the Rider had tried to do just that, but Uatu the Watcher used the Infinity Gauntlet to resurrect the Syndicate members and negate the Rider's interference.[241]
•Frank's considers Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark the greatest music album of all time.[242]
•1011 appearance(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
•24 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
•74 minor appearance(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
•195 mention(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
•17 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
•1385 image(s) of Francis Castle (Earth-616)
Learn about the history and personality of Frank Castle, a former US Marine who became a vigilante known as the Punisher after his family was killed by the Mafia. Explore his battles with Spider-Man, Daredevil, Kingpin, and other enemies in the Marvel Universe.
A vigilante action crime drama based on the Marvel Comics character Frank Castle, also known as the Punisher. The series follows his quest for revenge on those who killed his family and his conflicts with other enemies and allies.
- (269K)
- 2017-11-17
- Action, Crime, Drama
- 60
Traumatized by horrific events both at home and abroad, Frank Castle becomes The Punisher, using the lethal skills he honed as a Marine to exact violent vengeance on those he deems responsible for the death of his family.
Punisher | Marvel 101. Family man turned crime-fighting vigilante, Frank Castle embodies the persona of the Punisher to avenge personal tragedy and ensure all criminals receive the justice they deserve.
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Jun 1, 2023 · How does Marvel end Frank Castle's war on crime and his story as the Punisher? Find out the shocking twist, the fate of his wife Maria, and the new threat from the Hand.
