Frank

Name a deeper and more well developed Sup Forums character.

You literally cant

Frank has never developed at all.

This.

Blatant Charles Bronson ripoff.

First mistake OP, assuming non frankophiles have read enough punisher to actually understand the characters devolpment.
Be prepared for a parade of ass hats who are going to tell you they read a dixon issue once and the punisher is a thinly veiled 80's action movie ripoff.

>My wife and child got killed, better go out and shoot poor people so I feel better.
Please tell me you're joking.

This.

I don't think the OP is joking. Frank fans are a thing unto themselves.

They're the types who read that "Boy heroically shoots, mutilates burglar" story on the Onion and got an erection.

>shoots, mutilates
>implying

Batman : D

>shoot poor people
That's not what he does at all. The criminals he goes after are usually reasonably wealthy, i.e. mob bosses and druglords.

>dude murder is good
>I wish I could kill everyone who bullies me at school

Is this a thread or a bait shop?

Dude, you're on a comic geek board, everyone here has *a list* ...

Wasn't there at least one arc where he massacred homeless people with a flamethrower?

You mean the homeless who murdered people and put them in a pile of bodies for some maniac?

Man that story was fucked up, even by Punisher standards.

I think Punisher would do well in horror stories. I'd like to see him terrorize some fucked up serial killers or monsters.

Everyone is just one bad Frank from being Frank

Seems like whenever a characters get their own show/movie or become popular the Sup Forumsntrarians come out of the woodwork.

You're confusing longevity of existence with depth. Punisher comics have never been much of an exploration of character as much as they've been a chance to give readers a heavy dose of violence alongside a feeling of self-righteous vengeance against remorseless criminals. We're meant to sympathize with Frank Castle - to see him as a sympathetic figure rather than the remorseless murderer he actually is - because the people he kills are almost always unsympathetic and blatantly evil. And as much as I'm going to get pilloried for this, Frank also represents a privilege afforded almost exclusively to white anti-heroes that use lethal force to solve problems: the in-universe sense that everything he does is right (or at least morally justified).

Frank Castle is not a deep character. He is a murder-happy sociopath who thinks the pain of losing his family justifies his one-man killing crusade. If there is anything of depth to explore in that kind of character, I haven't seen it in any of the Punisher comics I've ever read.

What comics have you read?

Mostly PUNISHER MAX. If there's any Punisher comics that actually explore Frank Castle's character beyond "kill-happy manpained anti-hero", feel free to recommend them.

John Constantine

Punisher MAX does not explore the humanity of Frank. What Ennis did was turn Frank into an inhuman force of nature. Which was one of the good ways to look at Punisher but bad if you want a Punisher with some humanity. He took the cynicism of Punisher and the coldness he tends to have and dialed it up to the extreme. The Punisher series from Marvel tends to show a more human side of Frank. It shows that he has more traits than just being a heartless sociopath.

I always thought that Frank's biggest problem was that he and his stories are Noir and the rest of Marvel is Sci-Fi.
Every team-up he's ever been in just feels wrong.

>The Punisher series from Marvel

Uh...pretty sure PUNISHER MAX was published by Marvel, too. (I understand what you're saying, just pointing out PHRASING.)

>It shows that he has more traits than just being a heartless sociopath.

Examples, plz?

I think the fanbase (Frankbase?) would make violent rebellion if Frank started having sensitive feels in his books.

Writers can show a character like Frank having moments of humanity and expressing the dreaded "feelings" without destroying what makes him appealing to the average Punisher fan. If fans can't stand to see Frank being anything but a remorseless killer, that says more about them than it does about the character of Frank Castle.

He's been shown to feel conflicted when he killed a child soldier once. He had a dog that he liked and took care of. It shows that he really loves and misses his family.

You should see the Punisher armory when he talks about his son's popgun. Mega feels.

Part of the reason why Frank puts himself through hell is because he believes he needs to punish himself from failing to save his family. He knows that what he does doesn't make a difference to crime on a bigger scale, But he can save individuals who are in trouble or being victimized by criminals at that moment he can be there and put a stop to them permanently.

What's funny about this post is that you described the exact moral dichotomy that makes Punisher an entertaining read. You can wax on about the Punisher being a sadistic power fantasy but you can't deny the feeling of satisfaction and justice when you see some child pornographer get Franked.

>Frank also represents a privilege afforded almost exclusively to white anti-heroes

You're also just plain wrong about this. Nighthawk, Black Panther, War Machine... Draw what conclusions you will, but no-killing rules aren't exclusively white.

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See? That's the kind of shit that makes Frank a deeper character.

And I want to be clear about something here: I'm not placing a value judgment on Punisher fans or the Punisher comics, mainline or MAX or whatever, when I call Frank Castle or the storylines that feature him as "shallow". Sometimes we need a little "shallow" entertainment, and that's okay. Sometimes we want to believe in justice in the form of violent vengeance, and that's okay. Punisher comics deliver that by and large, and Punisher fans enjoy that - and that's okay.

>You can wax on about the Punisher being a sadistic power fantasy but you can't deny the feeling of satisfaction and justice when you see some child pornographer get Franked.

I'm being legit and sincere (a rarity on Sup Forums!) when I say that the bit from "The Slavers" when Frank destroys that woman by throwing her against the plate glass window is one of the most satisfying things I've ever read in any comic.

I like both the shallow entertainment and the deeper entertainment that the Punisher character can bring. There is so much you can do with the character if you put your mind to it. He can be shown as fun 80s revenge action character, a broken human being seeking redemption, or a mentally unstable sociopath human being who discovered that he was good at killing and never wanted to stop. Elements of action, drama, and horror right there.

One of the best things about The Punisher is that you can make him as deep or as shallow as you want him to be. He is a flexible character if you use him the right way and don't violate the essential core of the character.

That's the kind of shit I like to read in threads like this. Thanks for the reasonable (and illuminating!) discussion.

Fuck no, I love that.

>Punished Punisher

What would happen if Frank Castle got the powers of the Ghost Rider?

He'd be the same character, just with a flaming skull.

Which, admittedly, would be kinda neat.

Jonah Hex, who never had to rely on a capeshit THIS MOMENT CHANGED ME FOREVER to explain or justify who he was.

Frank is as retarded as Batman and you have the mind of a child to think either is anything more than a lifelong revenge fantasy.

Fucking hell, OP.

Nah, Frank's cute moments are easily the best parts of any Punisher comic.

There were a couple of wonderful moments in the run leading up to punisher vs avengers.
At one point cole-alvez or what ever her name was takes a look at franks life and how its totally streamlined and based soley on the mission and says "I cant be like you" and frank says "no one should be."
This is not a man on an ego trip. This is a severely damaged individual acknowledging That the lifestyle he leads is fucked up.

Anyone got the page(s) for this moment?

This.

I wanted to throw my two cents in and talk about what people usually overlook about The Punisher. He is aware somewhat that what he does is wrong. And he has always tried to prevent people from becoming what he is. At times he portrays himself as a warning to people who have not crossed the lines he crossed. It is clear that he does not want anyone else to suffer the same tragedy as he has. Or become what he has become. He protects the innocent and sometimes he even protects their innocence. When Castle sees a victim's loved one get killed he doesn't bring the criminal to the victim so that they can kill the criminal. He kills the criminal himself. With no accountability to the victim. In a way he is doing the horrible things that people want to do in order to prevent them from doing it themselves. He stops them from crossing a line they can't come back from and would make them a worse person than they used to be. Because they have something to lose and he has nothing to lose. Frank is aware that it is a horrible thing to kill someone. He even says so in his first couple of appearances in Spider-Man. But he believes that these people need to die and since he has already lost everything he is the man to do it. He has no loved ones to hold hostage, he can't be bribed, he can't be threatened, he can't be persuaded, and he has absolutely no life to ruin. He thinks that what he does needs to be done and it doesn't matter if it has no effect on crime as a whole. If there are people who need to be put down because they are irredeemable then he will do it. Not because he's using his family as an excuse to murder, not because he thinks it will make a difference, but because he believes it needs to be done and he is determined to do it.

I'm going to post an example.

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Here's Frank trying to deter a couple of kids from doing hard drugs. He knows what that stuff does and what path it leads to. It was pointless in the end and Frank probably knew it was too. But he probably had some hope of those kids being smart and took the experience as a lesson that bad things happen when you go down the wrong path. It's not his responsibility to stop these kids and save them from doing something stupid. But he went out of his way to make it his business. You could say that Frank solely wanted to just destroy the drugs they bought but I think he also wanted to deter the kids from doing it again.

This is one of Frank's war buddies who had saved his life. This man has a mental breakdown and kills his own family and a waitress. When Punisher finds him he kills him. But he doesn't just kill him in cold blood and leave his body. Frank feels that what he did was mercy. He put his friend out of his misery. Preventing him from going through the shame and the media circus that was going to happen. It talks more about that in the comic.

this is irrefutable, already hot-topic fake nerds who only read a single comic from their lootcrate box and skimmed a wiki article before posting have made their laughable power levels known. Fronk is pretty fronkin deep and is a true realistic portrayal of vigilante heroes and cynicism and eventual disgust with being mistaken for anything resembling a hero.

the struggle with your original mission and keeping your psyche in check so you aren't just doing this for your own catharsis/enjoyment even tho really that is all it is. so you either ante up on the delusion or off yourself.

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This. Frank isn't a hero, nor does he consider himself to be one.

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holy shit you all are retarded, you have never read a Punisher series through have you? You are parroting a super generic Wikipedia summary and barely even have that close to correct. If reading a comic series is too hard for you normies try watching Daredevil Season 2 to get a more digestible Frank in a nutshell so you can stop emberassing yourself, normies.

This man gets a mercy killing. If he was alive he would have nothing to live for except a life full of regret for what he's done and misery. Spending the rest of his life in prison. Yes, he deserves to die for killing his family. But he doesn't get to live to regret it anymore.

Here's Frank leaving his neighbors a lot of money to get them out of the shitty place they live. As a thank you for protecting him when he was badly injured and they didn't have to. But they wanted to help him.

Another reason for why Frank creates a scary, distant, cold, and psychopathic persona isn't just to terrorize criminals. It is also a way to keep him from getting attached or creating a relationship with people. He does not want to be in people's lives because of what he does tends to get those people killed and he does not want people in his life because he would have to suffer through their death and they would be a weakness for him. He needs to be tough, distant and show no humanity because what he does and the life he lives weakness will only get you killed.

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Last example. Even in Punisher MAX you can get a glimpse of humanity in Frank.

He wanted to stop this woman from killing herself even though it would have no effect at all on his war on crime. It wouldn't have mattered and he still wanted to stop her.

He doesn't just leave her like another bloody body in one of his crime scenes either. He has some respect for the dead. He cleans her up and covers her.

Shortly after that he warns this cop of the price he'll have to pay to be like Frank.

And those are just examples. Frank is not a two-dimensional character. He is still a human being no matter how far gone he is from being one. He serves not only as a symbol of punishment. Not only as a warning to people who do evil. But also as a warning to people who want to be like him. Or do the things he does.

He is not and will never be someone you want to be or emulate.

The best Frank stories are the ones that feel more like the Death Wish novel. Touching on how messed up inside his one man war has made him, and how its not a good or sane thing.

Frank

Oh hey, so that's where the 2004 Punisher movie got that from.

Frank the Frank.

2deep4me

You're kidding right? His dead selling him? Mom leaving? The civil war? His mutilation? Turnbull's son? Hex has a lot in common with Frank, the only difference is that Hex managed to get a happy ending.

*Dad

See, it's bits like these that make all that talk about Castle in Punisher MAX being an inhuman force of nature and all that, like the run made him too two-dimensional or something. Yes, he doesn't really change much throughout, but we do get to see a lot of human sentiment and emotion from him. Even at the end of The Slavers, which is Frank at his most cold-blooded, brutal, avenging fury, his final monologue is still dripping with humanity and empathy. Even going as far back as Mother Russia you can see it in the way Castle cares for the "sample".
What makes MAX Punisher interesting for me personally is how self-aware he is. Ennis writes him as a man who's grown inmensely detached to what he does and why he does it, and Castle knows it, and it even scares him some times (see the dream in Up is Down, Black is White). But then he finds something to protect, or someone he can relate to, and it pulls him out of that place, even if for a fleeting moment.
The tragedy of MAX Punisher, then, is that he's not an inhuman force of nature. That there's still a human being somewhere deep inside all that. But because of the places he goes to and the people he surrounds himself with, the few ones who can really bring that out of him are either not long for this world or pushed away from it by Frank.

up

unf

John Constantine (in the original Hellblazer).

Prove me wrong if you can.

I think Frank is an interesting character, though I'd love to see a comic where he goes after people who operate entirely or mostly within the law (businesses that make deals with third world tyrants to force people off their land, businesses that murder people for trying to unionize but otherwise are on the up-and-up legally, etc.).

But I still disagree with the OP. The SINGLE most well-developed Sup Forums character? Are you shitting me?

Frank is desperately clinging to what little humanity and morality he has left.

the thought of frank sitting alone and occasionally going *pak* and letting off a cap is depressing as fuck

Sights go on the side for a reason.
(Yes I know it makes sense shooting down)

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>Repeat after me. I will NEVER use guns.

Yeah, it's definitely up there with Rich killing Annihilus

literally who

This is the correct answer to OP's post.

/Thread.

Literally anyone.

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