[Marvel] How I'd reboot The Punisher

[BBally81]

Frank Castle is a hurt person who hurts people. I think the stories work better when the writer realizes that he is NOT an aspirational figure, but part of the fallout of a broken system.

That said, no matter how you write him, he will still have cop fanboys with the media literacy of brine shrimp. It can't be helped.

I do wonder about this, whether The Punisher just cannot work in such politically charged times. His very concept requires you to admit that the system is broken - and sure, most of us would agree that it is - but how and why and whether that justifies a vigilante shooting people is the issue.

I think the best option is make a modern take on the original Equalizer TV series from the 80s. Edward Woodward's Robert McCall is more of a private detective than a vigilante and even goes up against actual vigilantes and it tackles the topic well.

https://x.com/BBally81/status/1746680356672008422

[Nobody700]

One of the all-time classic comics is, of course, DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN but there's an interesting element to this Frank Miller comic that I think would work very well for Frank. Which is the fact that Matt was put up against Nuke, a cybernetically enhanced super soldier that is more or less the Terminator with Ronald Reagan's politics (Liberty Prime in Arnold's body).

And the thing is that Matt UTTERLY GETS HIS ASS KICKED.

This mid-range Captain America villain utterly dominates Matt because being a ninja didn't make him able to win. I feel like you could actually use Frank very well if people would have him face against Spider-Man level villains and then have him be UTTERLY OUTCLASSED and have to use his mind ala Batman but with guns.

You could have Frank vs. the Marvel Universe pretty well I think if you kept him in the weight class of a guy who isn't nearly as tough or fast as Spidey.

Also, we need a PUNISHER VERSUS PREDATOR and PUNISHER VERSUS ALIENS.

But yes, you can definitely have Frank up against Marvel mooks. It's just they both have guns, IMHO.

Well I wrote this for a writing server I'm one so I'd like your opinion on it

Punisher War Journal… Black edition. I never expected to write this down, but I have. I’m in Arizona, during a heat wave of all things. I hate it. Worse than any heat during the war. Feels like hell is licking at me every moment. But the mission is the mission, and I’m here for the Hernandez cartel. Drug traffickers who use kids to get what they want. They left a graveyard of people in their way, and I decided to end that problem. Been here 3 days, and been tracking one guy; a low level goon who has some connections. Waiting for him to show me something big, when I get side tracked by a guy who thinks his wife is a punching bag. Didn’t kill him, I don’t want the cops to know I’m here yet… but I did take out every single tooth from the man and his thumbs from him, and the woman is now with her sisters. I wasted a night, but might have been for the best. I was lightly armed. Wasn’t prepared.

Wake up to hear from people freaking out about the cartel, and I check the news. 8 members, all dead. Some of them done up in the most tortured fucked up method I ever seen. Rivals? No…. No nothing was taken or destroyed. Felt personal. I wanted them dead, and I don’t admonish who did it, just felt overkill. I was more mad they made my job harder. Next 3 days, I find another man, a bar owner who’s brother is a mid level player. I get info from the brother, and in return, the brother gets to walk. I did inform him that if he still talks to his brother and his friends… I’m taking his tongue. He was more than happy to explain everything after I killed his bouncer in front of him, a bouncer who just like the husband from 3 nights ago, thought a woman needed his hands when that was the last thing she needed. This time, I get to the scene… and I almost threw up. I seen torture. I’ve been tortured. I done tortured. This… this was too much. This was carnage, as I saw over a dozen dead bodies, all ripped apart and sliced up… and some just tied upside down carrying their own heads.

I don’t know who was doing this, and while I have no sympathy for the men at all and a planning on killing them… I could tell whoever did this was worse than these men. I found a survivor. Some 13 year old boy, only knew Spanish. Mine was terrible, but he said the thing moved too fast to be human, and was too big to be human at that. Mutant? I thought that was it. Heard from a guy at the motel I was sleeping at that apparently the cartel was getting all the enforcers to search for the man. I considered what to do. I decided… to let them both have it. The cartel deserved to burn. But this guy… he was odd. Something never made sense. Maybe I only said that because the heat got worse and it bothered me. I just didn’t feel like carrying 90 pounds of equipment and running across a desert to gun down someone who was doing my job for me, or guys who deserved it, but outnumbered me 30 to 1. Again, I made the right move. What followed that night was the biggest massacre in the towns history. 30 men, all dead, most missing heads and body parts, and all torn apart. Nearly everyone left town in terror, leaving those who couldn’t run… and myself. The cartel was near dead, having lost all its enforcers. The leaders though, well… the brother informed me. He begged me to get him out of town when he saw my van, and promised me a lot of money if I got him away the cartel got.

I got the info of where the cartel was, and he got to escape the town in a very nice box I buried fa4 away from it. I got to the cartel leaders place… and I finally found who was killing them when I walked into a room and saw the thing tear a man in half. It wasn’t human. It was this… large creature with dreadlocks and strange black armor. It looked like a monster in every way, and let me tell you… it was an uglier son of a bitch when I took off the helmet. It clicked at me… and turned invisible.

What followed next, was the longest 5 hours of my life. I won’t go into detail of what happened next… but I almost died more times that night than I ever had as the punisher or as a soldier. I winged it a few times, but mostly… I was trying to escape it. Two of the cartel leaders walked in on me setting up a C4 trap for the thing… and I almost considered asking them for help. I really did. Than I saw the coke one of them was carrying. Even when running for their fucking lives… they had to be rich. So I killed them both, and that gave the thing ample time to jump me. I fought guys tougher than me. But I never fought one who TOYED with me. I fought dirty, throwing sand in its eyes and biting it and kicking the crotch, and all I did was lightly Scar it. I was like the wife of that man when she tried to fight back. I hurt him, but in the end, it was the one throwing me around like a chew toy. It threw me right through a wall, almost breaking every bone in my body, when it touched its mask. I heard a voice, a Mexican one. I heard a Spanish word, one I recognized. Bitch. Than it began laughing. I was angry about that… and shot the C4 right behind it.

When I woke up, I was no longer in the location I was before, but I recognized I was being dragged away. The thing was dragging me, over 200 pounds, like I was a puppy. Only reason it didn’t carry me… was it was missing an arm and its back was torn up. When I got a look at the thing, I almost threw up. Mandibles on the face, and huge bug eyes. It was disgusting, and it was pissed. I tried to move, but the C4 knocked me out too much and I felt shrapnel at my side. The creature tossed me aside and I broke my arm as I landed 10 feet away. I didn’t scream, but I nearly did when I saw where I was. Right back at the motel, as I saw the corpses of all the cartel leaders. The only ones not there, were the ones I killed. The creature looked me over a bit, nearly carrying me one handed, as it eyed me.

It could have snapped my neck in an instant, but for some reason… it dropped me to the ground. It took something out of its back, and tossed it to me. A piece of shrapnel from the C4. The creature lifted its hand up… and than stuck it’s thumb out. Than, slowly; it moved up… and the creature almost seemed to grin, before I saw it disappear in a flash of light. Best I can guess is… it decided I impressed it enough, and killing me as I was… was a low move. I was crippled and near dead trying to kill it, and it must have mistaken it for a failed suicide move. It took me hours to crawl back to the room, get any stuff I left, and escape, before the cops came. That was all a year ago… and I’m back in that town. Less than half the people from town are here, still horror stories of what happened to the cartel. But now, a new cartel is in town. One even worse than the one before. One I have come… not to hunt. You see, I came prepared. More prepared than I ever have in my life. The weatherman said it would be a heatwave even worse than last year… and I hope he’s right. This time… I’m ready. This time, when I see the creature… I’m not running. I fought harder than I ever had this year, made a lot of new toys, and now… it’s time the thing that thinks it’s ME… to find out what I can really do when I'm hunting YOU.