Wildcard
The Punisher is a
vigilante who considers
killing,
kidnapping,
extortion,
coercion,
threats of violence and
torture to be acceptable crime-fighting tactics. Driven by the deaths of his family, who were killed by the
mob when they witnessed a gangland execution in
New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all criminals in general by using all manner of weaponry.
[1] His family's killers were the first to be slain.
[2] A war
veteran, Castle is a master of
martial arts, stealth tactics, and a wide variety of weapons.
The Punisher's brutal nature and willingness to kill made him a novel character in mainstream
American comic books in 1974. By the late 1980s, he was part of a wave of psychologically troubled antiheroes and was featured in several monthly publications, including
The Punisher War Journal,
The Punisher War Zone, and
The Punisher Armory. Several movie adaptations have been released, one in
1989, which features
Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher, another in
2004, with the character played by
Thomas Jane and a third in
2008 with
Ray Stevenson as the character.