The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe

[cyberghostface]

This was Garth Ennis's first Punisher story for Marvel. There's a lot that could be said but... well, that cover speaks for itself, doesn't it?



Flash forward to the present and the X-Men and the Avengers are having a battle with an alien attack force in Central Park. Frank Castle's wife and kid were at the park at the time.



He ends up shooting some other X-Men but is knocked out. Wolverine ends up slashing his face.


Castle is freed from prison by a secret society.


Spider-Man is fighting Venom in the sewer when Venom ends up getting fried by rigged electrical wires.





Punisher gets help from Microchip, who in this universe lost both of his legs to Dr. Octopus. He manages to kill the Hulk (after he turns back into Banner) and the Kingpin. He gets arrested but is broken out again by the society.

He goes after Dr. Doom next.



Frank steals all of Punisher's equipment, which includes a nuclear bomb.





Wolverine was in Japan at the time on a false lead from the Punisher. They later meet up again.





I think it should be said that Wolverine has actually been reduced to his skeleton before in actual canon and he's been able to regenerate his muscle and skin.

Punisher is arrested again.



Punisher escapes again and months later he's fighting Captain America. Cap tells him that he used to be soldier, but now he's just a disgrace.



The Punisher's last target is Daredevil. Beforehand he ends up killing the leader of the cabal when they want to keep him as their own private weapon against any future threats.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Oh God, this.
The only way it truly works is if every single hero and villain in the Marvel Universe picks up the idiot ball and runs with it into a minefield made up of other idiot balls.

I can believe that he might have gotten the drop on the X-Men in the beginning (popping caps in Cyclops' face? Damn) but this story requires us to believe in an unstoppable Punisher and a hardcore class of victimized civilians as well as a world in which the entire mutant race can be lured to the Moon and nuked.

Fred Hembeck's method of killing the entire Marvel stable of characters about as realistic.

I love it. "You murdered some of this nation's greatest heroes... and also a couple of X-Men." Fuck those mutants, amirite?

Sigh.

[halloweenjack]

The only way it truly works is if every single hero and villain in the Marvel Universe picks up the idiot ball and runs with it into a minefield made up of other idiot balls.

That was also The Boys, only stretched out to sixty-some issues. (I'm not really sure because I dropped out well before the end. From what I saw of it on s_d, I didn't miss much.)

[beyondthefringe]

At least with that series, Ennis had the advantage of creating the world and the supers in it... and he made most of them either figurative or literal idiots. It's not like this story, where we're supposed to believe that Frank could take down Doctor Doom, Captain America, or Wolverine in such a fashion.

[sagrada]

The punchline is "superhero reboots are just papering over a fundamental flaw in the genre", which is both hard to argue with and maddening after years of kind of mentioning problems with the superhero comics industry. There was MM's dad, but MM could not matter less, so that was a wash.

[doctor_spanky]

I was gonna argue that the match-ups aren't the point of the story, but the title is "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe" so it's clearly meant to be selling these fights, and they're not all that well thought out. So I can get behind that

I still just don't really care about "who would win?" speculations because the answer every time is "who's writing it?"

[liliaeth]

Or which character is more popular and won the vote.

My personal head canon is...

[7dialsmystery]

...Frank had a nervous breakdown after the death of his family. He might have killed Cyclops but there's no Secret Society and no murder spree or nukes. The other Supes took him down immediately and he's drugged to his eyeballs in some mental institution fantasizing this.