The Punisher fights crime

[cyberghostface]

From Spectacular Spider-Man #81.

Comments

[tripodeca113]

Did they retcon this so he was drugged into acting this way, or did they quietly forget it?

[starwolf_oakley]

For a while in the 1980s, it was that he was drugged. Then it was quietly forgotten like various "Ooh, what were we thinking" story elements.

[bj_l]

This is the kind of ridiculous Punisher I can get behind.

[crinos]

Likewise.

IIRC when the Punisher was introduced he was supposed to be a villain. He never reached this level of over the top goofiness, but he wasn't meant to be someone who the reader admired or sympathized with. He was the guy who got conned into hunting Spider-man by a Supervillain because he didn't do the proper research to learn that he was a good egg, which I imagine is something that inevitably happens when you become a murderous vigilante. Eventually you're gonna plug someone whose completely innocent.

[laughing_tree]

In the Punisher's first story, he definitely wasn't portrayed as a villain. He tries to kill Spider-Man, but it's written in the style of a typical superheroes-fight-then-team-up situation. The story ends with the two peacefully parting ways, without the former making any attempts to turn the latter over to authorities or change his ways.

[wizardru]

I disagree. He was, at best, an anti-hero, IMHO. He was hired by the Jackal to kill Spiderman originally. While he certainly believed in vigilante justice, his backstory of wanting revenge for his family hadn't been written yet. His subsequent appearances had him callously letting civilians getting killed if it let him catch some killers and he also had little issue with leaving people alive. He had no code against killing, but he also didn't kill consistently; he came gunning for Nightcrawler and Spider-Man when he thought they'd framed him for some sniper murders (because he also wasn't terribly bright), but when they found out it was Jigsaw, they left him alive for the authorities to capture. He considered killing police officers, he murdered with almost random provocation and was generally an asshole. He pulled guns and shot Spider-man, Captain America, Nightcrawler, Daredevil and others. He had little issue working with criminals when it suited his ends.

At this point, he had already broken out of prison twice (this being Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #82). It was made pretty clear that the Punisher had basically had a mental break; yes, it was a little out of left field, but it didn't feel that off, given what an ass he'd been up to that point. He didn't become a major character until the miniseries, which then rolled over into a regular series...and even then, he still wasn't a one-man murder machine, yet. I remember the first issue written by Mike Baron, where he says "Rubber Bullets. Honest."

Yes, his first three appearances all fall into the pattern of 'Punisher decides to murder Spiderman, realizes he should kill someone else, tries and Spider-man stop him, then he escapes'. But he was primarily no different than a lot of the grey-area antagonists of the 70s. I remember reading it when it was new as a kid and the Punisher did NOT feel like a good guy to me, then. Of course, I also wasn't that taken with him in the Zeck miniseries, either. I only read a few issues of his ongoing because of the aforementioned Mike Baron. Honestly, I think the only really good take on him has been Ennis, even though I'm not a huge fan of it, per se.

[dcbanacek]

They did a "What If?" about that.

EVERYBODY came after the Punisher when he managed to kill Spider-Man.

[glprime]

Always an entertaining night is watching the Punisher clips from Daredevil on YouTube and then moseying down to the comments section for everyone who wants to praise the mass murderer for "having the guts to take out the trash and not be a pussy like all those other so-called heroes." And so on.

[cyberghostface]

Wonder how many of those commenters are Ennis.