“Frank Castle was born ‘Frank Castiglione’ in the United States to first-generation Italian
immigrant parents. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving during the Southeast
Asian conflicts. In between four tours of duty and while on leave, he married and had two children. His
wife’s name was Maria and his children were Christie and Frank Jr. Upon completion of his final tour of
duty, Frank returned to the U.S. to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his participation in a
classified operation.
During a routine picnic with his family in Central Park, his son, Frank Jr., witnessed a mob
execution. To protect themselves, the criminals shot the entire Castle family and left them for dead. Frank
Castle survived and, after seeing the men responsible go free, lost all faith in the justice system and the
courts. He disappeared, and resurfaced six months later and The Punisher. It was at this time that Castle
began his vigilante murder spree. His modus operandi is simple: the execution of members of the criminal
population of the world. “
~Paraphrased from The Punisher Anniversary Magazine
I can’t fully explain why I used to collect this comic, or why I liked the character. Maybe I ws able
to empathize with him (if one can fully empathize with a psychopath) 
due to the fact that he lost his family,
and the people responsible went free. Without a Higher reason to identify such actions, I understood that
emptiness and anger at the world for allowing such a person to go free. I have never been a lover of murder
on any scale, and so the Punisher was more a catharsis than someone I could identify with in terms of ideals.
The basic desire to see criminals not get away with a crime is still in me, as it always has been. Also, the
love of life is also strong in me (see Batman), where in the Punisher it wasn’t nearly as all-encompassing.
Every life is a gift from God, and every life is sacred, and so I do not believe in the taking of life. I will
admit that there have been times in my life where I’ve thought that it would be easier to just kill someone who is so bent on evil and
malice that they will never reform, but in this case, definitely, the easier road is not the correct road.
To me, the Punisher died at the end of the Double-Edge Omega, where he was executed for the
death of Nick Fury. That is the way I see the Punisher ending. Not as a happy ending with a new family,
more children , and a healthy future, but as a tragic Shakespearian close. The series, Marvel Knights,
where the Punisher was a demon-hunting supernatural gunslinger is definitely not for me. The Punisher was
a character that
buried himself by never rising above the ashes of the murder of his family. While I do admit that the
criminals that met him never hurt anyone else (where Batman’s enemies continue to escape and hurt others),
I do not condone murder as an ends to a means. The comic was not something that I could learn from, but
merely a cathartic release for tension felt whenever I read the paper or watch the news.
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