Discoball10
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Mar 29, 2026 12:50 AM
Discoball10
5459
271
6
ExitThroughThePanaderia
Locally a family had a yard sale yesterday. I pulled over and as I was walking toward it I noticed that version of the American flag that fascist police love to hang with the blue line in it. Immediately turned around. I'm not giving them a dime of my money. Times are tough, but my stance against fascism is tougher.
JustSomePersonThere
Bravo. I’m proud of you for that.
Sebastopol140
That's a complicated one.
Marsupialmessiah
Something stuck. I dont see punisher car stickers on magats anymore. Just some old mdude driving a 1974 f100, that cant, i swear, do 0-60 without backfiring twice, in 2 weeks.
The701
Some around where I live still haven't caught on. One even has a thin-blue-line-flag Punisher sticker on their pickup, which is.......wow. I'm sure the entirety of their knowledge of this is, "his name's 'Punisher,' and I like violence, and his symbol is an angry-looking SKULL!"
Daliena06
I also haven't really read the comics, besides what occasionally appears being posted on social media specifically to mock those idiots, but far as I'm aware even from that limited exposure, Frank Castle is a broken husk of a man, and *he knows that*. He does horrible things to horrible people because it's the only thing he's got left to live for, and he very, VERY much objects to anyone else trying to follow his "example", instead pointing to Captain America for a role model to actually follow.
OmnibusLatinName
I saw some one post here that Frank Castle is on Frank Castle's list and I thought that summed it up nicely.
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
Pretty much got it. I’m
A huge punisher fan. Basically when he decided to become the punisher he just decided to become a tool/weapon of punishment. Not going to say he does not get a bit of satisfaction from time to time(see The Slavers arc), but yeah, just empty and killing bad people.
The701
And that's still far more introspection than some of these conservative/libertarian types will engage in. There's the billionaire psychopaths like Marc Andreessen, who's said he does "zero introspection," and "introspection causes emotional disorders." I don't think that's an unusual take for those sorts of people: Empathy is bad, considering first-order or second-order consequences of your actions is bad. All selfishness, all the time.
kyro
I've read a lot of Punisher comics. You are correct. No Punisher story is ever supposed to be uplifting.
Most people by now have seen the panels of Frank meeting his cop fan-boys and threatening them. But I encourage folks to read this one-shot if they want to have an understanding of the Punisher.
/gallery/punisher-max-jLMnE
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
That’s the beginning of Gary Ennis’s Punisher Max(18+) The Slavers story arc. Frank just tortures the fuck out of sex traffickers. It’s far from up lifting, but there’s some enjoyment to be found when he kills them.
Daliena06
Hoooo boy, I had a feeling what that was gonna be before I even opened the link, and yep.. That one was..
Well I'm not sure I quite have the words.
kyro
It's awful. If you read it and felt gross, you're getting it.
The Punisher's creator, Gerry Conway, has gone on wax explicitly comparing cops flying the Punisher skull to an American government building flying a Confederate flag.
ElusiveThing
One of the best aspects, or perhaps the best, of the character is that he tells people he isn't some example to follow. He has quite a complex relation with himself, because he feels he has to keep going, but also knows he is a bad person.
I'd also really encourage folks to read at least Miller's Punisher story arcs, they're great comic books!
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
Miller or Ennis??
ElusiveThing
Urgh, sorry, Ennis. But his appearance in Miller's comics are great too.
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
I was picking up what you were putting down. Just thought maybe I missed Frank or Mark(Millar) Punisher comics.
Draygen
Yeah, his targets are the people that slip through the cracks in the system, the ones that get off on technicalities even as they blatantly admit their misdeeds. He'd rather a world that doesn't need him, where he can quietly off himself in some abandoned warehouse while heroes battle space aliens.
ElusiveThing
It has two distinct layers for the reader. You root for him, but you also loathe him. I also think the Netflix series portrayed that quite well, he very overtly said he is not looking for pity or any mitigating circumstances. Very different from an anti-hero like Wolverine.
Draygen
Thomas Jane's version, him just coldly saying, "You haven't heard? I'm over it." That cold detatchment... Shivers! But to the uninitiated reader, Frank Castle was originally a foil to Spiderman, who has all the power but refuses to kill while being mired in emotional and social hang ups, versus Frank Castle, the normal human who doesn't hesitate to take a life if he believes that person deserves it. The shift from villain to anti-hero was important.
kyro
Have you watched DareDevil: Born Again yet?
It's no spoiler to tell you Frank returns. And the exchanges between him and Matt have brought me to tears they're so good.