Francis Castle Jr. (Earth-58732)

"Those who do evil to others-the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists-you will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me...the Punisher."

―The Punisher ^[src]

Francis "Frank" Castle Jr. is a former FBI agent and U.S. Army Delta Force operator who became the vigilante known as the Punisher after his family was slaughtered by gunmen hired by Tampa crime boss Howard Saint.

Biography[]

The Punisher[]

On his final assignment for the FBI, Castle played his undercover role as Otto Krieg perfectly, but the operation span out of control and a young man, Bobby Saint, was inadvertently killed.

Bobby was one of the sons of Howard Saint, a ruthless mob boss in Tampa. Inflamed by the death of their son, Howard and his wife, Livia, prepare a mission of vengeance. Saint's lieutenants performed a massacre at the Castle family reunion in Puerto Rico; among the victims are Frank's wife, his son and his parents. Castle himself was shot multiple times by the killers, who left him for dead after rigging nearby fuel pumps and the dock to explode. Castle was blown off the dock by the shock wave but survived and was rescued and nursed back to health by Manuel Candelaria, a local witchdoctor, who was out to sea when the massacre took place.

Until this moment, he has spent his entire life adhering strictly to the law. However, even five months after his family's murder, Castle saw that the authorities had no intention of pursuing the men responsible, since Howard Saint had them in his pocket, thus making him and his entire gang above the law. Drawing upon all he had learned in 20 years, Castle set in motion a diabolical plan to punish all of those responsible. In the process, Saint learned that Castle was still alive and sent Harry Heck and the Russian to kill him, however both were killed by Castle.

Frank took the fight to Howard, setting up Howard's right hand man and wife to be having an affair leading Howard to dispose of them each himself. Castle attack Howard's club Saints & Sinners, killing the hired guns and Howard's other son before killing Howard himself. Before Castle left Tampa, he left a portion of Howard Saint's money for his neighbors. His revenge was taken, but now he would continue his vigilante mission against others who deserve punishment, known only as the Punisher.

Dirty Laundry[]

"Do you know the difference between justice and punishment?"

―The Punisher ^[src]

Frank wakes up in the back of his van, after dreaming about his son being killed. He collects some dirty clothes he wants to wash in a laundry, but he meets some street criminals who just arrived with two cars. One of them, the leader, takes a prostitute and starts beating her, then he takes her to a deserted alley and rapes her. Frank doesn't intervene and proceeds with his laundry. He doesn't react even when the thugs takes a passing boy and start beating him up. After a while, Castle comes out the laundry, and the gang leader tries to scare him with his gun, but he just walks to the shop on the other side of the road. In here, he briefly talks with the owner, a man on a wheelchair who got paralyzed after trying to defend a girl from the same gang; when the man starts complaining about how the whole world is going wrong, Frank buys a Jack Daniel's bottle and comes out of the shop, heading to the thugs, who are now threatening the boy with a knife.

Rapidly, Frank kills all the gang members using only his bottle and the knife and gun that two of them had. Then, he proceeds to take on the gang leader, breaking his right arm and both his legs. When the thug is helpless on the pavement, Frank starts pouring all the whiskey on him. When he's done, he lights a zippo, asks the thug if he knows the difference between justice and punishment, and walks away, leaving the zippo in front of him. Immediately after, the prostitute the criminal raped some minutes before shows up, takes the lighter and sets fire on him.

Just before leaving with his van and his clothes, Frank is stopped by the boy he saved, who tries to give him back a shirt he dropped. Castle tells him he can keep it if he wants, since it has a hole in it. While he goes away, the boy reveals the trademark Punisher shirt.

Character traits[]

The Punisher is driven towards eradicating organized crime. He is merciless towards his enemies and ruthless in his actions. As he is concerned, Frank Castle is "dead, he died with his family," that now he is simply the Punisher. However, upon given his name, he still accepts his name all the same. The Punisher is highly skilled in unarmed combat and proficient with most forms of firearms.

The Punisher possesses no superhuman abilities and succeeds solely through ingenuity and the rigorous training of his military upbringing, a finely honed killer instinct and an extensive arsenal of weapons culled from fallen foes and allies.

Powers and Abilities[]

Abilities[]

Master Combatant: Thanks to years of strict training and the achievement of physical perfection, The Punisher is a dangerous hand-to-hand combatant. Being able to deal with multiple enemies using nothing but his ferocity and skill.
Master Marksman: As a former soldier and FBI agent, The Punisher has a vast range of skill with rifles, pistols, shotguns and even archery, besides being incredibly precise and quick when using them, being able to rapidly detect and neutralize his enemies without having time to react.
Expert Marksman: As a former soldier, Frank Castle has a vast range of skill with rifles, pistols, knives explosives and even bowery, besides being incredibly precise and quick when using them, able to Rapidly detect and neutralize his enemies without time to react.
Interrogation Expert: The Punisher knows how to break the truth out of his enemies when they're hiding information that may be useful for him by applying any means necessary, going from physical torture to horrible ways of threatening their lives if they don't cooperate.
Demolitions Expert: The Punisher seems to have a knowledge about preparation and right time for explosions to have a desirable effect, as it was shown when he calculated and carefully selected the cars in the parking lot to blow up in order to make a flaming skull symbol that could've been seen from height.
Expert Tactician: Armed solely with conventional weapons and motivated by a fanatical hatred for criminals like those who murdered his family, the Punisher has single-handedly incapacitated up to dozens well-armed and experienced opponents in a single encounter and escaped uninjured. It is his military training and his attention to detail that allows him to achieve this.
High Pain Tolerance: Despite his unparalleled skill, The Punisher constantly gets injured during his war against crime, and even with this, he has shown almost superhuman levels of pain tolerance, being able to survive gunshots in spots that would be fatal for anyone, getting beaten to a pulp and still have enough strength to fight back. This is probably due to the pleasure and motivation of killing every single criminal since the day his family was murdered and he was thought to be dead too.

Equipment[]

The Punisher's outfit upon going after Saint for the last time was a form-fitting black Kevlar vest with a large white skull on his chest.

Punisher chose not to utilize any costume outside of a black shirt with a white skull splashed across the front. His other clothing, which sometimes included combat boots, blazers, leather jackets, trench coats, bulletproof vests, body armor, black battle dress uniforms, and camouflage outfits was worn for the sake of protection or camouflage in urban and wilderness areas

Weapons[]

The Punisher employs a vast array of conventional firearms including machine guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives, explosives and other weapons culled from common and organized criminals and military sources during his operations. A vast majority of his weapons have roots in military forces around the world, and typically employs weapons and accessories limited to military operations.

The Punisher often customizes his weapons for greater effectiveness with both standard and custom items including magnified optics, reflex sights, night vision scopes, flashlights, grenade launchers, sound and flash suppressors, bipods, high-capacity magazines and drums and various ammunition including hollow point or armor piercing bullets.

Relationships[]

Frank Castle Sr. - Father; deceased.
Betty Castle - Mother; deceased.
Maria Castle - Wife; deceased.
Will Castle - Son; deceased.
Joan - Friend and former neighbor.
Spacker Dave - Friend and former neighbor.
Nathaniel Bumpo - Friend and former neighbor.
Micky Duka - Enemy turned ally.
Jimmy Weeks - Former FBI partner.
Manuel Candelaria - Ally.
Howard Saint - Enemy and victim; deceased.
Quentin Glass - Enemy; deceased.
The Russian - Enemy; deceased.
John Saint - Enemy and victim; deceased.
Livia Saint - Enemy; deceased.
Harry Heck - Enemy and victim; deceased.
Lincoln - Enemy and victim; deceased.
Cutter - Enemy and victim; deceased.

Appearances/Actors[]

Earth-58732 (2 films)
- The Punisher (First appearance) - Thomas Jane
- Dirty Laundry (Unofficial) - Thomas Jane

Behind the scenes[]

On the poster, Thomas Jane was credited as Tom Jane, in the end credits, his name was still Thomas.
While filming their knife fight scene, Thomas Jane accidentally stabbed Kevin Nash.
Thomas Jane trained for nearly 7 months with the United States Navy SEALs and gained more than 20 pounds of muscle in doing so.
Thomas Jane wears a blond wig in the opening sequence. Coincidently, Jane is blond in real life but he had already dyed his hair black for the part of Frank Castle.
With the supervision of a trainer, Thomas Jane worked out extensively for the role with two hours of weight lifting and cardio, sometimes twice a day and a rigorous diet of health shakes. Jane also trained with multiple firearms and weaponry.
Director Jonathan Hensleigh and Avi Arad said in many interviews that Thomas Jane was the first and only actor to be asked to play the title role. Jane initially turned down the role twice, as he did not see himself as a superhero actor. Jane said, when asked the second time to play the Punisher, that he became interested when Arad sent Tim Bradstreet's artwork of the character. After learning more about the Punisher, he accepted.

Trivia[]

The declaration that Frank Castle writes near the end of the film, listing the basis of his vigilante philosophy in numbered order, form the beginning of his war journal, an ongoing diary of his campaign against organized crime. It was the basis for the long-running comic book "The Punisher War Journal".
Originally, The Punisher was supposed to have a sidekick, David Lieberman, alias Microchip, the Intel man. He was written out as director Jonathan Hensleigh had an intense dislike of the character.
This film incarnation of The Punisher is the only one where Frank Castle engages the murderers of his family rather than him tackling other foes after the genesis of him becoming The Punisher.