One of the funniest concepts and I always try to not throw out ones not so named or mentioned due to time...
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Back in the 1990's DC was very busy throwing a lot of events out. A number of them was shaking things up by changing the long established mantles characters had and revamping them for a new era. For every Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern or Jack Knight as Starman ...there was Jared Stevens as Fate.
The idea was one that DC took dormant characters like Starman , Manhunter and Dr. Fate and used Zero Hour to revamp them all. Starman and Dr. Fate had long been characters involved in the Justice Society of America in various comics from the 1940's to 1990's. The characters of Ted Knight and Kent & Inza Nelson had managed with the others to defy aging with spells and powers they had. This lasted until 1994 when Zero Hour removed the JSA finally by having them all get aged out nearly and forced into retirement.
Enter Jared Stevens who was a more 90's grim era Dr. Fate. Stevens was a treasure hunter who was hired by the Nelsons to retrieve the helmet from Egypt so they could become Dr. Fate again . Instead during an attack the Nelsons were killed and Stevens somehow got boned with the objects becoming a Rob Zombie version of Fate.
The character was universally panned by nearly everyone for how bad it looked and the book ran 23 issues. DC not wanting to admit the entire Fate thing was pretty stupid tried to make it work by having the character appear in other books as well as doing a 2nd series called "Book of Fate". It ran 12 issues ending in 1998. Finally 5 years after the change to this DC threw in the towel and had Stevens killed in the 1st issue of JSA in 1999. The character would later go back to his classic look and the whole Stevens era was mentioned only a couple times in JSA.
A lot of people have joked about the various stupid Punisher ideas Marvel has floated the last couple decades. But one of the silliest moments actually happened in 1993. But we have to look back at some things about this period for why they ran this storyline.
In the mid 1980's as TV and media started to really catch on with anti-heroes Marvel finally released a Punisher miniseries. The popularity of The Punisher exploded and Marvel quickly approved a regular series. This made them approve a number of other spin-off titles due to how popular the Punisher character had became. By 1992 the Punisher had 4 monthly titles (Punisher Armory was basically a quarterly title detailing his weapons...I shit you not) , various mini-series and one shots and a number of appearances in other books. By then Marvel had pretty much over done the character and his popularity was waning.
Over at DC the company was doing events and one of them was Death of Superman and then Reign of the Superman through 1992/1993. This had exploded sales for the 4 monthly Superman titles as fans raced to pick up and follow all 4 of these characters claiming to be Superman. Its here Marvel really doomed the Punisher books. They decided if Reign of Supermen worked and sales exploded for Superman group books then they could give the 3 Punisher monthlies the same juice.
The storyline began in December 1993 and began with Frank Castle deciding to blow up a building with a group of mob bosses inside. But he ends up being caught in the building and appears to have died. Soon enough we get the black UK Punisher (Outlaw who appeared 2 years earlier in an arc) , a yuppie Punisher and finally Lynn Michaels (who took Punisher mantle awhile) appear. All ready to take Castle's mantle.
Finally at the end Frank returns as its revealed was wounded pretty badly and nursed back to health. He would soon take back his mantle and go on as Punisher ending the Suicide Run arc.
Unlike Reign of the Supermen this arc did little for the Punisher group titles and after limping another 2 years they all would be cancelled. Marvel realizing they had over exposed the character with too many titles. Even today the character barely can support a monthly title.