The Punisher: Ghosts of Innocents was a 2 part mini-series where Frank thinks (and maybe he did it's been a long time since I read it) he killed a whole bunch of kids and the kids' ghosts haunt him and he even thinks about taking his own life as punishment.
Well, "casting shade" means ridiculing someone, which has happened to Frank plenty of times. I just find it odd you keep using that term. In fact, it sounds more like what Garth Ennis would do to a superhero character than what you are asking for them to do to Frank.
Last edited by Agent Z; 11-15-2021 at 08:35 AM.
Here is a question for you readers who are a little more verse in law than I am. To my knowledge Frank Castle, the Punisher, has only been brought to trail once and that was the John Ostander series when he is executed for his crimes. Later we found out it was faked. Now even though the punishment was faked what could the courts charge him with considering most of his crimes would be consider double jeopardy since he has been tried from the once already. Has he even been pardoned for his crimes? Is his crimes overlooked now? Or is his status simply shoot on sight?
The skull symbol is what makes the Punisher visually interesting. Without it, he's just some guy in a trench coat.
I haven't read the story, but if Frank was found guilty of a crime, but somehow schemed to avoid punishment, and said sentence was not legally commuted, nor his crimes pardoned by an authority legally empowered to do so, then Frank is still a highly dangerous criminal circumventing the law and should really shoot himself.
This isn't really about double jeopardy at all, since the offender never served the sentence for which he had been convicted. You can't be ordered to serve 10 years and then have your brother, or your gardener, or your boss go serve the time for you and call it even Steven. And no one is sticking a needle in a blow-up doll as proxy for you, either, if given the death penalty. You can't "fake" your way out of it. If Frank did, then he's just a criminal on the run. The conviction sticks and the punishment has to be meted.
But this is comics...so there's no telling what b/s writers have established in order to prop up their longstanding violent male fantasy.
From what I understand he has never been pardoned. And his crimes are over looked as long as the story needs for them to be. heroes like Spiderman and Daredevil who hate crime and risk their lives to stop it every day, want people held accountable for their actions, no one is above the law and people should answer for their crimes some how for get that when the Punisher shows up. Let Frank get a pass for his actions and then two issues later bring down a cop who killed a criminal because you know no one is above the law blah blah blah.
"Oh here is a guy who just killed 5 people on Monday but here on Tuesday I need him to help me stop Kingpin's plot but it is okay because he is using rubber bullets around me. But the second I swing away he will go back on his mass murder spree. Typical Frank but you know what can I do?"
Or on the rare time A Hero does decide after a team up they are going to take him in there is always the random criminal that Frank pumps a couple bullets into and the herp has to choose bring him in or save the bad guy?
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Internal logic in that regard seems to evolve.
I remember that Red Skull for a time couldn't be charged with his old crimes because he 'died' and was in a different body.
Not that Magneto gave a damn about that technicality
I remember another Peter David story where a guy was executed, came back and was then released.
Hopefully by now, it's a cliche that's been done away with.
And with Castle, it wouldn't even matter. So they can't try him for the hundreds of deaths they executed him for? Well, shucks.
Get him for the latest 200 :P
Yeah, that's a fictional construct. American jurisprudence concerns itself with mens rea, which is to say that one key component of a criminal act is the mind behind it, not just the corporeal form said mind occupied at the time the crime was committed. So in all likelihood in the real world if you committed a crime, but science advanced to the point that you could do a complete brain transplant of the offender into a different body, the offender would still be very much subject to criminal prosecution and conviction for their past crimes.
Like I said, it's comics and writers come up with all manner of nonsense to keep the fantasy going.
But you're right, I'm sure Frank has killed enough people since that story arc that he could easily serve multiple life sentences.
I just want to see Frank/Punisher back in the comics. I don't care anymore what other people use his logo for. Let them...they are the ones who look like morons.
I asked a guy with a big giant flag in the back of his truck a few weeks back if he knew where that logo came from (of course his colors on the flag were not the same as Frank's). The guy stopped, looked at me and then kept on walking. Now I was not going to start a argument with the guy or anything I was just going to give him some knowledge on where the logo came from and who created it and what it really stood for. I believe the guy did not care. Whatever.
I have been a Punisher fan my entire life. Do I think some people out there use the logo in the wrong way? Yes I do. Do I take it offensive? I did at first but not anymore.
I just do not want to see Marvel put Frank on the shelf because they think they have this huge problem on their hands when I believe they don't.
"Life is too short so love the one you got cause you might get run over or you might get shot" - Sublime
That's a reasonable point. My only gripe is that you have people in the real world who use (a distortion of) what the Punisher represents and embodies to justify themselves for wanting to inflict violence, pain, and even death on those they disagree with and hold in contempt, so I would still say that Marvel/Disney gains nothing and risks a lot by not addressing that in some way.
The spider is always on the hunt.