My Punishment.

In 1973, writer Gerry Conway conceived of a gun-toting vigilante to pit against Spider-man. He passed a rough doodle along to artist John Romita, suggesting the name “The Executioner” and hinting at a small skull motif. Romita finessed the design, enlarging the skull, and in 1974 The Punisher made his debut in the pages of The Amazing Spider-man #129. At the time, Conway had Spidey facing off against the diabolical Jackal, and intended the Punisher to be little more than a pawn of that villain. He had no idea the popularity the character would gain, starring in his own title by the ‘80s.

I've never really cared for the Punisher in the anti-hero role later writers crafted for him. While many comic book superheroes are vigilantes in the sense that they operate outside the law, most aren't cold-blooded killers. Frank Castle became the Punisher after his family was gunned down by mobsters. When Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered, he too lost a piece of his sanity as he became the Batman. Yet while guns became anathema to Batman, a weapon he swore never to use in his fight against criminals, the Punisher embraced the very arsenal which ripped his family from him, turning villains instruments of destruction against them. The best heroes evolve out of tragedy, and Spider-man's had his share of losses, from Uncle Ben to Gwen Stacy. These tragedies made the webslinger more vigilant than vigilante, and a more responsible protector of human life.

I've seen Dolph Lundgren's 1989 depiction of The Punisher. It's neither a great movie, nor well-acted, and the iconic skull logo appears only on the base of his knife and not on his costume. At the heart of it there is the basic revenge story. Man loses family; man goes out and shoots everyone responsible for it. In sparing a mobster's children he has his moment of humanity and redemption, but there are no illusions about what he's become. When the first images of Thomas Jane appeared for 2004's The Punisher, the skull was on his chest, but as a clean t-shirt any kid could find a convention or comic book store. It didn't seem promising, I didn't have much interest in it, and bad reviews from both Jerry and Rey further convinced me that there was no rush to see it.

Two years later, I would see the DVD in a sale at my company for a mere seven dollars. I figured it was worth at least that much, and couldn't be any worse than Daredevil. The design of the character had evolved from the early posters, and the skull was more distressed. Jane looked the part, moreso than Lundgren, and I'd later learn how his commitment ranged from intense body building to suffering through most of his own stunts. The movie posters and promotional artwork from Punisher comics cover painter Tim Bradstreet magnificently bordered between illustration and reality. The movie had a good lead, and great visuals. Everything else was horribly, horribly wrong, as I'll now elaborate upon without regard for spoilers.

In the comics, Frank is in the park with his wife and kids when they see something they aren't supposed to, and the mob guns them all down. He's the only survivor and he snaps. It's a simple enough formula. In the film, this apparently isn't enough. When a police operation orchestrated(though not solely) by Castle results in the death of a mobster's son, he becomes their object of vengeance. For the mobster, played by John Travolta, killing Castle would be enough. His wife, the lovely Laura Harring, wants his family dead. Conveniently, his entire extended family happens to be at a reunion on a small island, so an army of gunmen can take out Castle's aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, nieces, nephews, second-cousins, first-cousins-once-removed, grandparents, father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate and more in addition to his wife and son. It's not enough to simply kill his nuclear family.

Castle is the last to be shot. Then he's left on a gasoline soaked pier. Rather than finish things with a head shot, professional mobsters set the dock on fire, and assume the resulting explosion will finish the job. Instead, it propels the bullet-ridden protagonist out to sea, where he washes up on another island to recuperate. He returns much later, indicated by a beard, and collects his father's guns as well as the last thing his son ever gave him, a t-shirt with a skull on it. When the man who helped him wishes him “Vaya con dios,” Castle replies with a straight face: “God's gonna sit this one out.”

He proceeds to trick out what I first thought was an abandoned building. Guns are hidden in secret compartments along with grenades. He somehow gets a car and adds armor. Over the course of this montage we learn he shares this tenement with three neighbors: perpetual beauty Rebecca Romjin, comedian John Pinette, and extraneous Angel Ben Foster. The dark tale ventures into a strange sitcom territory as these three wonderfully mismatched neighbors stand around commenting how weird the new guy with the guns is, but never call the police. Castle himself casually visits some of his former allies at a courthouse to let them know he'll be taking matters into his own hands. Other than “hey, cool, you're not dead!” and a stern warning to stay away from Travolta and his crew, this is the last we see of the law. No wonder this world needs a Punisher.

The movie could easily have deviated into a shooting spree at this point, and may have been better if it did. First Castle meets a guitar player in the diner where Romjin's character works. The guy serenades him with a fairly decent folk tune reminiscent of Johnny Cash. I enjoyed the song(which has since been put to better use in promotions for Day Break) but thought it odd that the musician, Harry Heck by the name on his case, goes on to announce that he wrote it for Castle's funeral. It's no surprise when he attacks him further down the road, but weird that he announces his intentions in such a matter. Castle also faces a Lundgren-esque Russian who knocks holes in his apartment and counteracts every single trick Castle spent time setting up in the earlier montage. He bats a grenade back at the anti-hero with a pipe, and smashes a gun with a weight. Jane's comic expressions of surprise would be great in any other context.

As for the main object of his revenge, Castle goes through a convoluted scheme too tedious to explain, in which he ultimately gets Travolta's character to kill his wife and gay best friend, after tricking him into thinking those two were having an affair. Yeah. This wacky gag also includes a fake fire hydrant and million dollar earings regularly left under the front seat of a car. When Castle finally does seek his revenge, there's a lot of shooting and archery and explosions and about ten minutes that actually reflect his four color counterpart. He then rips off Daredevil in a ridiculously over the top series of controlled explosives that kill a bad guy and leave a burning skull the size of a parking lot visible from the air. Is signing his work really that important to a grief-stricken madman? What worked in The Crow, a far superior tale of loss and vengeance based on a comic, doesn't work in either of the films that stole from it.

To continue my punishment for being stupid enough to even spend seven bucks, I watched the special features and listened to the commentary. I'm always interested in segments about the source material so interviews with Romita and Conway were particularly good. The director meanwhile defended every criticism of the film. He didn't set it in a big city or urban environment because of the budget. Any out of place comic elements, or extreme characters like the Russian, he blamed on source material, a graphic novel by Garth Ennis. I've read Ennis' masterpiece Preacher, and if his Punisher was anything like that series, something clearly was lost in translation. I can't believe there's going to be a sequel. I do believe that I'm going to save my money when that one comes out. It'd only be just.