Created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr and Ross Andru in 1974, The Punisher is a character
who has made a long lasting impact on the Marvel Universe.
And not just Earth 616’s universe, for that matter; he’s a character whose being depicted
in a slew of Marvel’s alternate realities, often varying in terms of behaviour or circumstances,
but usually ALWAYS with a flare for revenge.
So today, we’re returning to our list of the top 10 alternate versions of the Punisher
with a part two!
Let’s jump in.
10 Venomverse - TRN651 Starting us off is none other than the Venomized
version of Frank Castle from Earth TRN651, in the Venomverse.
Frank’s story begins in a similar fashion as his Earth 616 one, with him waging a war
on crime for years.
Eventually, Kingpin has had enough of Castle though; he orchestrates a plan to kill the
Punisher by collecting all of the crime families of New York together into a manhunt for the
vigilante.
Frank gets desperate, and makes a deal with the Venom symbiote in order to get the extra
leg up on his hunters.
The deal with Venom is that he’ll bond with him in order to kill Kingpin and the other
crime families, in exchange for killing a target of Venom’s choosing, which turns
out to be none other than Spider-Man.
Frank doesn’t want to kill Parker, and tries to resist.
Luckily for him, it’s at that very moment that the Venomized Doctor Strange from another
universe transports him, recruiting him as part of the Venomized forces to take on the
Poisons.
Unfortunately for Castle, though, he ends up becoming one of the casualties, and is
assimilated by the Poisons, becoming Poison Punisher.
9 Ultimate Marvel In the Ultimate Marvel universe of Earth 1610,
Castle is an ex NYPD officer whose family was murdered by corrupt police who Castle
was planning on exposing.
After getting his revenge, he goes around murdering corrupt cops, and is eventually
arrested by Captain America.
Nick Fury, seeing Castle’s potential, saves him from getting the death penalty and has
him join the Avengers, in which Castle dons a costume not dissimilar to Cap’s.
In order to keep Punisher in line, a chip is implanted into his body that will electrify
him whenever he disobeys orders.
He’s eventually killed off in 2014’s Cataclysm: Ultimates issue 3 after he joined Fury’s
black ops unit the Howling Commandos.
8 What If - Earth 9140 What would an alternate list be without one
or two good What If entries?
This one in particular is from the title What if Wolverine has become Lord of the Vampires,
from 1991, vol 2 issue 24 of the What If series.
As you can probably guess, Wolverine is the lord of vampires in this story line, and Frank
is picked out by Doctor Strange’s spirit to fight off the vampires.
The vampires, which include a ton of X-Men characters, are then hunted down by Castle,
with him killing off Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Juggernaut.
But his attempts to end the lord of Vampires is in vain; while fighting Wolverine he accidentally
kills Kitty Pryde, which sets Wolverine off enough for him to murder Castle.
7 Trevor Castle Trevor Castle is the product of the Amaglam
Comics; a series in which DC and Marvel characters were amalgamated together into new individuals.
Frank ends up being blended together with Wonder woman’s main man Steve Trevor, becoming
Trevor Castle.
In a comic called Bullets and Bracelets from 1996, Castle’s family was killed off during
a gang war, which is what led to him becoming the Punisher, as per usual.
Except in this reality, he mets Diana Prince, who he eventually marries and has a child
named Ryan with.
Ryan gets kidnapped, and Diana and Castle work together to hunt down the culprit, who
turns out to be the Thanos Darkseid amalgam, Thanoseid.
Thanoseid seemingly kills Ryan until Diana discovers that Thanoseid has tricked him.
They foil his plan and eventually decide to give their relationship another shot.
6 Sosumi Brown Sosumi Brown is the Frank Castle from Earth
2301, aka the Marvel Mangaverse.
She’s a boarding school principal by day, vigilante at night, who Japan’s media has
labelled as their country’s kinkiest superhero.
Fun stuff.
So she hunts down members of the Skang Kee crime family, using her martial prowess and
occult knowledge to do so.
She fights with wooden paddles to deflect bullets, and has a long bullwhip for long
range attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_versions_of_the_Punisher http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Sosumi_Brown_(Earth-2301)
5 MC2 Frank Castle of Earth 982, also known as the
MC2 universe, first appeared in Spectacular spider-Girl vol 2 issue 1 in 2010, and died
three issues later.
Castle, still active as the Punisher, decides to move to South America in order to tackle
drug runners there.
But his past summons him back to New York City; a Maggia don named Silverback, who he
once crippled in a battle, has returned, and is in the midst of a gang war with Black Tarantula.
Now with cybernetic implants, Silverback fights Castle when he returns, but in their final
confrontation, Castle ends up dying.
4 Ronin Punisher This version of Frank Castle is from the 2011
‘5 Ronin’ comics, a five issue limited series that follows reimagined versions of
the Punisher, Wolverine, Psylocke, Deadpool and the Hulk as ronin, aka masterless samurai,
with all five interlocking stories exploring the lonely path in the violent and tumultuous
world of feudal Japan.
Set in 17th century Japan, the series was inspired by Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.
According to writer Peter Milligan, “this era of Japan was in such a state of flux.
One era was ending and a new one beginning.
These times are difficult to live through; people are unsure where they stand, and this
is a great arena for looking at character and seeing how characters act when taken to
uncomfortable places.”
The Punisher goes by the name Akagi, and his story begins wit him returning home from Korea
after a long war, only to discover that his house is completely gone.
He learns that his family was slaughtered, and plans his revenge to kill those responsible.
3 Punisher 2099 I don’t need a jet pack, all I need is hate!
That’s a direct quote from Castle’s 2099 alternate, a character who lives on Earth
929, a possible future in which the world had become engulfed in a war between mutants
and humans.
Set in the year 2099, the Punisher actually isn’t Castle; rather, an officer named Jake
Gallows who learns of the original Punisher’s exploits and adopts the mantle for himself.
If that opening line didn’t give it away, he has a jet pack, and also laser cannons,
and he hunts down Kron Stone, who is responsible for the deaths of his mother, brother and
sister in law.
He also build a prison underneath his house (prisons had been phased out in the future),
where he would occasionally sentence particularly bad criminals to death via a molecular destabilizer.
Eventually, he would work under Doom, who was the president briefly in that timeline,
as the Minister of Punishment, and the head of the Federal Law Enforcement called the
Ministry of Punishment.
He’s eventually killed by an alternate version of the original Punisher who gives him crap
for wearing his symbol.
2 Old Man Punisher Old Man Punisher has quite the story.
For starters, there’s two of them oaths Earth, Earth 807128.
The first appeared in Wolverine Vol 3 issue 68 in 2008, where he also died; originally,
he and Daredevil were working to bring down Kingpin and take over his terrority, only
later to be captured and fed to dinosaurs as part of a sport exhibition in a stadium
in Salt Lake City.
Turns out that man wasn’t Frank Castle though, only a man operating under the name of Punisher;
as it’s revealed in the 2018 Old Man Logan annual issue 1, an elderly Frank Castle makes
an appearance, showing up during the battle of New York where he shoots Electro in the
head and kills him.
Although he’s stabbed in the chest by Kraven the Hunter, he doesn’t die.
Don’t be fooled by his age!
He’s still got a whole lot of bite, despite his abilities being reduced because of age
and memory problems.
Anywho, 50 years after the Battle of New York, he reappears, pissed off that a group called
the Punishers are going around terrorizing towns.
The Punishers, who used to work under the Hulk Gang that old man Logan has now killed
most of, are ruining Castle’s legacy, and they’ve stolen something very valuable to
him; a picture of his family.
Castle and Logan work together to take them down and rescue a bunch of kidnapped children,
and despite being victorious, Castle is fatally injured.
He dies looking at his recovered war journal and the photo of his family one last time.
1 Cosmic Ghost Rider Let’s end our list with an alternate that’s
bat sh*t crazy; the Cosmic Ghost Rider of Earth TRN666.
Castle’s story on this Earth starts out the same way it does on Earth 616, but changes
during a fight against Thanos.
In the battle, Castle is killed in battle when he suffers a fatal head injury.
His soul goes to Hell.
There, Castle has a burning desire for revenge against Thanos for plaguing the Earth, so
he strikes up a deal with Mephisto in order to become Ghost rider.
Returning to Earth, Thanos is already gone, having destroyed pretty much all life on it.
So Castle roams the barren planet, losing his mind due to utter loneliness.
Even Mephisto begins to ignore him.
Then, one day, Galactus comes to the planet, seeking help to fight against Thanos.
Ghost Rider offers up Earth to the god like entity in exchange for becoming his herald
so he can get his revenge on the Mad Titan.
Galactus accepts, endows Castle wit the power cosmic, and the two work together to hunt
down Thanos.
When they find him, Thanos beheads Galactus and kills him immediately.
Thanos then strikes up a deal with Castle; he’ll show the undying Ghost Rider all the
evil he could ever want to punish, for a thousand lifetimes, if he works for him.
Thus begins a whole lot of time travel, and an encounter with a baby Thanos.
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Frank_Castle_(Earth-TRN666)
There we have it friends!
There’s plenty more alternates where that came from, so if you folks want us to do a
part three of this list, give us a shout in those comments below!
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