The Netflix roster of Marvel shows has already shown that they're capable of drawing some
great moments from the comics and transferring them to the screen.
And with the Punisher, they're spoiled for choice.
With hundreds of comics and decades of stories to draw from, all built around hard-hitting
ultra-violent action, there are plenty of brutal moments that are begging to be recreated.
There is, however, a problem unique to the Punisher: a lot of his stories might just
be too intense to work on the show.
And more are just intensely weird.
And yes — they're actually weirder than this:
Here are some Punisher comic book moments that'll never make it to Netflix.
Army of One
It goes without saying that any media project involving Frank Castle is going to draw heavily
from Garth Ennis's eight years of writing the character.
The Netflix shows have already started, with an adaptation of the issue where the Punisher
ties Daredevil up to witness a rooftop execution.
But over the course of those eight years, Ennis got into some pretty extreme stories.
In "Army of One," the Punisher took on an entire island full of killer mercenaries,
including his long-time nemesis, the Russian, who we've seen in the 2004 Punisher movie:
So why's the story so problematic?
Well, it's Frank's solution that causes trouble: going for the nuclear option — literally.
The story ends with a mushroom cloud when the Punisher drops an atomic bomb onto the
island and its mercenary inhabitants, wiping them all from the face of the Earth.
Crackdown
Considering that the shows have already introduced Luke Cage, it's easy to imagine that they
might want to tie the Punisher into the MCU by re-creating one of their classic team-ups.
Unfortunately, their most notable meeting involves Frank Castle changing his skin color
and pretending to be a black man for three issues until he eventually fades back to his
usual Caucasian complexion.
In "Crackdown," Frank is sent to jail and gets his face carved up by the bad guy Jigsaw.
After that, we see Frank's face get repaired by a surgeon, whose experimental technique
involved pumping the Punisher full of the skin pigment melanin.
The result was a dark-skinned, and ridiculously inappropriate Punisher, who teams up with
Luke Cage in Chicago to bring down a ring of crack dealers — and an army of ninjas.
Needless to say, after three issues, this whole thing was never mentioned again.
FrankenCastle
Believe it or not, the tale of the temporarily black Frank Castle isn't actually the weirdest
Punisher story — and neither is the time he became an angel who killed demons with
magical ghost guns.
No, that honor goes to when he spent a year as a Frankenstein.
In 2009, the notorious supervillain Norman Osborn — better known to Spider-Man fans
as the Green Goblin — was put in charge of national security.
An unrepentant murderer in a position of power made for a tempting target, and Frank set
his sights on taking Osborn down.
The problem?
Frank's just a guy with a lot of guns — and Osborn had his own team of Dark Avengers protecting
him.
Daken, the son of Wolverine, ended up chopping the Punisher to pieces and throwing his body
into a sewer… where it was found and stitched back together by Morbius the Living Vampire,
who resurrected him to protect a secret city of monsters underneath Manhattan.
Chances are good that won't happen on TV anytime soon: even if Jon Bernthal would look pretty
great as a Frankenstein.
Punisher kills Nick Fury
If they really wanted to tie Bernthal's version of the Punisher to the larger Marvel Cinematic
Universe, they could always go with one of Frank's other big encounters with the MCU's
most prominent characters.
Like that time he murdered Nick Fury.
In 1995, the Punisher was captured by renegade S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and brainwashed into believing
that it was actually Fury who killed his family — so he shot and killed him.
After a manhunt involving the Avengers, he was arrested and sentenced to death in the
electric chair.
Because it's comics, neither death really lasted long.
It was later revealed that Tony Stark had invented a special "Life Model Decoy" robot
that managed to fool everyone.
And the Punisher?
He was rescued from the electric chair by a mafioso who wanted him to take over his
organization.
He actually agreed, and briefly joined up as the new head of an organized crime family.
Frank's hydrophobia
In the pages of Punisher War Journal, we finally discover the Punisher's a weakness: a crippling
fear of open water, dating back to a childhood trauma — because what the Punisher really
needed was to have a more traumatic past.
When Frank found himself tracking down a gang of drug dealers to Hawaii, his fear almost
got him killed.
Luckily, he was rescued from drowning by a friendly dolphin and then conquered his fear
with the help of a local kahuna who healed his spirit with magic at the request of a
ninja master.
No, really.
Even if it's unlikely we'll ever see this story make it to the screen, let's not kid
ourselves.
It would be amazing.
Who wouldn't want to see Frank Castle wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt over his Punisher
outfit, or watch the Punisher ride a jet-ski?
The cover blurb says it all: "You just rented a jet-ski to the Punisher.
KISS THAT BABY GOODBYE!"
Punisher Meets Archie
If there's a hall of fame for bizarre comic book crossovers, then The Punisher Meets Archie
is a first-round pick.
Originally published in 1994, it stands as one of the weirdest of all time, even after
a decade of Archie meeting everyone from Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, to the Predator, to
Sharknado.
Yes, that Sharknado.
But incredibly, this team-up is actually more plausible than ever.
On TV's Riverdale, a show with no shortage of murders, the Archie gang's gone through
a pretty dark re-imagining.
So having Frank Castle roll up to lay down some vigilante justice wouldn't seem strange
at all.
Is it going to happen?
No.
But if we don't at least get a cameo appearance from Archie-actor K.J.
Apa as a redheaded criminal on the run from the Punisher, then what are we even doing
here?
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