Punisher: Nazi Hunter

In honor of today’s amazing boost in hits, let’s do a special Friday article!

Today’s about the Punisher (real name Frank Castle), the most black and white character in the Marvel universe.  While some superheroes struggle with the morality of the criminals and the individual situations involved with each one, the Punisher has a simple philosophy.  You commit a crime, you die.  No mercy, no forgiveness.  But it’s his backstory that I want to talk about before going into the arc. Castle has no superpowers, just extensive military training gained from his service in Vietnam. Yes, Vietnam.  Whereas Iron Man’s origin got updated from building his first armor in Vietnam to the war in the Middle East, Castle has gotten no such update.

Which means that even if the Punisher served at the end of the war, he’d be at least 60 years old. And he began fighting crime shortly after his return from the war, where his family was gunned down accidentally in a firefight between mobsters one afternoon in the park.  Castle has been gunning down bad guys for over 30 years.  So he’s very good at what he does, and can holds his own against tougher superheroes and supervillains.  But he still kills, so to say his relationships with other good guys are strained is sort of an understatement.  Like Captain America.

You’d think the two would get along.  They’re both war veterans who hate criminals.  Except that even though Captain America waved around a machine gun in World War II, nowadays he’s pretty strict on the standard no killing rule.  The Punisher tends to be a bit more lax.  So while Captain America is the shining moral example that superheroes strive to be, the Punisher makes bad guys wet themselves wearing just a t-shirt with a skull on it.

But a few years ago, Captain America got assassinated.

Because Castle has such a strict system of justice, he doesn’t and never will kill good guys.  He’s after the wicked.  Add Captain America’s reputation and his past as a war hero like the Punisher, you can bet your Archie comics collection that the Punisher respects him.  Which led to this fantastic arc in Punisher: War Journal:

Yup, allow me to introduce you to Hate Monger.  He’s a racist supervillain.  Unfortunately, it’s more of a title because Hate Mongers tend not to last very long.  Especially not when the Punisher is coming.

Castle isn’t bulletproof.  He can’t just flip a jeep into the white supremacist camp and gun them all down.  The Punisher has to plan.  To infiltrate.  To time his attacks.  But he’s had 30 years of practice, and no one knows how to go incognito like the Punisher:

Luckily, not too many neo-Nazis hold doctorates, so he gets into the club.  Unluckily, turns out they’re not just a ragtag team of biker outlaws.  We have a new generation, one who learned that burning crosses and spitting on Jews may not be the best way to accomplish their ultimate goals. Which means Castle now has to deal with this:

Okay, so maybe the neo-Nazis do have some doctorates.  H-Rays, in true comic book fashion, are invisible and undetectable, but upon ingestion brings up dormant rage and hatred.  Secret plot discovered.  Now it’s up to Confederate Punisher to stop this madness from the inside.  But y’know, what’s the fun in hiding?

Just because Castle fights a hell of a fight doesn’t mean he’s always successful.  Even Captain America gets captured occasionally.  Besides what’s the fun in having the good guy win every brawl he’s in?  We enjoy seeing how James Bond gets out of cackling villains’ traps.  So despite utilizing all the cacti in the area, the Punisher is found out, captured, and tied to a post.  More importantly, it gives the Hate Monger time to rant.

In the next few panels, the Punisher is wearing a new costume.  Why?  Well, there just so happens to be an opening for a new Captain America.

Half of the captain’s rogue gallery is Nazis.  Cap was killed by a henchman of the de facto Nazi leader, Red Skull.  So while the other heroes give emotional eulogies and toasts, the Punisher honors Captain America the best way he knows how.

Didn’t stop him from getting defeated, but let it be known that the Punisher isn’t known for being enjoyable to be around.

Because of the narrative direction I wished to pursue, you’re hopefully clear that the Hate Monger is an asshole (and not just because of that terrible soul patch), but you’re missing hard proof to justify my claim.  Well, I’m not going to let you down.  Before we get to the exciting conclusion of our tale, let’s go back a few pages to an inspirational speech.

In summary, the Hate Monger, seeing Captain America’s death on TV like the rest of the world, decides to adopt a version of the costume for use in his evil plans.  The Punisher, normally outraged by crime but in this case, H-Ray crazy outraged, makes his own Captain America costume to deal with this douchebag.  Because although Castle may not be a homing beacon for the country’s morality and patriotism, he sure as hell knows it’s never going to be Hate Monger.

The Punisher definitely isn’t afraid of death, and some critics will argue that he’s secretly hoping to die so he can see his family again and blah blah blah, but it certainly would ruin the literary flow.  Castle’s allies, which include that skinny guy with glasses and a government agent out to arrest Castle, ambush the execution scene, bomb the hideout, and pandemonium ensues. Punisher wins, because he always wins.  Plus, who wants a Nazi victory?

Seriously, stop hogging all the bad vibes, Hate Monger.  As you can guess, the Punisher doesn’t become the next Captain America.  Not just because of his love of bullets and inability to be a team player, but for very different reasons then other superheroes.

He’s part of the big three New York city “street” crimefighters I mentioned in an early article, but unlike Spider-Man or Daredevil who have lost scores of loved ones, experienced terrible tragedies and will continue to do so, the Punisher will not.  No one gets close to the Punisher.  He’s never going to have a girlfriend or best friend.  His only mission in life to snuff out as many criminals as possible, partly for revenge of his murdered family and partly to protect decent people who don’t turn to crime. Friendships and relationships take time away from his mission and can potentially create opportunities for baddies to get the upper hand on Castle.  The Punisher at most will have a computer guy for information, and even then he barely grunts at them.  He’s the very definition of anti-hero, just with none of the charm.

Finally, for both Castle’s closure and to tie up loose ends, Captain America’s former partner and dear friend Bucky (who does become the new Captain America a few months later) meets up with the Punisher shortly after the Hate Monger mess.

Kkfaatch indeed.

Ursa Major will maul your heart

Let’s cut to the chase today.  Why spew paragraph long introductions when I can simply show you?

Meet Mikhail Uriokovitch Ursus, also known as Ursa Major.  He’s a Russian mutant who can turn into a giant talking bear.  Surprisingly, he’s a relatively minor character in the Marvel universe.

Russian superheroes have been around longer than you think.  Superspy Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers) first appeared in 1964.  The X-Men Colossus made his debut in 1975.  But unlike those two, Ursa Major never left Mother Russia and his superhero team Winter Guard is mainly used to antagonize more famous heroes over obvious political misunderstandings.

Luckily, he’s cocky and insane.  Which makes for a delightful combination anytime he shows up to claw The Hulk over a lost Cold War magic elixir or whatever.

The last panel brings up the entire reason for this post.  He takes out the robot made of a million bombs.  Boo-Boo pats him on the back.  And in his mighty victory, he announces:

About that.  I don’t mind trash talk on the battlefield or the basketball court.  It usually makes everything way better anyway.  Except Ursa Major is making a bold claim.  Sure, he’s a crazy foreign bear monster.  Yeah, he’s gone up against some powerful foes.  But always wins?   Hell, Superman constantly gets superpowers made up just for him and he still gets frequently outwitted by the Donald Trump of the DC universe.

So Ursa Major, the prosecution would like to present evidence at this time:

She-Hulk totally beating down Ursa Major on two separate occasions.  Notice the different clothes?

Fairly safe to say that his bragging may need to be tempered a tweak.  Now it’s not that he’s a terrible character or an awful fighter.  But when the series is called She-Hulk and you come lumbering up to smack her in the face, odds are not in your favor.  And despite the Animorph abilities of Russia’s finest, there’s really not much you can do with Ursa Major.  Will his bear strength be enough to take out the bad guys?  I hope so, because that’s his only angle.  He’s a fun character to have in an issue or two, but how many environmental terrorists or evil park rangers can he really fight?  At least Beast is a super genius.

As you’ve guessed, the poor guy is a joke in the Marvel universe.  He’s one of the first surviving mutants from the Soviet Union.  He’s loyally and fiercely fought for his country his entire life.  But unfortunately, he’s also a giant bear.

Even the Invisible Woman a few panels back made a crack at Ursa Major, and she’s a loving mother of two.  Thankfully, he and the Winter Guard are still alive and well, still fighting Russia’s enemies, and still available as a foil for any superhero who needs to pound the forest king.

Want to know what he’s been up to lately?  Oh, nothing much:

It gets better, Kingpin

Yesterday, I briefly talked about Ultimate Spider-Man.  He not only fights crime, he also struggles to keep a girlfriend, good grades, and keeping his secret identity from his aunt.  You know, basic Saved by the Bell stuff.  Sure, the series has a bit more teenage drama than Spider-Man fans may be used to, but more importantly, child Spider-Man is a dick.

About four or five arcs during the decade plus long run dealt with Spider-Man attempting to thwart mob boss Wilson Fisk, commonly known as The Kingpin (played by Michael Clarke Duncan in the movie Daredevil).

Despite having no superpowers, the giant criminal has been a huge thorn in the side of “street” superheroes since the 1960s.  And I’m not being racist – let me explain.

New York City houses more superheroes than any other city in the Marvel world.  So how do writers justify the severe level of crime in the city that is like a quarter superpowered?  I mean, Gotham City in the DC world is well-known for the almost preposterous amount of bad guys running around, but their only superhero is Batman, and his superhero is throwing bat shurikens.  Well in NYC, different superheroes handle different levels of problems.  The Fantastic Four and the Avengers don’t go around patrolling for purse snatchers.  They have to universes to save and Devourers of Worlds to beat up.

Galactus isn’t going to be mugging anybody.  That’s the Fantastic Four’s job.  But then who stops “street” crime?  Who interferes with bank robbers and drug dealers?  The three main ones are Spider-Man, Daredevil, and The Punisher.  And since The Kingpin is the most powerful crime boss in the city, all three take turns dealing with him.

In the Ultimate line, it’s Spider-Man who clashes with The Kingpin most often.  And despite The Kingpin being a ruthless, remorseless murderer, Peter Parker is downright cruel to him.  Words can sometimes hurt more than fists, buddy.

Sometimes bullying doesn’t stop at high school.  These are premeditated barbs meant only to emotionally wound.  And don’t think Spider-Man is just being brave.  Despite the physical size difference, Spider-Man can bench press an 18-wheeler.  To counter the one-sided fight, it’s become pretty well-established by now that The Kingpin is built almost entirely of crazy muscle.  This way child Spider-Man doesn’t take down a guy five times his weight in two and a half panels.  But it’s not going to prevent our protagonist from racking up the mob boss’ therapy bills.

Have you noticed a recurring theme in these select pages?  Yeah, The Kingpin doesn’t understand why Spider-Man is bothering him.  Y’see, unlike say Norman Osborn or other villains with personal connections to young Peter Parker, The Kingpin’s arcs have all began with Spider-Man reading about the crime leader getting away with stuff he shouldn’t or doing some nasty stuff.  And the kid decides to butt in.  That’s it.  You now know the entire motivations for our hero’s actions.

So how does a normal dude stop a superhero?  Well, connections certainly help.  Which makes their dynamic one of the finest and most complex in the Marvel universe.  Why do superheroes have secret identities in the first place?  The most common answer is to protect their loved ones from amoral baddies.  So how do you create a setting where both Spider-Man and The Kingpin have equal leeway over the other?  Well, eliminate the secret identity and the jokes slowly starts to disappear.  Now the power struggle goes from this:

To something more substantial:

To ultimately a relationship that becomes dark as balls:

The main problem with having superheroes around for over 50 years is that the stories have to remain fresh and interesting to keep readers.  If Spider-Man punches his way to victory in every issue, readers are going to move on, no matter how many arms or tiny mustaches the villains have.  So instead, introduce a bad guy that is untouchable by the law and with repercussions that make fistfights impossible.  How is a kid supposed to defeat a villain like this?  And now you have the readers’ attention.  Though personally, I never tire of punching, but I’m just old fashioned like that.

More importantly, let this post serve as a message of hope.  If you’re bullied but end up growing to seven feet tall and have access to major crime connections, you’ll be fine.  In the main Marvel universe, Wilson Fisk currently runs his own deadly ninja clan, so look into that if the mafia may not be your thing.

Finally, to be fair about The Kingpin’s inappropriate anger and threats, he does constantly get one upped by a tenth grader.  And not a terribly bright one either.

Captain America punches faces

Comics are complicated.  But as you know from the Avengers movie, Captain America (real name Steve Rogers), after spending 70 years frozen in ice, has returned to the modern world.  He’s the moral center of the team, leading them to victory with the confidence and competency a war hero would.  But in comics, there are two Captain Americas.  Well, actually like a half dozen, but for the sake of this post, we’re going with Steve Rogers as Captain America.

More specifically, Ultimate Captain America:

A little backstory is required that hopefully won’t take too long.  So in the “normal” Marvel universe, it’s unwritten but implied that most of the heroes have been fighting evil for like upwards of fifteen years or more.  For instance, Spider-Man is most likely in his late 20s.  Iron Man and Captain America are probably around 35.  So how does Marvel attract younger readers when all the most popular characters are the same ages as their dads?  Well, the company attempted to solve that problem. They created a new “side” universe, called Ultimate Marvel.  There, the characters were reintroduced as younger, and their origin stories were re-calibrated for a modern era.  Ultimate Spider-Man was the first comic they tried, making Peter Parker a 15-year old kid who gets his powers from a genetically altered spider and works for The Daily Bugle as their webmaster.

But why should you care about the Ultimate universe if you’re not hardcore into comics?  Well, Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury came from the Ultimate line.  And the new Spider-Man movie coming out next month is a rough adaption of Ultimate Spider-Man.  Pop culture-wise, it has had some lasting effects.

Nowadays, Ultimate Marvel is a shell of what it used to be, and they’ve used crossover events to pretty much destroy large sections of the planet and kill off over half the major characters.  But we’re here to talk about Ultimate Captain America.  That guy’s a dick.

His origin story remained pretty much the same.  He was given the Super Soldier serum that made him awesome.  He became a badass World War II hero before crashing a plane and getting frozen in ice near the end of the war.  Except this new Ultimate Captain America never loses his 1940s war mentality.  He’s tough as balls.

If you read the comics, most of the pages have him doing a face like this:

Or this:

This is not a man who smiles.  This a dude who saw some crazy stuff in the war and taking his PTSD out on whatever spandex-wearing sap is in front of him.  Because the Ultimate line at the time was like eight different series, they didn’t have to really deal with massive backlash from forty ongoing comics. So the stories tended to get more massive and destructive.  That meant Captain America, unlike the normal universe, spent roughly equal time as a soldier as he did a superhero.  Steve Rogers commanded the Avengers (creatively called the Ultimates) and the military.  Kind of.  Which led to almost all of his dialogue being turned drill sergeant-ish into something both offensive and inspiring:

Sure, he’s a stereotype of the tough guy old timey soldier, but the normal, older Captain America was too busy being dead and doing spy missions and such.  Here, we get a warrior who will never be satisfied until he’s bloodied every man, woman, and most likely child who dares cross the greatest freaking nation in the history of the world.

I’m not saying he didn’t adapt to modern times.  He got himself an half-Asian/half-wasp girlfriend.  He started untucking his shirt.  But what never changed is that Ultimate Captain America will forever be out of his own time and just a little bit unhinged.  Though, let’s be clear that he’s not insane.  It isn’t like he thinks he can fly or anything.

Okay, maybe a little mentally off.  But that leads to one of the most famous scenes in recent comic history.  The captain is fighting a shape-changing Nazi alien.  Normal everyday flair.  The bad guy gets the upper hand and demands he give up.  Well, Captain America may not enjoy stuff like pop music or hair that isn’t a buzz cut, but it’s fairly well-documented that Nazis tend to top the list.  So we get this moment:

Yeah, he’s totally beating a naked war criminal with his shield.  And you’ve never felt prouder to be an American.  At his core, Captain America is a patriotic symbol for this country.  Steve Rogers is a soldier who fought in nearly every battle of the second World War and upon his defrosting, immediately became the star player in the most powerful fighting force in that comic book world.  I’m just saying Captain Britain got his powers through magic, like Harry Potter in a skintight suit.

Honestly, half his fights are him going mano-a-mano with Hulk, and you’ve all seen the movie where Hulk one hit KOs the giant space slug.  Sure, he’s not terribly active (or at all) in the remnants of the once great Ultimate line of comics, but the next Sam Adams I drink will be in his honor.  I don’t care he’s not real.