Punisher

Punisher appeared in 1973 Marvel Comics called Amazing Spider-Man. Lt. Francis "Frank" Castle (born Francis Castiglione) a.k.a. the Punisher was an Italian-American former US Marine who served in multiple tours of duty, including the Siancong War, where he received the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and four Purple Hearts. He became a vigilante after seeing his wife; Maria and children; Lisa and Frank Jr. gunned down for accidentally observing a Mafia "hit". Now with a distinct death's head skull adorning his chest, he devoted his life to the task of destroying organized crime wherever he found it.

Born in Queens, New York, to Sicilian immigrants, the young Francis Castiglione was very violent and aggressive inflicting extensive injuries on bullies. This violence would cause him to be observed by The Hand. After being haunted by the deaths of a couple that were brutally murdered by a mafioso, Frank killed the mafioso by setting him on fire after dumping homemade napalm on him. This was his first kill. He later studied in the seminary for a time.

While in high school, he met his first friend Steadman Sternberger after protecting from a gang of bullies and continuously protected him afterward. In return, Steadman convinced Castle to channel his anti-social behavior into peewee hockey. During a hockey match, Castle met Maria Falconio. Castle was smitten with her but too afraid to talk with her. So, Steadman fixed them up through trickery, and Maria's influence suppressed Castle's bad behavior. When Steadman died in a traffic accident after being left behind by the driver and passengers, Castle killed those involved to avenge his friend.

He married his wife, Maria, who was already pregnant with their first child, before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, eventually rising to the rank of Captain.

During his time in the USMC, Castiglione graduated from boot camp and then went on to United States Marine Corps School of Infantry. While still in training, Castiglione met Phan Bighawk, an American Indian scout. He was assigned to be Castiglione's guide, and through Phan, he learned how to survive in the wilderness. Following his training, Castiglione served for the Marines for four tours. Despite being one of, if not the best sniper in the corps, it is generally implied that many of his superiors didn't like him and put him in situations where they hoped he would be killed.

At one point, his friend from training, Roger Wong, was found to be running a black market supplying the locals with weapons. To keep him away from the trial Frank was sent stateside for a month, running a recruitment office. It was here that he met Linus Lieberman, who would soon become Microchip, for the first time, when he disqualified him from the draft for having flat feet and being overweight. He did not remember this meeting later, but Microchip did.

He fought in the decades-long Siancong War in the country of Siancong alongside the likes of Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and James Rhodes.

Powers and Abilities

Nick Fury's intel classified him as being power level 6 or greater due to his fighting skills, his weaponry, and his use of lethal force. After joining the Hand, Castle gained one of the five gifts of the Fist:

• The Eyes of the Beast: This grants him a form of clairvoyance. He was able to see the evil things a member of the Apostles of War had done in the name of his master Ares, as well as the evil things he had yet to do. Castle was also able to sense a bomb wired to the Apostle member's heart and the locations of criminals around the world.
• Fire of the Beast: This ability allows him to unleash demonic energy. This allowed him to imbue a dagger with this energy to kill Lord Deathstrike instantly. He could unleash blasts of fire that could go out in all directions.
• Marrow of the Beast: This ability enhances Castle's physical strength and endurance. The demonic power enhances Castle's strength to the point where he was able to match the strength of the god Ares and even harm with the force of his blows as well possess enough strength to shatter someone's head apart and rip another person in two with his bare hands. He could also lift a grown off the ground with one hand. His durability is as such that he could withstand being hit by a Banner Cannon, which would normally turn someone into a skeleton and shrug off the Black Widow's Widow Sting and Moon Knight's crescent darts.
• Healing Blood of the Beast: This power allow Castle to recover from injuries that would normally be fatal to a normal person, though he still needed some recuperation afterward. He could survive being impaled with a sword and not even as much as flinch.
• Flight: Castle can float through the air.
• Maximum Human Conditioning: The Punisher is in peak physical condition. Through his rigorous training & exercise regimes, he developed levels of strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, healing, longevity, metabolism and immune system efficiency near the absolute limits of human capability.
  • Peak Human Endurance: Castle's endurance is unbelievably high. He frequently performs surgery on himself without pain medication.
  • Peak Human Durability: Castle's durability is unbelievably high. He was hit by Black Widow, a Russian super-soldier, and Captain America so strongly that it passed through a thick wall and is shown only with minor wounds.
• Master Martial Artist: Castle is a thoroughly seasoned veteran in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat. Specifically, he is highly adept in American-style CQC (close-quarters combat), Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Systema, ninjutsu, Shorin-ryu Karate, Hwa Rang Do, Chin Na and Nash Ryu Jujutsu, his style of choice being the latter.
• Weapons Master: As an authority on modern warfare, the Punisher is a recipient of multi-disciplinary military knowledge from the United States Armed Forces. Thanks to this and continued training, the Punisher is a master of many weapons, favoring daggers and long-range shooting weapons. The Punisher's ever-changing arsenal of weaponry includes various automatic and semiautomatic rifles, and an array of handguns, fragmentation and tear gas grenades, other explosives, and combat knives. A personal favorite is his ballistic knife, which can launch its blade with lethal force. He commonly uses M16 .223 caliber automatic rifles, Sterling Mark 6 9 mm, semiautomatic rifles, 9 mm Browning Llama automatic pistols, .45 caliber automatic frame re-chambered for 9 mm ammunition, .223 caliber Derringers, and Gerber Mark 2 combat knives.
  • Blade Weapons Training: Castle has extensive knowledge of blade weapons from his years of training in various martial arts disciplines as well as his military training. He tends to carry with him up to 3 or 4 different types of edged-weapons, preferring the knife he learned to fight with in the USMC: the Ka-bar.^{[citation needed]}
  • Master Marksman: He is a sharpshooter and exceptional marksman with many types of firearms, often depicted as being ambidextrous and rarely missing his target. Trained as an elite sniper, he's skilled enough to hit a target from 4 km. He is skilled in knife throwing as well.
• Expert Pilot: Castle received helicopter training with the U.S. Army and U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command. He has been shown flying both helicopters and airplanes.
• Interrogation Master: Castle uses his skills at interrogation to get information from people linked to criminals through creative use of torture as well such as water boarding, electrocution, suffocation, sleep deprivation, starvation, etc.
• Extensive Special Operations Training: As part of his Marine Force Recon training, Castle completed U.S. Navy SEAL (SEa Air Land), UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) and LRPA (Long Range Patrol) training, EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) training, graduated the Army's Ranger School, completed the U.S. Army Airborne School (AKA "jump school"), graduated the U.S. Army Special Forces Qualification Course, and LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol) training. He also took part in cross-training with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment. He's also a qualified HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jumper.
• Master Tactician: Armed solely with conventional weapons and motivated by a fanatical hatred for criminals like those who murdered his family, the Punisher has single-handedly incapacitated up to a dozen well-armed and experienced opponents in a single encounter and escaped uninjured. It is his military training and his attention to detail that allows him to achieve this. Castle possessed this skill even from a young age as he killed a criminal as a child after carefully planning out to do it.
• Indomitable Will: Frank has complete control of his mind and consciousness, providing a strong resistance against telepathic powers that are used against him. When Letha tries to control Frank's mind, he scoffs at their attempt saying "It doesn't feel different from any other day."
• Bilingual: In addition to English, Frank is able to speak Spanish.

Arsenal

• Punisher's Equipment: In the vast majority of cases, Castle utilizes a wide variety of modern military equipment that is specifically curtailed to each situation as needed, although he has also been shown to be highly adaptable and make the most of whatever may be at his current disposal.
• Punisher's Clothing: Castle most often chooses not to wear any sort of costume beyond a black shirt with a white skull splashed across the front. His other clothing, which normally includes combat boots, blazers, leather jackets, trench coats, bulletproof vests, body armor, black battle dress uniforms and camouflaged outfits, are worn for the sake of protection or subterfuge in urban and wilderness environments. His body armor protects him from most gunfire, though he can still suffer concussive injury or penetration from sufficiently powerful or repeated impacts. In regard to his earlier costumes, each tooth of the skull on his chest was actually a spare magazine for one of his firearms.
• Punisher's Arsenal: Castle employs a truly expansive array of conventional firearms and weaponry, including machine guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives and explosives, a great many of which have been culled from both common and organized criminals, as well as military sources during his operations. He often customizes these weapons for greater effectiveness, with both standard and custom attachments including magnified optics, reflex sights, night vision scopes, flashlights, grenade launchers, sound and flash suppressors, bipods/tripods, drums and high-capacity/extended magazines, including non-standard types of ammunition such as hollow-point or armor-piercing bullets. His secret armory locations house everything from common guns and ammunition to modernized blowguns capable of piercing 15-layer Kevlar vests, light anti-tank weapons, explosives of various types, and even crossbows, which can offer a combination of silence and precision. After joining the Hand, Castle began learning how to use the Hand's traditional weapons, including a katana and shuriken.
• Punisher's Battle Van: Castle has utilized a number of vehicles, both standard and customized, as a means of transport, refuge, and supply storage, most commonly gravitating toward large vans that can hold a great deal of firearms and ammunition, as well as be used as a ramming device. During his time with the Hand, he was provided with a helicopter.

Weakness

• Non-Superhuman Physical Conditioning: Castle is as susceptible to physical injury and disease as any other normal human, often having to rely more on strategy than strength when up against a superhuman opponent. However, different characters like Nick Fury have commented on how extraordinarily high his pain tolerance is. Frank does not even take over-the-counter painkillers, believing that their benefit of dulling pain isn't worth the side effects of drowsiness or slowed reflexes.