Earlier this year, we got Frank Castle back on our TVs, and now it’s time for the Punisher to make a return to comics, too.
Marvel’s gun-toting antihero is coming back to the page in Punisher: Red Band, a five-issue miniseries from Ben Percy (Wolverine) and Julius Ohta (Iron Man). The last time we saw Frank was back in 2023 when he took control of the Hand ninja cult, learned his wife was alive and wanted a divorce, and was later sent to Weirdworld. This new comic sees Frank back in New York without any memories of his past life, but still good at taking lives, so that’s what he’s gonna do. Much like his TV counterpart, this Frank is gonna get up to some bloody stuff, and his miniseries comes with a “Red Band” label to signify it’s got more explicit content than usual.
“Frank Castle is one of my all-time favorite characters, and Punisher is a series I’ve been gunning to write for a long, long time,” wrote Percy. “I’m going to lean in fully and push the very limits of my favorite genre: hairy psychopaths. This is going to be as gritty and bloody as it gets. Street-level mayhem awaits you.”
Marvel has often seemed uncertain about what to do with Frank. Some of that was owed to his Netflix series and the timing of a heavily armed vigilante in a show airing weeks or months after mass shootings; other times, it was because of how police had co-opted his symbol and used it to decorate their vehicles. Daredevil: Born Again confronted that latter point during its first season by having Frank kill a bunch of Punisher cops and telling them they suck.
We’ll see what comics Frank does when Punisher: Red Band begins September 10.
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