Hi all,
Thanks for the great discussion and comments. You've raised some issues that I want to address.
Batman vs. The Punisher.
It's been said that there are really only two superheroes: Superman and Batman. Everyone else is just a variation of these archetypes. The idea is that either you're a guy with superpowers or a crimefighter with mad skills and special equipment. The latter type is usually seen as more true to life, though it encompasses sci-fi heroes like Iron Man. You could say, then, that The Punisher is just a Batman variant.
But the differences are important, and they consist of more than just a willingness to kill.
The debate about how each character gets the job done matters only to a point. Neither Batman, nor Superman, nor the Punisher nor any hero ever puts an end to crime. All of them work outside of the law. None thinks the justice system sufficient.
In a way, all comic book heroes are reactionary figures.
Let's move on to other differences. I'd argue that equipment and identity distinguish the Punisher. He has no alter-ego, and he uses mostly real-world equipment. Yes; from time-to-time, the Punisher has used near sci-fi gear, but never anything as outlandish as Batman. Castle kills with real guns.
If you want to read the craziest Punisher comic of all time, pick up The Punisher Armory, a 10-issue series from the early '90s. You never see Castle in the book. The comic consists of nothing but drawings of real-world equipment with Castle talking about it in editor's boxes. Seriously: page after page of guns, knives, body armor, fighting dummies, shooting ranges, tear gas, and so on. Much of this is stuff you can actually buy. And Castle just blabs to you about it. For ten issues.
That realism is part of what makes the P-man so compelling.
Brazuca: thanks for the heads-up on that movie--and thanks especially for the extremely interesting way The Punisher has been translated into Portuguese. But are you telling me that the movie about the Special Brazilian Police Squad has a basis in reality? I'm saying that Punisher comics tell us why there's no Punisher in real life, not in other fiction.
TheUnbeholden and dukethepcdr: you're raising an important question, and girlysprite has pointed the way to the answer. Yes; comic book superheroes were originally escapist fantasy, but when Stan Lee took charge of Marvel in the early '60s, things changed. Superheroes became complicated, and they've been so for over forty years. The Punisher is absolutely a product of this evolution, and that's why I find comparing him to Captain America so interesting. Cap is an unreformed Golden Age character--pure escapism.
So it's okay to talk about superheroes and crimefighters in some depth. They're deep these days! And, if you're lucky, you'll talk with people who have taken just as strong an interest in these characters. I've been lucky here.
Thanks, everybody.
Ray.