22 Years Ago, Marvel Revealed How The Punisher’s Story Will Really End (And It Was Perfect)

The saga of the Punisher is a harrowing and brutal one, and as you might expect, his ending is just as tragic. For over five decades, Frank Castle has been waging a one-man war on crime that has seen him rack up one of the highest body counts of any antihero. After losing his family in the crossfire of a mob hit, Castle became the Punisher, a cold, calculating man who uses his incredible skills to end crime wherever it happens. He’s been doing this for a long time, and there’s no sign the Punisher will ever stop.

Due to the cyclical nature of comics, of course, we’ll never actually see what the Punisher’s final days are actually like. After all, no matter how good the story, Marvel Comics isn’t going to let one of its biggest characters retire. But that didn’t stop the publisher from at least exploring the idea. Just a little over two decades ago, Marvel Comics released The Punisher: The End by Garth Ennis, Richard Corben, and Lee Loughridge. Intended to be the ‘final’ Punisher story, this one-shot gave Frank the perfect (though hypothetical) ending.

The Punisher Spends His Final Days Punishing Those Responsible for Destroying the World

The Punisher: The End is set in the not-too-distant future in a world that’s been ravaged by World War III. Global conflict has led to nukes flying everywhere, creating an extinction-level event. And yet, Frank Castle manages to cling to life by hiding out in a Sing-Sing’s bomb shelter, having been sent to the penitentiary years before. Accompanied by fellow prisoner Paris Peters, Frank eventually leaves the prison’s shelter and begins exploring the ruins of New York City for a new shelter.

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The Punisher and Paris explore what’s left of New York, though they both know they don’t have long thanks to the radiation left behind by the nukes. Frank and Paris do eventually find another shelter, which turns out to belong to a group known as the Coven. The Coven is made up of various military figures, politicians, and oligarchs. As it turns out, Frank has come to kill the Coven, blaming them and their influence on what happened to the world. They attempt to beg for their lives, but their words fall on deaf ears.

Frank mercilessly kills the Coven, even though they had the numbers and resources to restart humanity. When asked why by Paris, Frank tells him that humanity is always going to end up like this. The Punisher also kills Paris, who is revealed to have accidentally killed a group of children during an arson scam. With Punisher as the last man on Earth, Frank leaves the Coven’s shelter and heads for Central Park, thinking of the last day he spent with his family all those years ago. The story ends with a radiation-riddled Punisher hoping he can save his loved ones.

The Punisher: The End Brings Frank Castle’s Story to the Perfect Conclusion

I’m not going to lie, this is an incredibly grim storyline. Global war, nuclear holocaust, it’s got a lot of things that seem more frighteningly relatable now than they were two decades ago when The Punisher: The End was first published. But still, this is a damn good Punisher story that shows just how deep Frank Castle’s commitment to making people pay runs. Seriously, the end of the world has occurred, yet the Punisher just remains true to his one goal, taking out the people responsible as if they were any other criminal on the streets of New York.

Admittedly, this is not the canon end for Frank Castle. This book was published under the Marvel MAX imprint, so if anything, it could be considered the end for the Punisher that Garth Ennis wrote at length under the adults-only branding. But canon or not, this story still works as a ‘final’ Punisher tale. In the same way that “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” works as a proper sendoff to Superman by staying true to who the character is, The Punisher: The End concludes Frank Castle’s story by taking it to the bloodiest, natural end possible.

The Punisher is never going to have a ‘final’ story, not as long as Marvel Comics is keeping Frank Castle around. But for this story, The Punisher: The End does exactly what it needs to do. It gives us the most extreme, horrific crime possible and shows Frank punishing it, even at the cost of who he is. That’s who the Punisher is, and that’s an ending that fits everything he stands for. It might not ever happen in canon, but the creative team knew anything less just wouldn’t be right for the Punisher’s final tale.

What do you think about The Punisher: The End? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts on the ComicBook Forum!