Marvel Recently Had Daredevil & The Punisher Go to War, and It Was Epic

Daredevil and the Punisher have one of the fiercest rivalries in the Marvel Universe. Maybe even in any universe. On the surface the two men seem very similar, with both of them using their deeply anchored rage to try and make the world a better place, but they are completely different in every other way, including reasoning. The Punisher does what he does out of revenge, and to hurt people he sees as deserving pain and death. Daredevil, meanwhile, is a hero because he wants to keep people. Punisher believes criminals are beyond redemption, and Daredevil believes in endless second chances. They are the antithesis to everyone the other believes.

This hate fuelled rivalry goes all the way back to their first meeting decades ago. Ever since, every time the two see each other has been an all out brawl. Their no-holds-barred clashes are always fierce beyond belief, and seem to escalate every encounter. However, their most recent meeting wasn’t just a fight, it was a full scale war. And it will probably stand as their most epic clash for a very, very long time.

The Road to War

It all went down in the instant classic Daredevil story that was Chip Zdarsky’s “The Hand vs the Fist” saga, which was covered in both the Daredevil and Punisher comics. To summarize the events that led us to one of Marvel’s most epic battles of all time, the Punisher was recruited by the assassin cult known as the Hand to be their leader. He was named the King of Killers and led the Hand as his personal army in his endless bloody crusade, all the while being strengthened and influenced by the Hand’s demonic master, the Beast. Meanwhile, Daredevil was leading the counter to the Hand, the Fist. An organization founded to destroy the Hand once and for all, Daredevil and Elektra recruited killers and villains to their cause to train and reform them, turning them into soldiers for a greater purpose. Daredevil thought he was following the word of God, but was actually being strung along by the Beasts’s enemy and sister, the Wild.

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And yet, despite how much they hate each other, how much Matt wants to see Punisher burn for all he’s done and will do, Daredevil still tries to save the Punisher one last time before their fated fight. He snuck into the Hand’s facility alone to confront Frank, to tell him that the Beast was infecting him. Frank ignored him and chased him off, because the Punisher doesn’t care if he’s being used, or if he’s just someone’s gun. As long as he’s pointed at the people he wants, he’s fine with that. So Daredevil left, and knew they had to fight. He wasn’t surprised, or disappointed.

The two groups were preparing for the inevitable fight when Bullet, former villain and member of the Fist, cannot stop Hand ninjas from kidnapping his son. The Punisher had him taken to force Daredevil into a fight on his terms, and it worked. Daredevil announced to the entire Fist that they were not ready for this fight, that they only had a few weeks of training and they needed so much more to beat the Hand. Except a kid needed their help, so they had to go now. Inspired, the army of the Fist marched to meet the Hand.

The Final Battle

The fight was brutal on both sides. A whole army of the world’s best undead assassins led by the Punisher and his pet dragon versus reformed supervillains trained by two Daredevils and given super strength by the Wild. The fight was intense in a way that few comic book fights can be, because this was a battle straight out of a war. Elektra fought Aka, the second in command of the Hand who recruited Frank and Elektra herself, and they clashed sai to sai. Cole North worked with the symbiote Agony to save Bullet’s son and capture his Hand-resurrected body so they could find a way to save him. Stegron and Stilt-Man took down the dragon. The fight was so good it made Stilt-Man useful and awesome!

But of course the main draw was Daredevil versus the Punisher. They fought like they always did before, baton versus gun and sword. Only this time, instead of thinking of just stopping him, Daredevil was thinking that this time he might be here to kill the Punisher. For this entire story-arc, Matt had been trying to be a better hero, find a way to save people in a more meaningful way. It was why he led the Fist, why he trained all the supervillains, except the Punisher was different. He was Daredevil’s antithesis through and through.

Daredevil and the Punisher fought down in the mud and pouring rain. Frank kept screaming that Matt’s God was dead, that only someone like the Punisher could actually save the world, that Matt trying to reform the villains was putting a gun in a crook’s hands. Daredevil just told him to shut up. The two had fought earlier in this run, before either was involved in the Hand or Fist, and Daredevil decimated the Punisher, telling him Frank was an amateur compared to him, and that he could kill him whenever he wanted. Just like then, Daredevil gets the better of the Punisher and really, honestly considers killing him, considers that maybe the Punisher is beyond saving.

It’s a stunning moment, but a definitive one that really highlights the difference between the two characters. Deciding someone was beyond saving and that they should be killed is what the Punisher would do, but not Daredevil. Instead, he knocks Frank aside to save the dragon, because it was forced to follow the Punisher, and Daredevil existed to save others. Still, the Fist was overwhelmed by the undead army and forced to retreat. They lost the battle, except they got everything they wanted. They saved the boy and recovered Bullet, and Elektra managed to steal the amulet that let the Hand resurrect their warriors. The Fist couldn’t win, but the Hand lost too.

The ultimate end of the Fist and the Hand would come when Daredevil went to hell and killed the demons behind both groups later in the run, but the battle between Daredevil and the Punisher was done. Daredevil beat the Punisher, and Frank was forced to live with the fact that even with an unstoppable army, he couldn’t stop the Man Without Fear. And it was epic.