Marvel’s New Punisher Is Gunning for Frank Castle’s Archenemy

Joe Garrison’s life is a puzzle of missing pieces. The ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent has been on the warpath ever since his wife and children were killed by a terrorist’s bomb: Sergei “The Sokovian” Federov. After a bystander mistook Garrison’s ballistic chestplates for Frank Castle’s chest skull insignia, the media dubbed the gun-toting vigilante the new Punisher. He’s been waging his war on New York’s criminal underworld with his former S.H.I.E.L.D. handler, Triple-A, operating out of an off-the-books S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker stocked with high-tech weaponry he uses to hunt whoever sent the assassin that murdered his family. 

After targeting the crime boss known only as The Offer, the Punisher learned that the hit wasn’t ordered to punish Garrison over his past life as “the Gravedigger of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Instead, the target of the $10-million covert hit was his late wife, Stephanie, a secretary who flagged suspicious payments to a shady source. Whoever sanctioned the hit over the dark web did so through backtracking encryption that The Offer says “seems uncrackable.” The information broker then tipped the Punisher off to an industrial warehouse off Pier 37.

This week’s Punisher #3, from writer David Pepose and artist Dave Wachter, finds the Punisher on the run from the police — wanted for the murders of his wife and two children. Detectives Linus and Ward track the framed fugitive, but someone else finds him first: the demonic Fearmaster, the daughter of Alan Fagan, the fourth criminal to don the mantle of the Daredevil villain Mister Fear. As Shock, she learned to synthesize her father’s terror compounds into her bloodstream, exposing the Punisher to her fear-inducing toxins.

Fearmaster’s toxins force the Punisher to hallucinate. As he relives his worst nightmare — his family’s deaths in the blaze that consumed their home — the mistress of fear attacks and kills Ward. The Punisher tells the zombified versions of his family that he’s ready to accept his punishment and come home… but “Stephanie” tells him, “You’ve never been scared of dying. The real horror is living with what you owe.” The Punisher then discovers another horror: the bodies of Fearmaster’s many victims strung up in the warehouse, their faces frozen in terror. The undead “Stephanie” tells her husband that his mission won’t end until he avenges them. All of them.

“When my family died, I made it my mission to wipe out the criminals responsible,” Punisher says as he saves Linus from Fearmaster. “But now I see how truly blind I was. Because there are endless monsters in the night, preying on millions of families… everyone turns away from the shadows, pretending they can’t hear the screams. But I’m listening now. I’ll hear them for as long as I live.”

The Punisher, still tormented by visions of his family’s fiery deaths, overcomes Fearmaster’s nightmare toxins — and then snaps her neck, killing her. Detective Linus attempts to arrest the Punisher for the murders of Stephanie, Laura and Danny Garrison, but Punisher informs him that he was set up. In the basement, he’ll find dozens of bodies — test subjects for Fearmaster’s formula. Whoever funded Fearmaster are the ones who killed his family, and their next target is the upcoming Symkarian-Bagalian peace summit.

Meanwhile, armored goons infiltrated Triple-A’s bunker and took her hostage. Her captor calls a phone on Fearmaster’s body and tells the Punisher: “You’re not the only one smart enough to put the pieces together… if you attempt to interfere with our plans for the summit, she might find our hospitality cut short.” Linus asks who’s behind it all — the Garrison family murders, The Sokovian, Joe’s setup, Fearmaster — but all the Punisher has is a name. On the phone is a red puzzle piece. “Who the hell is Jigsaw?”

The original Jigsaw was the gangster Billy “the Beaut” Russo, the deformed archenemy of Frank Castle. Jigsaw, whose cut-up face spurned his vendetta against Castle, met his end in 2022’s Punisher War Journal: Brother #1. 

While operating as the High Slayer for the mystical cult of assassins The Hand, Castle impaled Jigsaw with a sword… and then stabbed him through the throat. But Jigsaw has died before, most recently in 2011’s Punisher: In the Blood — only to return to life and carry on his bitter rivalry with Castle that ended with Jigsaw’s apparent death in Punisher War Journal: Brother.

Reads the synopsis for February’s Punisher #4: “WHAT IS JIGSAW? Alone and outgunned, Joe must push his deadly set of skills to their limit to stop the clandestine terror group known as Jigsaw — but even if he survives, can this all-new Punisher finally come to terms with his role as the Marvel Universe’s most dangerous hero?”

Punisher (Vol. 14) #3 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.