New Details On The Punisher Becoming War Machine

The only thing more terrifying than the Punisher is the Punisher with his own Iron Man-style armor, and that nightmare is about to come true for the criminals of the Marvel Universe.

The Punisher #218 will return the series to its legacy numbering and see Frank Castle come into possession of the War Machine armor formerly used by James Rhodes. The series is written by Matthew Rosenberg with artist Guiu Vilanova.

Rosenberg explained in an interview with Newsarama that gaining the War Machine armor helps Frank Castle fulfill the potential he has always seen for himself as The Punisher.

“Kid in a candy store is right. Or maybe giant monster that eats candy in a candy store,” Rosenberg said. “In a way, this is Frank in his idealized form. It’s one of those crazy ideas that everyone recoils from at first and then they let it sink in and it makes people ask ‘Why didn’t this happen sooner?’ It just makes logical sense that Frank would want the armor.”

At the same time, the idea of Frank Castle becoming War Machine is a kind of inversion of everything James Rhodes represented.

“I love War Machine and Rhodey,” Rosenberg explained. “I love him as a character and what he stands for. In a lot of ways, he is this optimistic view of what our government and our military stand for. Like Cap, he is the best of us going above and beyond to keep all of us safe and free. And obviously, he is much more than that too. But none of that is what Frank is.”

“Frank is the inverted nightmare version of that,” Rosenberg continued. “He is all the anger and hatred and vengeance that is built into our society, personified. The Punisher brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions about who we are as a society and what we are willing to let happen and what we’d like to see done. So, putting Frank in Rhodey’s armor felt so wrong to me at first. It felt almost blasphemous. It wasn’t until I realized this wasn’t a superhero story anymore that I got it. This isn’t a celebration of the Punisher taking on the mantle of War Machine and becoming a hero. This is a look into how easily War Machine can become overshadowed by the Punisher when it falls into the wrong hands.”

Take a look at Punisher in his full glory as War Machine on the cover above. The Punisher #218 ships out in November.