Punisher: One Last Kill may tread familiar territory, but it finally settles the age-old question: is the Punisher a serial killer? As enjoyable as Marvel’s latest Special Presentation may be, it doesn’t really blaze a new trail for the Punisher. Rather, it follows the same kind of format you’ll see in the original Marvel Netflix show: Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle is going through a “cooldown phase,” only to suit up and become the Punisher once again by the end of the story.
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This isn’t a criticism. It’s a fairly traditional pattern in every superhero story, even replicated in movies, where the hero traditionally suits up in the third act. But in this case, Punisher: One Last Kill pulls it off in quite an unusual way, and in doing so confronts the ultimate question about Frank Castle: is he a serial killer, or is he a hero of some kind?
Punisher: One Last Kill Starts With Frank Castle As a Serial Killer
The debate has raged for years. It was given a boost in 2019, when a St. Louis police union used the Punisher’s insignia to protest internal investigations. Marvel comics book writers were outraged; Marc Sumerak insisted any cop who wears that skull either doesn’t understand the character, or isn’t fit for the job. Kurt Busiek went one step further, openly calling the Punisher a serial killer. Naturally, the Punisher’s vocal fandom immediately disagreed, and the discussion still runs today.
Netflix tended to treat the Punisher as a serial killer, albeit a disturbingly sympathetic one. According to the FBI, a serial killer is “someone who commits at least three murders over more than a month with an emotional cooling off period inbetween.” Serial killers tend to have specific types of prey, and they tend to be driven by a deviant sexuality, power fantasy, or a desire to make other people afraid. The Punisher definitely ticks some of these boxes; the skull itself is designed to generate fear, and he tends to commit a lot more than three murders a month when he’s active.
The most interesting aspect here, though, is the concept of the emotional cooling off period. Marvel Netflix integrated this into their Punisher design, enabling the cyclical and repetitive storyline in which Frank Castle is trying to live an ordinary life but explodes into action again when enough pressure is applied. Punisher: One Last Kill opens with exactly the same pattern, with Frank now in perhaps the deepest cooling off period so far. When the Special Presentation begins, the Punisher is most definitely treated as a serial killer.
The Punisher Becomes More Than a Serial Killer
By the end of Punisher: One Last Kill, though, Frank Castle has become something very different. Little Sicily is in chaos thanks to Ma Gnucci, who placed a bounty on Frank’s head and then told the world where he was. You’d expect the Punisher to seek brutal vengeance against Ma Gnucci, prioritizing hunting her down and killing her. Instead, he lets Ma Gnucci get away, prioritizing defending innocents – albeit with lethal efficiency. The Punisher’s mission is no longer motivated by vengeance, but by the needs of others.
Punisher: One Last Kill isn’t exactly subtle about this. Frank is thanked by the family he saves, including a little girl who symbolically represents his dead daughter still loving him. When the Punisher suits up again later, he guns down people who’ve wronged still other innocents. The Punisher has made the transition; no longer a serial killer who fights out of a power fantasy or desire for revenge, he now kills to right wrongs according to his own code.
This doesn’t quite make the Punisher a hero. His code is still extreme; he is more than willing to kill anybody, not even caring to learn more about what they did. This is no “eye for an eye” concept of retributive justice, but rather is a sense of justice without limitation, in a form that predated even the Mosaic law. It would be more appropriate to call him Marvel’s ultimate antihero, rather than a simple hero. But he’s certainly moved away from the serial killer pattern of the Netflix era – although it’s anybody’s guess whether that will hold after the Punisher’s next appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
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