The Punisher/Awesome

The Punisher: Born
""The war has bred a saying oft-repeated: "Payback is a motherfucker." At Valley Forge we have another. "If you think payback is bad, you haven't met Frank Castle.""
 * While his platoon are busy shooting blind, running for cover or shitting themselves during a Viet Cong surprise attack, Captain Castle stands tall, calmly asks for a Marine's M-60 and mows down the enemy force. PFC Goodwin says it best:


 * Finding one of his Marines raping a Viet Cong sniper, Castle's response is to shoot her in the head -- to put her out of her misery, since there was nothing else he could do for her without losing the Marines' trust -- and calmly explains, "No rape. We're here to kill the enemy." He later stalks the Marine and drowns him with his boot as punishment.
 * Finding that the firebase is on the verge of an attack of hundreds of NVA and VC troops, he simply asks for an M-60.
 * The Air Cavalry arrive in the aftermath of the assault to find  Castle  . It is made all the more awesome/frightening by the smoke behind him forming an absolutely demonic version of his trademark skull.

In the Beginning
"The Punisher: Fighting for the people the people who run the world gets you stabbed in the back. You fight the wars they start and feed. You kill the monsters they create. You die from handling depleted uranium while they get rich on oil. I'm not going back to war so Colt can sell another million M-16's. I had enough of that in Vietnam.
 * All you need to know about The Punisher is a part of the first issue of Punisher MAX, which has Castle wiping out scores upon scores of mooks gathered to celebrate a mafia boss' hundredth birthday. Castle begins by walking in through the front door, shooting the don through the head, then walking right back out. By the time the mooks are out of shock and pouring out for payback, Castle has already set up his trusted M-60 and let loose.
 * Depending on your political views, Castle's refusal of Microchip's offer to be recruited into the War on Terror is either this or massively out of character.
 * This troper thinks it's supposed to be interpreted more as a neutral "works for everyone" moment with Frank realizing (A) this would derail his war on crime indefinitely, and (B) he isn't the kind of person to spend months or years hunting one specific low-level goon since they all presumably have different identities and passports. Essentially, the time spent chasing people who are being chased by the rest of the first world ANYWAY would take away from his locating and punishing bad guys who flirted with the law and got away every time. It would be a very poor usage of his skills and resources, and it would allow both more innocents to be hurt and more crime to be committed than if he wasn't there. It's the same reason you always see Superman return to Metropolis (or Spider-Man to New York): when they leave, villains in that part of town take it as a sign they have free reign to do whatever they want.
 * I read it as having more to do with the idea of being assigned targets and working for anyone. Ennis's Punisher doesn't really trust or believe in anyone in the human race. Remember, in the same arc Frank flashes back to nearly killing a neighbor who cheated on and dumped his wife; later, we see that he's got nothing but disdain for working with wide-eyed idealists like Jen Cooke *or* the police *or* the government. Frank would kill Bin Laden, but he'd do it for his own mission and on his own terms, not as someone else's assignment or agenda. That said, Ennis clearly has an axe to grind with both the government and corporations, who usually become Strawman Political in anything he writes. Really, Ennis hates large and powerful institutions in general: he doesn't like major political parties (see the Limbaugh and Garofalo Take That caricatures in a late arc of Preacher), and often goes after organized religion. He also tends to disparage most of the officer corps in any military: individual officers like Nick Fury or the guy from his last MAX arc who were once grunts can be good guys, but not the folks who become top brass. Cynicism about any big concentration of power is a running theme in all his work.

Microchip: That's not the way it is...!

The Punisher: There are 60,000 guys in D.C. who'd say different. Except they can't say anything because they're nothing but names on a black wall."

"Microchip: I worked with Frank Castle for over ten years. I helped him kill over eight hundred people. I hacked computers to find him targets. I customized guns and ammunition. I put him in the right place at the right time to kill the maximum number of people. Without me, the body count for those ten years would be a third of what it is. I turned a lone gunman into a machine that runs at optimum efficiency. Because of me, what he does can truly be defined as war."
 * Frank doesn't go with Micro's offer because he knows that there's no way in hell a government agency like the CIA has the resources to fund such an operation. He knew the operation was funded by dirty money and would only serve to keep the Afghan heroin trade going indefinitely (basically only killing Bin Laden to keep up appearances).
 * This speech by Microchip:


 * This doubles as a CMOA for both Frank and the villain. The psychotic mobster Pittsy grazes Frank's side with a close range blast from a 12-gauge, completely disintegrating a rib, and Frank responds by lighting into Pittsy's face with everything he's got. He can tell it doesn't even hurt him, and as soon as he slows Pittsy punches him once, and Frank is seeing double. When Pittsy starts slashing him up with a nasty shard of glass, the Punisher decides he's had enough, catches the glass in his palm and snaps it in half, then picks up Pittsy, hauls him to the nearest window and throws him out...onto a spiked iron fence. Followed immediately by Frank using Pittsy to soften his own landing.
 * And does having several wrought iron spikes impaled through his chest slow Pittsy down? Fuck no, he just keeps going with the damn fence sticking out of him. Frank finally shoots him in the head with a shotgun, and he takes a few more steps. He collapses a second later, but he had Frank thinking "please just be a reflex".

Kitchen Irish
""Oh you sadistic old..." KRAKOOM!!!!!."
 * Pop Nesbitt's final "Fuck You" from beyond the grave.
 * To clarify, Pop Nesbitt hated all of the Irish gangs when he was in power, and constantly called them all cunts to their faces. Before he dies, he supposedly decides that he wants to make peace between the gangs and leaves them pieces of a code that will lead to the remainder of his fortune, hoping that they'd set aside their differences. After failed attempts to wipe each other out, the survivors do join forces and find it - only to find a block of C4, wired to go off 3 seconds after the container has opened, with the word "cunts" stenciled into it.

Mother Russia
"Fury: Just one moment General. [throws away cigar, goes and stands beside Frank] Whenever you're ready, gentlemen."
 * Nick Fury is a walking CMoA in this one, but the prize has to go to two moments:
 * Upon finding that he'd been used by a group of Army and Air Force Generals and made complicit to a terrorist plot, the general behind the plan tries to explain - but Colonel Fury is more interested in taking off his belt and literally whipping said general with it. The other generals are too terrified to call for help or intervene.
 * One of the generals does try to call for security while Fury is attacking the man. Fury intimidates the man into dropping the phone by simply yelling at him.
 * Upon his return to US soil, Castle is to be arrested for fucking up the generals' plan. Only Fury stands by his side, and the troops on location would rather be shipped to Iraq than cross the Colonel.


 * And the reason Castle was to be arrested? After all the little girl had been through,
 * Falling prey to a diminutive Mongolian super-agent who goes on to terrorize a six year old girl, Castle is roused by the memory of his injured daughter; he stands back up, grabs the agent's leg, and swings, battering the walls with the body of said Mongolian, only stopping because he realises he's scaring the little girl.
 * Frank fights off the Russian Army, then proceeds to launch a nuclear missile into the heart of Russia itself. The kicker?
 * Arguably a much more frightening payload, judging by body count alone.

Up is down, Black is White
"Mayor: "And the good news?"
 * "They put the sights on the top for a reason."
 * A mobster desecrates the graves of Castle's family, trying to goad him into going on a roaring rampage of revenge and act stupid. Castle's response? He attacks every gang BESIDES the mobster's, and in higher numbers than usual, to force the city to rebury the remains. Only then does Castle make a move against the mobster.
 * "That...that guy is gonna go fucking berserk." Frank was behind the guy who said this. He gets a little CMOA for just staring at the screen rather than kill everybody there in a murderous rage.
 * Just how effective was his rampage? City Hall is discussing what can be done: they can't capture or kill him, nor bow to his demands, and even with criminals thinking they are just being fed to the Punisher the mayor and his aides know he just will not stop until he gets what he wants.

Johnathan: "Crime's down."

Mayor: "Fuck you Johnathan.""

"Punisher: "You made it personal, Cavella, but all that buys you is a little more pain than most.""
 * When said mobster comes across Castle, he grabs a passing child out of fear for his life and holds a gun to the kid's head, threatening to kill him if The Punisher doesn't leave. Castle calls his bluff, and calmly points out that beyond his veneer of psychopathy, he really is a coward, and that killing the child will result in a long, agonizing death, while letting him go gives him a chance (in the mind of the mobster). The mobster promptly backs down - and Frank drives him to the wilderness, death marching him through the woods, and eventually shooting him in the gut; the mobster suffers for days as the contents of his bowels poison his blood.


 * Punisher gets one off-screen as Nicky Cavella's men leave him when he needs them the most. When Cavella tells them they're disrespecting their boss and will all get whacked for it they reply that there is no one left for him to boss around. The Punisher killed them all, starting with the massacre that opened In The Beginning.

The Slavers
"The Punisher: It was in that moment that I realized something. A dull, blurred feeling that I'd had since this whole mess began, all of a sudden crystal clear. It had been a long, long time since I hated anyone the way I hated them."
 * Best summed up by this monologue from Frank:

"Frank: "Whatever he was jabbering, it wasn't English. Pavla was Albanian, maybe he was too. But I'd know the Lord's Prayer in any language. Gave him a moment. Just before the line about forgiveness." *BLAM*"
 * This quote was said soon after he'd  and was followed by Frank  . They're all Slavers though, so it's really hard to muster any pity for them.
 * Also, earlier in the arc, Frank puts an end to a rape attempt, but one of the guys is still alive.

""All that counts is that you can't stop me. I'm stronger than you, so I can do what I want. Isn't that the way it works?""
 * There's this house, see? It's owned by a sex slave ring and has both a bunch of Eastern European criminals (that Castle wants to kill) and a bunch of Eastern European prostitutes (that Castle wants to save). The usual tactics are not an option this time around. So what does he do? Dump a whole lot of drugs in a cooking pot through a window while the cook isn't looking. Later, when they're all passed out, he breaks in and shoots them all as they lie. He keeps the ringleader alive only so he can
 * Another of the ringleaders, a woman (if you can call her that), advised the previous ringleader to have his men rape the women they abducted over and over just to drive home the idea that they could do it because they couldn't be stopped. She meets a fate just as bad: Frank tosses her against a plate glass windows over and over as she begs for her life, the glass eventually breaking - but not before getting absolutely caked in the woman's blood.

""Don't come back here." *tosses the match*"
 * When it comes to the boss of the whole operation, a war criminal of the Balkan wars, he perhaps gets it worst: Frank ties him to a chair, covers him in gasoline, then puts a camera in front of him and offers a warning to his friends:

Barracuda
"Frank: What's your name?
 * How Frank escapes from the man eating shark, after confirming the other man thrown in with him was a drug dealer.

Horace: It's Horace man, Horace!

Frank: Pleased to meet you, Horace. I'm the Punisher. [gives the shark a snack]"


 * The fight between Frank and Barracuda is a CMOA for both of them but especially for Frank who shows a good use for barbed wire.

Man Of Stone
"The Punisher: She's dead Rawlins... right when I was starting to like her..."
 * Frank taking on the Magnificent Bastard Russian general who he fought in "Mother Russia," who brings  in an attempt to take the Punisher down.  .'
 * The scene where the general unloads his arsenal is a CMOA for Frank even though he doesn't appear in it at all. "This is all for one man, General...?" "One man, Major. Let us hope it proves sufficient to the task." Whatever else you want to say about Zakharov, he knows what he's up against.
 * General Zakharov gets one after his Moral Event Horizon. After  nearby Mujahideen fighters hiding in the across cliff open fire on him. Zakharov stands there calmly as bullets and RPGs slam around him and his men scatter for cover (earning his Badass Nickname "Man of Stone"). He then stands triumphant as Hind gunships come and and destroy the, now exposed, Mujahideen fighters and his Moral Event Horizon is revealed to be part of a cruel Batman Gambit. There's a reason the man is one of the few people who can pull off being a Magnificent Bastard and a Complete Monster at the same time.
 * Frank's simple statement to Depraved Bisexual Smug Snake Rawlins at the end, when Rawlins is trying to use as a get out of jail free card:


 * And followed by this is another small CMOA in Rawlins' terrified, there-is-no-hope expression as he's huddled in the corner of the bathroom.

Widowmaker

 * Jenny taking up the Punisher mantle, shirt, coat and guns and finishing all the remaining widows by herself. The best part? It was all done with Frank's consent.
 * Even better: Frank didn't really have much say in the matter, and was essentially the crazy Punisher fangirl's prisoner. He'd been shot, he reflects how ten feet would have been enough to drop him, which can be interpreted as either from his wounds or Jenny stopping him. And after Jenny lives out one of her Punisher fantasies she handcuffs Frank to the bed so he doesn't interfere, then scares the bejeasus out of him by beating her sister to death with a baseball bat. The scene goes out of it's way to show how much scarier Jenny is than The Punisher, how much she scares him, which earns a CMOA.

Long Cold Dark
"Frank Castle: A half hour's drive later I had the jump leads clamped to the skin of his balls and I'd been turning the key in the ignition for fifteen minutes and he'd shit all over himself and the world was a beautiful place. It was too bad he had a rag in his mouth, or he could've told me was ready to talk. As it was, I gave him another forty-five minutes."
 * Frank has briefly managed to defeat Barracuda. He needs to find out where Barracuda, so Castle proceeds to whip out the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on him by connecting Barracuda's genitals to a car battery:

"Frank: Shut the FUCK up."
 * Frank's suitable reply to Barracuda's endless talking:

Valley Forge, Valley Forge
""In the end, the war in Vietnam was like any other. There were those who profited. Those it devoured. And then there were those for whom there are no words.""
 * Castle, now pushing sixty, absolutely trounces a team of eight highly skilled Delta Force operatives half his age. As a bonus, he does this with non-lethal tactics to boot.
 * The following day, the soldiers are dejected and describe the feelings he has as being like those of a civilian against a special forces hardcase such as they.
 * After a long series of fights Morgan Freeman, well his Expy anyway, finally captures the Punisher and recovers the evidence he had on the cabal of generals who launch terrorist attacks for their own ends. He won't betray the armed forces, nor can he forget Castle rescuing him in Vietnam. So his solution is to leave him with a gun as the corrupt generals come after him.
 * At the end of Ennis' run, Castle is left in a warehouse with nothing in the way or ordinance but a single .45 with a full magazine and a round in the chamber - eight bullets. It is all made better by an excerpt from a book that Nick Fury is reading about the Vietnam war and the role it played in Castle's eventual fate.

Kingpin

 * Wilson Fisk tackling Frank down some stairs after dodging a shotgun blast and a shot to the face from Frank.
 * The Fight between The Punisher and The Mennonite.

Bullseye

 * Bullseye shits out a gun and shoots the Russian mob with it.
 * Castle, killing several thugs on a rooftop after being shot in the neck by Bullseye.

Homeless
"Frank: Your city. My world."
 * Everything.
 * Frank finally killing . He does so after death marching all the way from Queens to his building in Manhattan, before blowing his brains all over the glass front door.

The Cell

 * Having surrendered himself to the law, Frank is shipped to Riker's where the guards gleefully points out the most dangerous in the joint and tells him that's the guy they're sending after him. Frank breaks one guard's nose, steals the other guard's nightstick and beats his head in, then tells the guards to send him the next most dangerous man.
 * Two men enter his cell and start stabbing at the person sleeping in his bunk. Frank saw this coming and "convinced" his cellmate to switch bunks (he broke the guy's neck and put him in the bunk). While his cellmate was being stabbed he slid off the top bunk and walked out of his cell unnoticed.
 * After cornering the five men he got himself imprisoned to get to, he explains to them why he's after them:  They promptly shit their pants and he tells them what exactly is going to happen next: "I'm going to start the killing now."

Mainstream
"Captain America: "My ways stopped Hitler, boy."
 * An earlier moment occurred in the Suicide Run arc. A gathering of crime bosses are opening a new building, with the intention of setting a trap for the Punisher. Frank infiltrates the building and enters a darkened room, where the bosses reveal themselves and mock the Punisher. Frank reveals that he expected it, and has rigged the building with explosives. The trigger is in his hand, and if he lets go, the building goes. He starts to kill the mob bosses, and there's nothing they can do about it.
 * Circle of Blood, a cabal of extremists who kill off criminals but have no regard for the civilians caught in the crossfire organized the "Punishment Squad", a army of gangsters brainwashed into being loyal executioners. One of said gangsters is Jigsaw. At the end, the Punisher is battered and bruised after fighting through a large number of mooks, but still beats the tar out of Jigsaw, and the rest of the Squad is so terrified of them the brainwashing fails and they run away in terror.
 * This line from Civil War

Punisher: "No sir, the Russians stopped Hitler.""

"Frank: Kung-Fu this. (Opens fire on Daredevil's ninjas with a machine gun)"
 * During the Daredevil arc "The Devil, Inside and Out," fellow vigilante and occasional ally Matt Murdock AKA Daredevil is slowly breaking down while imprisoned at Ryker's Island. Frank is sitting a diner reading about Murdock's almost Punisher-like activities in jail. Deciding that Murdock needs a reminder of who he is, Frank gets up, heads outside, and casually breaks the neck of a pimp beating on one of his prostitutes, advises the girl to get clean and out of the life, and surrenders to a nearby police officer. Just to go help Daredevil.
 * Later, during a prison riot intended to kill Daredevil, Frank calmly waits reading a book in his unlocked cell for DD to come get him...though any thug that dares take a run at him ends up in a pile of bodies outside the cell. He subsequently uses the riot to break himself and Daredevil out...by pretending to hold "helpless" blind lawyer Matt Murdock hostage at gun point, simultaneously springing them and creating a little more doubt that Murdock is Daredevil (which he's on trial for).
 * Frank jumping out of a plane without a parachute from 35,000 feet up.
 * Frank's Big Damn Heroes moment, saving several Marvel superheroes from an evil Daredevil

"Frank: "You want to stop me murdering criminals by taking me off the streets. That's stupid. Send me to prison and I'll just kill everyone I meet. There's only one way to stop me. You know that. If you haven't got it in you to do it, don't waste my time.""
 * The "Confederacy of Dunces" arc (Garth Ennis's finale to his Marvel Knights run of the Punisher) is one long CMOA for Frank. Daredevil, Spider Man, and Wolverine decide to team up to bring the Punisher to justice once and for all. Frank just outsmarts the trio at every turn with a series of Batman Gambits culminating in him unleashing The Incredible Hulk on them. After the Hulk incapacitates Daredevil and knocks out Spiderman and Wolverine, the Punisher goes to the man without fear and points out that this is how far he had to go not to kill them. When Daredevil counters with a What the Hell Hero at Frank unleashing the Hulk, Frank responds by saying that he found an unconcious Bruce Banner and fed him stew with C4 hidden inside it and then detonates it, knocking out the Hulk by forcing him to turn back into Bruce Banner to escape the pain of a huge stomachache. The Punisher then says one last Hannibal Lecture to Daredevil before leaving:


 * Issue #3 of his latest mainstream series comic cements his reputation as THE BADASS NORMAL of the Marvel universe, with him facing off against the new, red-costumed Ax Crazy incarnation of The Vulture, who gave even Spider Man trouble when he faced him. After being snatched up by the psycho's talons & having a crazy prolonged mid-air battle, Frank finally ends him by ramming his combat knife into his chest & throat numerous times, resulting in both of them falling into the streets of New York with The Vulture dead & Frank losing an eye, some broken ribs & a leg. And you know what? He just keeps on going after a few months of healing.

Welcome Back, Frank
"Frank's monologue: Cuddly. Lovable. Docile. That won't do at all."
 * To those who are sick and tired of Daredevil's self righteousness, Frank forcing Dardevil to make a Sadistic Choice could count. After K.O.ing the man without fear while he was making one of his "you have a choice not to kill" speeches, he chains up Daredevil, tapes a revolver with one bullet to his hand, and tells him that he can either kill the Punisher and have blood on his hands or let the Punisher snipe a mobster (basically turning his own speech against him). Daredevil decides to pull the trigger... but there's no firing pin in the gun.
 * This one time, Castle sucker punched an unsuspecting polar bear. And sicked it on some mobsters.

"Tell me something I don't know. (throws grenade)"
 * Dying of six bullets in his chest, Castle calls upon the help of a mob doctor to patch him up. Rather than taking an anesthetic like someone who isn't the walking image of badass, he instead opts for the old school solution of biting down on .45 ACP for the whole procedure.
 * Frank Castle Vs. The Russian. Nuff said. Also a Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Frank Castle, barely conscious, out of ammo, bleeding from a half dozen bullets wounds walking to an armed thug, taking one more shot n the chest, then breaking the thug's neck with his bare hands remarking that all the thug is is a "little man with a big gun," before collapsing and barely being able to drag himself back to his hideout, setting up the equally badass bullet removal scene mentioned previously.
 * The Punisher's response to  Not So Different rant:

""Most people involved in attempts to kill me die. Not you, you get a warning. Don't ever give me cause to visit you again. I can get in anywhere. Nothing stops me. The last people to try are vapor. (tosses bullet on desk) 9 millimeters... I'm never further away than that." Stealth Hi Bye."
 * A commonly referenced(yet unsourced, but I'd guess part of Garth Ennis' mainstream run) example of Frank's badassery: after an entire story arc of being hunted by forces answering to the president himself, he breaks into the Oval Office of the goddamn White House to personally deliver an ultimatum - tossing a nine-millimeter bullet onto the desk in front of the President of the United States of America. You may not like the politics, may believe that the Presidency brings with it an Omniscient Morality License, may believe that anyone who dares disagree with the United States deserves to die screaming, but god-damn - the man blew through the most absolute security on Earth simply to tell the most powerful man on Earth to fuck off. If that's not badassery, Frank would have to pull the same stunt on Galactus(Warren Ellis' version) to top it.

Films
"Frank:"
 * In the 2004 film: Frank's entire plan for payback against Howard Saint, the man who ordered the execution of his family.


 * After the big reveal, Frank.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: The theme to the 2004 movie will make you want to kick some ass.
 * In Punisher: War Zone, Frank Castle and an FBI agent manage to overwhelm a pair of mobsters holding the Donatelli family hostage. The FBI agent orders the surviving mobster to sit down, reads him his rights, and is about to handcuff him when Castle promptly blows the mobster's head off.
 * As an addendum to the above, Castle kills said mobster's son by PUNCHING THROUGH HIS FACE.
 * Castle pays Maginty back for the tip on the hit on the Donatelli house by dropping him off a rooftop onto a spiked fence - and then uses said corpse as a cushion to get back to the ground.
 * Castle showing us how he deals with bad guys who use Le Parkour.
 * There's a rare villainous example when the Russian mob boss walks in to 'help' Jigsaw's amassed criminal army.
 * "She's just a kid, Frank. Shoot me."