WI a real Punisher?

I have chosen his topic because I have long been a fan of the character, and I consider him to be the most plausible non-powered vigilante, both in method and in motive. The Punisher, AKA Capt. Frank Castle, USMC, is one of the few comic characters that ages in real time. Born in February of 1950, he is 58 years old, with a body count of organized crime members, rapists, and drug dealers conservatively estimated to be over 3000. He enlisted in the USMC in 1967, and served three tours in Vietnam. He received a field commission, was certified as a SEAL, served as an exchange officer with the Australian SAS, and completed UDT training. He was decorated with the Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, three Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars, and four Purple Hearts. After the war, he was a Special Forces instructor until 1976, when his wife and two children were killed in the crossfire of a mob firefight. He went AWOL and began killing criminals.

Skills: Standing 6-4 and weighing 230 pounds, Castle is in incredible shape for a man in his fifties, due to a merciless calisthenics regime. WHile he has no powers, he does have an incredible tolerance for pain, and shows detailed knowledge of field medicine. He supports his activities by taking the money of those he has killed, and is able to predict the modus operandi of his targets. Notably, he has never killed what he considers to be a civilian, and for this reason the NYPD has never really tried to apprehend him. He is fluent in English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

How would the politics of NYC be affected by an unstoppable killing machine?
 
Easy enough. He'd have been killed quite early on his career. Organised crime syndacites don't really take too well to someone wiping them out. All it takes is one decent bullet and he's as dead as anyone.
 

Vault-Scope

Banned
He have body armour but no helmet and faceplate ?? :rolleyes:

Still, here at least is something plausible, far more so than the fanatic freakazoid z men.


A real punisher? He doesn´t go in public in black dress with a T-shirt with a white skull, machine-gun in hand. He have equippement that allow him to produce realistic masks, lenses etc.
He done body armour, helmet and faceplate complete with gas mask when engaged in special operation, which he does with a minimum of planning.

Incidental notes: He is ex-red army, spetnaz, from the Russian Federation or secessionist republic of ukraine. He only comes to the USA to eliminate mafia criminals "refugees" there.
He took care alexander litvinenko, abramovich, berekovsky. Actions which earned him at least a 100 millions supporters in Russia. He prevented an US invasion of Iraq with his famous "intervention" in January 2003 spanish meeting between Bush, Blaire and Aznar...
 
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Easy enough. He'd have been killed quite early on his career. Organised crime syndacites don't really take too well to someone wiping them out. All it takes is one decent bullet and he's as dead as anyone.

He's a lot more physically adept and trained than the average hit man.
 
He's a lot more physically adept and trained than the average hit man.

In real life, that is completely irrelevant. You are talking about the mob, do you think they'd fight fair? Anyone needs a social support network - somewhere to sleep, something to eat, clothing, gear, in his case ammunition, transport and hideouts. Law enforcement agencies spend millions to provide safe infrastructuire like that, and it doesn't always work. The people who provide it tpo the Punisher can be bribed. If they can't be bribed, they can be blackmailed. All it takes is one person to talk. SEAL training is no good against poison, explosions, or assorted industrial accidents.

Though IRL, the police would likely get him first. They have the better resources, and real cops don't like vigilantes to put it mildly.
 
In real life, that is completely irrelevant. You are talking about the mob, do you think they'd fight fair? Anyone needs a social support network - somewhere to sleep, something to eat, clothing, gear, in his case ammunition, transport and hideouts. Law enforcement agencies spend millions to provide safe infrastructuire like that, and it doesn't always work. The people who provide it tpo the Punisher can be bribed. If they can't be bribed, they can be blackmailed. All it takes is one person to talk. SEAL training is no good against poison, explosions, or assorted industrial accidents.

Though IRL, the police would likely get him first. They have the better resources, and real cops don't like vigilantes to put it mildly.

Not "completely irrelevant" because they'd probably underestimate him at first, thinking him some Bernie Goetz wannabe, and lose a fair number of people doing so.

Furthermore, what if the mobs, instead of doing the smart thing and banding together to take the Punisher out, instead try to use him as a weapon? The old-school Italian families have an interest in seeing the street thugs and Russian/East Bloc newcomers taken out, after all.

Also, SEAL training would probably teach you at least some ways of avoiding car bombs and assassinations as well as being the last man standing in a fight.
 
Furthermore, if the Punisher is smart, he'd minimize the number of people he relies on.

For starters, he can collect guns and ammo off the people he kills, so there's not a gun dealer or gun dealers that he can be ambushed at. If we're talking about crack dealers and the like, they've got lots of good guns but they oftentimes don't know how to use them.

(holding their weapons sideways while they shoot, for example)

Either that or he relies on a LOT of people so the chance of him being ambushed/killed at a suborned supplier is minimized. This would probably require him to be more mobile, operating cross-country instead of just in NYC.

Furthermore, given the police would be after him as well as the underworld, he probably would wear a mask.
 
Uh-huh, but what if the mask is recognizable?

In any event, the Punisher would be a vigilante, but he would have his own support network, just like how any other mob hitman would have a support network. The Punisher would just simply be one cog in yet another societal murder machine if he existed IRL.
 
I'd say five years at max. If he starts in the 1970's like the comic then this person with military training would go after a lot of criminals. The problem is that the 70's was also the time of dirty cops. So think real hard of how long a man will live if he kills a cop, dirty or not.

Throw in public opinion of a mass murderer, as well as having a bad day. Seems cool, and in theory he could do a great deal of damage given the right equipment, but the chances of not hurting innocent people, as well as dodging every single bullet is all most impossible. Much as the Red Baron was killed by a stray bullet from the ground so would this punisher be killed by a low level goon.
 
I'd say five years at max. If he starts in the 1970's like the comic then this person with military training would go after a lot of criminals. The problem is that the 70's was also the time of dirty cops. So think real hard of how long a man will live if he kills a cop, dirty or not.

Throw in public opinion of a mass murderer, as well as having a bad day. Seems cool, and in theory he could do a great deal of damage given the right equipment, but the chances of not hurting innocent people, as well as dodging every single bullet is all most impossible. Much as the Red Baron was killed by a stray bullet from the ground so would this punisher be killed by a low level goon.

Five years is quite awhile for someone who spends his nights and weekends (and workdays if he has $$) slaughtering Mafia goons, muggers, etc.
 
Another problem that doesn't get brought up is the racial and ethnic implications. Imagine the outrage of people when they hear a white former special forces Army operative is operating in New York City, killing "suspected criminals". To make matters worse, he is targetting low-income neighborhoods, which are predmoniantly populated by people of color. Considering that this means going after East Coast gangbangers, Colombian cartels, Chinese Triads, et al. Pretty soon, the media will portray the situation as a white racist psychopath with a messianic complex....

Also based on his introduction in Amazing Spiderman #129, wherein he fires blindly into a crowded street, hitting a police officer on horseback and an old lady crossing the street, odds are that he will hit more innocents than his apologists will take credit for. To make matters worse, in the movie Punisher (1989) starring Dolph Lundgren, the Punisher's main informant is a drug-addled homeless addict named "Shakes". Considering how unreliable his information would be, more people would be hurt than helped....
 

CalBear

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A guy like this IRL, not in the comics, would be a complete nightmare to deal with.

SEAL's, Delta, SAS, and the like who receive CT training are taught how to blend in. He's on the tall side, but not exceptionally so, has dark hair, and it appears, brown eyes. He's a ghost, until he acts. When he does it would be with lots of planning, including a carefully designed way out (likely several). He could kill for years, maybe decades, until Mr. Murphy caught up with him (speeding ticket, red light camera, something really dumb) and gave him away. Even then, assuming he's well trained, there are ways to disappear.

His biggest danger would be from the military. If they decided he'd gone rouge. well, he isn't the only guy with this sort of training.
 
[QUOTE
His biggest danger would be from the military. If they decided he'd gone rouge. well, he isn't the only guy with this sort of training.[/QUOTE]

Thats actually the current story line. Give him a target he cant shoot.
 
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