Hitting the Wall I: The Punisher

Some characters, even if their basic premise can compel in the short term, have self-limitations in their definitions. These weaknesses force them to follow a narrow series of paths: Achieve their goal and retire, wait for some deft creator to redefine them, or keep acting out the same story long past the point where everyone has ceased caring.

This column begins a series called "Heroes Hitting the Wall," which discusses how character definitions force some superheroes either to evolve, to die, or to act out the same story with a different cast through years of publication. The problem, however, can reach character definitions beyond comics; in literature and cinema, many of the same principles apply.

Consider, for instance, the protagonist in the television series "The Fugitive." Falsely accused of murdering his wife, Dr. Kimball went on the lam to find his wife's real killer and clear his name in the process. This formula can compel for a while, but how long could our aggrieved stalwart continue to look for the man until a) his target died, b) he died himself, c) he caught up with him, either setting things right or making them so much worse that nothing could ever straighten them out, or d) he gave up?

The definition of the character limits him; in this case, the need to achieve a goal defines him and makes him interesting, but simultaneously confines him to the necessities of his mission. Some superheroes similarly suffer from such a limiting design. The cult favorite antihero Frank Castle, also known as the Punisher, suffers from just such a crisis of definition.

The Punisher Concept

After seeing his family slaughtered by gangland goons, ex-Marine Frank Castle dedicated himself to wiping out both the killers of his family and their kind in general. He uses a combination of with and soldier of fortune technology to achieve this aim, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. This defines his essential concept. Beyond this, if you recognize his costume and remember the color and cut of his hair, you know the character and how he will behave.

No moral crises plague him. He doesn't soul-search over whether he should do what he does. Essentially, one only wonders how long it will take the Punisher to do in how many of his targets, and occasionally if innocents will get in the way.

The Punisher has featured in a number of short-lived series but has not yet broken out into an enduring ongoing piece, probably because readers tire of watching him slaughter goons issue after issue. Even in the excellent current Punisher series, the interaction of secondary characters has to serve to keep matters interesting. If not for the personality quirks of prospective targets he hasn't killed yet and a crop of imitation Punishers, the book would have collapsed in its first half year. Ennis has achieved much by keeping it interesting.

Fundamentally, the Punisher feeds off the perceived helplessness of urban populations who suffer the predations of violent street criminals. People wish for the power to make themselves safe from serving as a food supply for muggers and thugs, and the Punisher expresses their wishes by taking out the conscienceless souls who would prey upon their fellow man.

The Storytelling Problem

The formula - "Frank recognizes criminal, Frank hunts criminal, Frank gets criminal" - can limit the stories that a writer can tell with him. In the past, the Punisher has worked much better as a foil against which other heroes can reflect their own personalities; he provides an excellent contrast by which urban heroes like Spider-Man or Daredevil can define their own theories of heroism. In a DC-Marvel crossover piece, he even served this role for Batman to define himself as a hero by using the Punisher to point out the limitations Batman chooses to impose on himself.

By himself, though, the story tends to revert to the aforementioned formula. The vengeance theme must eventually play out one of three ways: The avenging hero achieves vengeance, the avenging hero fails to achieve vengeance, or the avenging hero changes his objectives such that his original mission becomes obsolete.

With the Punisher, one would expect him to have dealt with the killers of his family some time ago, given the 26 years he's had to pursue them, and, indeed, the specific killers of his family do not appear as his regular targets. However, redefined as a hero who intends to rid the world of a class of criminals altogether, the Punisher still finds a dead end looming.

You can only kill so many criminals in so many clever ways before readers realize that you've done this before and will do this again, again, and again. The exercise, while arguably not futile, nonetheless becomes a Sisyphus-like effort of rolling a boulder up the hill, watching it roll down again, and starting over.

The Problem of Character

The Punisher can't afford to grow meaningfully as a character. It would make him into someone else. It would tamper with the fundamental obsession that defines him. He can't get any meaner without becoming lost in the ludicrous - as in his early-eighties story where he gunned down jaywalkers for their lawbreaking. He couldn't get any less mean without becoming a generic pulp hero with a gun and no particular distinguishing characteristic; a softer, kinder, gentler Punisher couldn't compete with basic pulp figures like the Shadow, Doc Savage, the Avenger, or the Spider.

Character growth would mean the end of the Punisher, so writers can't allow the character to grow. Either because the pursuit of vengeance would ultimately destroy him (as it did the tragic sheriff in the obscure fifties western "Jack Slade") or he might modify or abandon his mission, which would undermine the character by saddling him with the taint of selling out; failing this, the Punisher must kill every criminal in the world (an unlikely event), suffer death himself (he has, at least once), or evolve.

Sneaking out of the Cul-de-Sac

Such limitations would cripple a weak writer or one who failed to understand the Punisher's core concept. More sophisticated comics creators, such as Frank Miller, understood the character's potential for casting shadows over more merciful, less driven superheroes like Daredevil.

Garth Ennis, for his part, seems to understand this weakness and, though much of the action in Punisher puts the title character on center stage, he creates an interesting cast whom the Punisher can bring into relief - the cops, gangsters, and imitation Punishers all represent a sufficient crew that Ennis could dispense with the featured character altogether and run the book with a number of other superheroes, such as Batman, Moon Knight, or a figure of his own invention, assuming a suitably urban design.

None of this reflects badly on Ennis - I have to give him a great deal of credit for crafting a Punisher book I could stand to read, since the character had a lot to do with my abandonment of Marvel Comics in 1983. The crassness of the violence chafed, and seemed to me (at the time) to implicate a casual acceptance of homicide in our culture that I probably overestimated. I don't actually know anyone who could yawn as he watched a mugger have his entrails blown out by a vigilante with a shotgun.

But it does bring to the forefront the limited depth of a character who has a purpose but almost no personality.