History ComicBook / ThePunisherMAX

* ''Punisher: Get Fury'' (TBA) by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov

** In ''The Platoon'', Viet Cong assassin Ly Quang seems to fit the bill. Though she's not shown doing anything but conversing in her introductory scene, she has a reputation for killing "black rifles" that even a senior NVA official like Letrong Giap has heard of. She also swore that she would kill Castle after he called an airstrike on her cadre, so there's that...

* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: At the climax of "Up is Down and Black is White", Nicky Cavella's mooks abandon him en masse when he orders them to attack the Punisher after a particularity bloody shootout.

** Special mention goes to Nicky Cavella, a jackass of a mafioso who got the astoundingly ''bright'' idea to dig up the remains of Frank's family and record himself ''urinating on them'', then release the footage to the news media in the hopes of getting Castle [[IncrediblyLamePun pissed off]] and go berserk. Yeah. It's been nice knowing you, Nicky. Notably, it ''doesn't even work'': Instead of murdering the hell out of Nicky, Frank instead murders the hell out of everyone ''but'' Nicky, demanding that the city re-bury his family's remains, or he'll keep murder-spreeing until they do. When they finally do bury the remains, ''then'' Frank goes after Nicky, [[TranquilFury completely calm]] and ''[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge utterly vindictive]]''. Nicky spent the intervening time oscillating between gloating that the Punisher was terrified of him ''and'' doing his work of taking out other gangs, and batshit paranoid that Frank was going to kill him at any second.

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar: Although the series takes place in the 2000's, a majority of the characters have agendas rooted in conflicts that took place in the Cold War - specifically the Vietnam War, the Troubles, and the Soviet-Afghan war.

* GreaterScopeVillain: In "The Slavers", there's the Moldovans, the people who supplied the girls for the Serbs' sex trafficking ring. Although Frank sends them a video of him killing Tiberiu Bulat with a warning to never come back to New York City and has it delivered by the CorruptCop working with them (who disappears afterwards), Frank never goes after them personally.

** In "The Slavers", Frank needs to get information from one of the titular Croatian slavers and realizes that, hard as they are, "what I would need to do to such men would be...extreme." [[spoiler:So he drugs the guy, cut a hole in his belly, pulls out about two feet of his intestines and drapes them on a tree branch in front of him. And that's where he ''starts'']].

* UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia: A bit of a running theme throughout the series is the drastic changes that Russia has undergone in the past several years, including the downsizing of the military, the rapidly increasing crime rate, and the abandonment and subsequent collapse of Communism. Some of the Russian characters cope with it well, others? Well... [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell not so much.]]

* UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan: Sadistic General Nikolai Zakharov served in the war alongside his Black Sea Marines. What's more, later on we learn exactly ''[[MoralEventHorizon how they fought]]''. Hint: It involves genocide and '''''[[spoiler:infanticide]]'''''.
** Later on, "Man Of Stone" sees Frank going over to Afghanistan to deal with Zakharov and his Marines, and the parallels to the Soviet-Afghan war [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything are laid on ''thick'']].

* UsefulNotes/TheTroubles: Mined for all its worth by Ennis. The second arc, "Kitchen Irish", features a disfigured Irish terrorist coming to New York to claim a recently deceased Irish gangster's inheritance, with the goal of using said inheritance to continue funding his war against Britain.

* UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar: The Vietnam War is quite possibly the most integral part of Frank's backstory, having been a major turning point in his life, as well as the catalyst for his chosen path towards becoming the Punisher. What's more, the ''Born'' mini-series chronicles Frank's final tour of duty there.
** Supporting characters Yorkie Mitchell and Nick Fury both participated in the war.
* UsefulNotes/VietnameseWithKalashnikovs: The enemies that Frank faced off against during his tours of duty in the Vietnam War. More specifically, he goes up against elements of the Viet Cong, and later on, the NVA, both of whom prove extremely resilient.

* UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars: The villains of "The Slavers" took part in the war and kidnapped their first slaves during the conflict.

* RedsWithRockets: The Russian military occasional plays an antagonistic role in the series: first in "Mother Russia", where they are trying to prevent Frank and a Delta Force operator from taking off with a six year old girl whose blood contains an experimental super virus, and later when they appear once again in "Man of Stone", this time in a far more villainous role, as General Zakharov and his Soviet Black Sea Marines. What's more, we later learn that the aforementioned General and his Marines took part in the Soviet-Afghan War.

* BlackComedy: Not as prevalent as it is in some of Ennis's other works like ComicBook/Preacher and ComicBook/TheBoys, but it pops up every now and then, largely on the part of Frank's victims.