YMMV / Punisher (2022)

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Frank's decision to be teleported to a different universe and give up being the Punisher at the end. Was it because Maria divorcing him and calling him out for his murderous war against criminals made him realize the error of his ways and convinced him to turn over a new leaf and atone for his actions? Or was it because he finally had enough with being treated poorly by those around him (With Maria telling him how she no longer loves him likely being the last straw for him) and just simply wanted to get away from a world that he felt he did not fit in with? A third argument could be made that he also wanted to avoid justice, since it's implied that Captain America and co. were going to have him imprisoned for his crimes.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: Out of all the criticisms the comic received, its ending is without a doubt one of the fans' biggest gripes. The comic ends with Frank being chained by the Marvel superheroes, scolding him for his crimes and forcing him to change his ways, which is then followed by his now former wife, Maria Castle, revealing to him that she no longer loves him and wants nothing to do with him, which results in Frank deciding he wants nothing to do with planet earth anymore and decides to be teleported to a different dimension where he can start a new life, while giving up on being the Punisher altogether. It also doesn't help matters that the ending is supposed to be seen as bittersweet.
• Bile Fascination: To an extent. Because of this comic's negative backlash from longtime fans for how it treats the Punisher's character, along with all the ridiculous ideas shoe-horned in, such as Frank adopting a new a ninja outfit and having fantasy and resurrection as the main theme (which many complained felt out out of place in a Punisher story), and for having a hypocritical narrative against Frank Castle killing evil people, many only read it out of curiosity to see how bad it really is.
• Broken Aesop: The series really wants the audience to see Frank Castle and his war on evil as morally wrong, with the message being that taking the law into your own hands by becoming a vigilante to slaughter evil people to avenge your loved ones makes you just as bad as the criminals you kill, and it will only result in said loved ones abandoning you. Unfortunately, the comic ends up contradicting its own message by having Maria Castle shoot Frank Castle dead, and we are supposed to see her in the right for doing so, even though she basically did exactly what she criticized and eventually left Frank for doing, thus making the aesop of the comic completely self-contradictory.
• Complete Monster: The Archpriestess is the religious leader of the Hand and a zealous worshiper of the Beast. Determined to find a new High Slayer, she massacres countless members of the Hand when they refute her claims that a next High Slayer will be born in America. The Archpriestess trains children to be nothing more than killers fully devoted to the Hand and sets her sights on young Frank Castle. She brings Frank's wife Maria back to life and manipulates him into accepting the position of High Slayer by promising to resurrect his children. The Archpriestess mentors Frank in order to awaken the power of the Beast within him and turn him into a mindless killer who will bring about the slaughter of millions upon the world. When a group of agents return from their mission in failure, the Archpriestess has their families murdered before their eyes. When Frank fails to fully unlock the Beast's power, the Archpriestess tries to kill him in order to resurrect him and begin anew, promising to kill Maria. After Frank rejects her one last time, the Archpriestess sets her sights on a mentally unstable teenager as her next candidate.
• Fanon Discontinuity: This series has since been disowned and universally reviled by fans, due to being little more than a mean-spirited Take That! to both the Punisher’s character and legacy, with the final issue being downright sadistic towards the character. Needless to say, It is not difficult to see why many fans would prefer to pretend this series never happened, as well as viewing The Punisher MAX as the true conclusion to Frank's journey.
• Informed Wrongness: Frank is supposed to be seen in the wrong for killing evil people to honor his family, for allegedly selfish reasons. Though it's important to remember that just about all of Frank's victims were genuinely evil people who prayed on the weak and innocents. Even if Frank did have some selfish reasons for killing them, such as satisfying his own sadism and blood-lust, at the same time, he still had the best interests of society at heart and genuinely wanted to create a better, much safer society and to prevent other people from falling victim to the villains he slaughtered, as misguided as he may have been. It is also worth mentioning that there are other Marvel characters who have done far worse than what the Punisher has done, but have never received the same cruel treatment or vilification from other characters.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While the aforementioned Archpriestess is clearly intended to be the series’ big bad, she at-least has some fans who like her for being rather bad-ass and terrifying antagonist in her own right. Maria Castle, on the other hand, despite the story treating her as one of the supporting protagonists, has become widely loathed by a majority of the fandom, for her callous treatment of Frank, from shooting him dead (which itself makes her a massive hypocrite, since she is condemning Frank for killing evil people), to ultimately abandoning and divorcing him for his war on evil, as well as giving him a brutal reason you suck speech and telling him to stay dead, causing him him to fall into despair and exile himself to another dimension to get away from the trauma. As a result, she has since become the scrappy in the eyes of the fandom, and it is not hard to come across comments from fans expressing how they wish to see Maria receive karma of some sort.
• Karmic Overkill: How many fans view Frank's treatment at the end of the story. When one really thinks about, his only real crime was killing criminals who are genuine menaces to society, guilty of rape, human trafficking, killing and torturing innocent lives, just to name a few of many examples. But because of that, he apparently deserves to experience his wife shooting him dead, divorcing him and even humiliating him, breaking his soul enough for him to exile himself to another dimension. Even those who dislike his character agree that the story's treatment of Frank Castle was unnecessarily sadistic, regardless of whether he actually deserved it or not.
• Sequelitis: This was supposed to be the conclusion to Frank's journey. However, as mentioned on Fanon Discontinuity, this series is not the conclusion fans had asked for, nor wanted.
• Strawman Has a Point: While being interrogated near the end, Black Widow tries to reason with Frank by offering to help him turn over a new leaf, even telling him that she has always viewed him as a friend during their missions together. Frank rebuffs her offer and calls her out for being disingenuous, accusing her of only viewing him as a gun to use for her missions and never really seeing him as a friend. Natasha doesn't bother to debunk anything Frank had said, other than threatening to add him to her shit-list, leaving the implication that he is correct.
• Tainted by the Preview: This comic was already negatively received by fans before it was even released, due to the Punisher's logo being changed, as well as him giving up his guns in favor of swords, and adopting a ninja outfit, which many found unfitting.
• Tear Jerker: The ending in spades. As a result of Maria Castle revealing to Frank that she always hated him and had wanted to divorce him long before she and her children were killed, as well as finally having enough with being vilified by the Avengers and other superheroes in the Marvel universe, Frank falls into despair, even breaking down in tears, and decides to exile himself from earth by teleporting himself to another realm and giving up his Punisher identity.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: We are clearly supposed to view Frank's fate at the end as well-deserved karma for his self-indulgent war on evil. However, considering he only killed evil people who were far worse than him, along with the fact that his fate is so needlessly cruel and sadistic that it is hard not to want to hug the poor guy, after everything he has been through.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Maria Castle. We are supposed to feel bad for her when she is horrified after learning about what Frank has been doing while she was dead, and we are also meant to root for her when she abandons and divorces Frank for killing criminals in her name. While she is technically well-within her rights to do so, the way she goes about it makes it impossible to sympathize with her, from shooting Frank dead, to verbally kicking him while he is down, by giving him a hateful, spirit-piercing speech. As a result, she comes off a thoroughly unlikable, hypocritical Jerkass who Frank is completely better off without. To make matters worse, she did all this, even after Frank requested Captain America and his team to make sure she stays safe.
• The Woobie: Frank Castle. Though he is usually depicted as a Jerkass Woobie in most stories, he really plays the Woobie part straight at the end. Imagine witnessing your wife and children being killed by criminals, only for your wife to not only be resurrected from the dead years later, but for her to also shoot you dead, divorce you and tell you what a horrible person you are, all at once, no less.

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