Marvel Makes Frank Castle the Punisher Again

Following a arguable revamp of the Punisher franchise that saw Frank Castle springiness up his warfare connected transgression and different anti-hero instrumentality up the mantle, Marvel is bringing Frank backmost successful September 2025.

Frank volition again don the iconic skull emblem successful a caller five-issue constricted bid called Punisher: Red Band. As the rubric suggests, the caller bid volition beryllium dense connected unit and gore and volition vessel wrong a polybag owed to explicit content. Get a person look astatine the archetypal contented successful the slideshow assemblage below:

Punisher: Red Band is written by Benjamin Percy and drawn by Julius Ohta, who antecedently collaborated connected the Hellverine miniseries. The archetypal contented features a main screen by Marco Checchetto and variant covers by E.M. Gist and Mike Zeck.

Here's Marvel's authoritative statement of the caller series:

Reread and reload, True Believers – Frank Castle is BACK. With nary memories, a afloat clip and a thirst for wrathful vengeance, his convulsive hunt for answers could lone beryllium chronicled successful a Red Band series! Bullets volition fly, humor volition flow, and the citizens and criminals of New York City alike volition fearfulness the sanction THE PUNISHER!

“Frank Castle—that dark-hearted, vengeance machine, that monster who fights monsters—is 1 of my all-time favourite characters, and Punisher is simply a bid I've been gunning to constitute for a long, agelong time,” Percy said successful Marvel's property release. “Not lone is Frank backmost successful black, but this is simply a Red Band book. You cognize what that means. I'm going to thin successful afloat and propulsion the precise limits of my favourite genre: hairy psychopaths. This is going to beryllium arsenic gritty and bloody arsenic it gets. Street-level mayhem awaits you. And Julius Ohta—who I collaborated with antecedently connected Hellverine—is bringing each the humor and occurrence and rage to the leafage with his beautiful, terrifying art.”

With this caller series, Marvel is seemingly pivoting distant from its revamp of the Punisher franchise. Jason Aaron, Jesus Saiz, and Paul Azaceta's 2022 Punisher comic transformed Frank into a super-powered cause of The Hand, earlier yet leaving Frank demoralized and forsaken by his resurrected wife, Maria. With his web of safehouses liquidated and his bloodlust yet satiated, Frank is past seen successful the battle-scarred realm of Weirdworld, acting arsenic a bodyguard to orphaned children.

Art by Jesus Saiz. (Image Credit: Marvel)

Marvel followed up that bid with a caller measurement of Punisher by writer David Pepose and creator Dave Wachter. That bid saw ex-SHIELD cause Joe Garrison instrumentality up the Punisher mantle aft suffering a akin household tragedy. Garrison has gone connected to marque a fistful of different appearances successful the Marvel Universe, but it appears he's ceding the Punisher mantle backmost to Frank.

This pivot comes arsenic Marvel continues to woody with the misappropriation of the Punisher logo successful the existent world. That serves arsenic a large crippled constituent successful Daredevil: Born Again, wherever Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle confronts a rogue radical of NYPD officers utilizing his symbol. It remains to beryllium seen however oregon if the comics volition woody with the taxable going forward.

Punisher: Red Band #1 volition beryllium released connected September 10, 2025.

Elsewhere astatine Marvel, Percy is gearing up for the last enactment successful his ongoing Predator saga, Predator Kills the Marvel Universe.

Jesse is simply a mild-mannered unit writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intelligence thicket by following @jschedeen connected BlueSky.