The Punisher vs Gotham City

[Jeivar]

Let's say that Batman is out of the picture somehow. Maybe his plot armour finally gave in. Maybe getting 15 minutes of sleep a day finally caught up with him. Maybe Alfred actually realised that Bruce needs therapy. Whatever.

Meanwhile, the police of New York are closing in on Frank Castle, and he moves operations to Gotham while the heat dies down. Let's pretend Punisher and Gotham exist in the same universe, and so Frank will be generally familiar with what to expect there, if only from watching the news. So he knows that Poison Ivy uses toxins, Scarecrow uses gas, Killer Croc is resistant to gunfire, etc.

How do you think he would do, against Gotham's underworld, police, and public opinion? I know Frank doesn't give a damn about that last one, but I have to wonder how residents of the Gotham war zone would react upon realising that the Joker actually WON'T be committing monthly massacres anymore.

Personally, I think Frank would do quite well. He has the tactical mindset to deal with most of the more superhuman Bat-villains, and the mooks are no more resistant to gunfire than New York mobsters.

The Penguin and Two-Face are just mob bosses, Ivy can't poison or mind-control Frank if he keeps his distance, and incendiary weapons will take care of her plant monsters, Harley is a half-naked acrobat with a mallet, large-calibre weapons will take care of Croc, Zsasz is just a dude with a knife, a gasmask makes Scarecrow gas worthless, etc...

The more cerebral ones, like Riddler or Joker, might pose a problem when it comes to actually finding them, or preventing them from hurting people (Frank is a soldier, not a detective), but once their gangs have been slaughtered and they're in his sights it's all over.

Gotham seems to have the most incompetent police force in fiction, so I don't think Gordon will be putting a stop to the punishment that has come to his city, and while I don't condone real-life vigilantism, real-life doesn't have supervillains or cardboard prisons. I find it hard to imagine Gothamites wouldn't be relieved when the freaks actually start getting put down.

Your thoughts?

[Flickerdart]

The issue with the likes of Riddler, Joker, Bane, or Catwoman is that they all have personal relationships with Batman that cause them to act in a particular way. Joker is willing to get caught, and in fact does most of what he does to antagonize Batman. As soon as Bats is gone and the Punisher rolls into town...well, if Frank has heard of Joker, Joker's heard of him too. He's going to know how trigger-happy his new opponent is, and work accordingly.

[khadgar567]

there will be atroticus's ego sized blood bath in gotham city when punnisher hits gotham

[Starbuck_II]

The Penguin and Two-Face are just mob bosses, Ivy can't poison or mind-control Frank if he keeps his distance, and incendiary weapons will take care of her plant monsters, Harley is a half-naked acrobat with a mallet, large-calibre weapons will take care of Croc, Zsasz is just a dude with a knife, a gasmask makes Scarecrow gas worthless, etc...


What does he just blast every plant he walks by? Just in case?
Because she will do that plant a similar looking plant by regular ones, but one or two are special (and do toxins, hallucinogens, etc).

[Dienekes]

It may have changed in recent years, but when I read Punisher he was really good against normal criminals, but when placed against some of the bigger baddies he had some trouble. Hell, he finds it difficult to defeat Daredevil, who I would place quite a bit below a few Batman villains.

There's also the divide between what Frank should be able to do and what he actually can. He should be able to snipe down more bad guys than he actually does. His self-destructive nature usually has him get into the thick of a conflict, which could go very poorly for him.

Who could he take down? The Falcone Family, the other mob guys, Penguin, Man-Bat, Two-Face, Catwoman, Killer Croc, Zsasz, Ventiloquist, Killer Moth, Black Mask, maybe Mr. Freeze depending on how bulletproof his suit is on this occasion.

Who would be a toss up who wins any given confrontation? Clayface, Hush, Deadshot.

Who would absolutely destroy Frank? Bane, Deathstroke, Solomon Grundy, Prometheus, Lady Shiva

Who would Frank never even get close to actually fight? Ra's, Riddler

Who would either manipulate him or end up dead instantly, there is no in between? Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Hugo Strange, and Poison Ivy. If they get off their trick, Frank is out. If they mess up their trick, then they're dead.


And then there's the Joker. If the Joker is playing with his food, Frank can kill him. But I'm not sure how likely that is, the Joker plays with Batman, because he finds Batman's morals fun to toy with, to play with. When he fights against someone who doesn't dress like a bat, he usually just kills them in ridiculous and funny ways. There's even been comics where vigilante's try to team up and kill the Joker only for him to brutally kill them. The Joker at his most vicious and insane, would have killed Frank before they even met because a pie in the face that hit Frank 3 hours ago mixed with the chemicals from the location that Joker was hiding in to create a new type of laughing gas that when Frank laughed triggered a sound trap that sent a giant death ball at him Indian Jones style, that when it hit Frank would happen to splatter him against the walls of the warehouse, knocking down the wall which causes a domino effect that knocks down buildings across Gotham, that when looked at from above make a "smiley face."

So, that's where I'd say Frank fits. He could beat the street crime guys, but many Batman villains outscale him in power.

[Kyberwulf]

I think the bat gallery is being blown away out of proportion. I think they never had to deal with a full like the publisher.

[Kyberwulf]

On the other hand, since this was phrased punished vs gotham. How would the other superheroes react to frankie.

[Dienekes]

I think the bat gallery is being blown away out of proportion. I think they never had to deal with a full like the publisher.

Eh? Jason Todd's original run as Red Hood, and Jean-Paul Valley's run as Batman had people much better trained than Frank with in some cases a better arsenal go villain hunting. Most of the Batvillains still were left standing.

Hell, the Joker (pre-New52) took on an entire SWAT team coming to kill him and blew them up. He's killed a room full of bodyguards with a broken piece of glass. Ra's took down the entire Justice League. I don't really know what Frank could do to Clayface. A lot of Batman villains play on a level that Frank just isn't at. He has trouble with a random mob enforcer that got his face screwed up. That would barely count as a D-list Bat villain.

This isn't to say that Punisher isn't a good character or fun. But he's not at Bruce's level, and Bruce has trouble with some of these villains in ways that a bunch of guns wouldn't fix.

[Scowling Dragon]

If not for editorial mandate all of Batmans Rouges Gallery would be dead 17 times over. Like LEGALLY even.

I dunno the Punisher waist for batman to capture all the rouges gallery back in Arkham as he does, and then he nukes it from orbit.

99% reduction in crime follows for Gotham city but a massive rise in unemployment as all the flunkies find themselves jobless.

[Kyberwulf]

Meh, the only reason Bruce has problems with them.... is because he doesn't kill. If Batman killed. I doubt he would have much problems.

[Lord Raziere]

Ok. I find this interesting, lets see the Punisher's capabilities and the oppositions capabilities:

-is basically a super-soldier through pure training in a bunch of stuff, from combat to stealth to camouflage to various oeprations....he basically knows everything militarily relevant to his tactics
-has martial arts capabilities
-mentally resilient enough to shrug off mind powers
-has a few super-tech from some villains

so basically, he is a Batman with less skills, less super-tech, all the guns and a completely willingness to kill any criminal he finds.

Against the Usual Thugs, he definitely wins, those are the ones he is used to. Penguin and Two-Face, yea they are definitely going down due to their insanities making them more thematic mob bosses and therefore even more predictable.

ZsasZ is just a Gotham's local knife serial killer, so he goes down.

But then you start getting the tougher ones:

Killer Croc:
super-strength, nigh-invulnerability to bullets and a completely bestial mindset. The Punisher has NO weapons that kill him due to his reliance on guns and is one of the villains that can truly justify Batman's existence- the entire point of Killer Croc is someone that Batman needs to outwit to defeat because he cannot possibly overpower him. The Punisher however doesn't use smarts, he uses guns and no matter how caliber the gun, Killer Croc is immune to it or the Gothamn Police would've already taken him down. This does not bode well for Punisher if he cannot even take down Gotham's dumbest criminal.

Clayface:
This is another Batman villain that justifies his existence- if you think that the Punisher can somehow gun down Killer Croc, then meet Clayface who is well.....a pile of sludge who can shapeshift into people and basically reshape himself however he wants. bullets don't hurt him, and he is known for his trickery, his disguises and his ability to give Batman the most trouble whenever he shows up in combat. He is another villain that doesn't need any minions to be a threat to the Dark Knight as well as needing an unorthodox approach to take down each time. Against the Punisher, Clayface could quite easily shapeshift into someone he doesn't suspect and then take him by surprise and even if the Punisher survives those first few seconds, the new few minutes aren't much better as Clayface will try to drown him in his own sludge or whatever else, there is honestly a lot of ways Clayface could kill Punisher, and seemingly no ways the Punisher could kill Clayface

Scarecrow:
Would a gas mask really be enough? guys like Scarecrow would have to be really cautious, but I can see them changing their tactics without Batman- Batman is smart, but The Punisher is more straightforward. Scarecrow I think would start fear-gassing civvies to mind control them into killing Punisher for him and stay out of his sights....and The Punishers thing is that he kills CRIMINALS. If he is attacked by civilians wielding guns under fear drugs, well, what can he do? He doesn't seem to have non-lethal options, so if a bunch of he went up against a Scarecrow who knew what he doing, Scarecrow would taunt the Punisher with the knowledge that all the people under his control are innocent people then stay as far form him as he can while gassing everyone else, and eventually either Punisher dies or he does gets ruthless enough to start killing the drugged people- and then when he finally gets to Scarecrow, Scarecrow can simply taught him with the knowledge that he has become a murderous thug that kills anyone just like the people he hunts and that he made his own fears come true, because why else would a man so dedicated to killing criminals, if not the fear of those criminals hurting the innocent? Caught off guard, Scarecrow then kills Punisher.

Poison Ivy:
Given her control over plants....hm, she might win if she keeps her distance and lets Punisher grow paranoid of every single living thing on gods green earth, but a lot of her toxins and such are close range and I don't see the Punisher allowing her to get close enough for them to apply. She would need to be stealthy and somehow seduce him in disguise and give him one of her poison kisses.....or like Scarecrow, she could mind control innocents into killing him for her and The Punisher dies because he can't super-science a way out of making a horrible decision like Batman can. But there is a good possibility of her dying here due to how impractical her powers are.

The Riddler:
The Punisher would never get close. See, The Riddler's thing is about proving how smart he is. he sets up all sorts of elaborate things and puzzles and such that you can't just brute force your way through. The Punisher being the direct "just kill him" sort of guy he is, goes after the Riddler and......gets stumped on the first puzzle and then dies to whatever trap The Riddler set while the Riddler gloats about how EASY it was to outwit him, how The Punisher is a poor replacement for Batman, and how he misses those days when he had an actual challenge.

Ra's Al Ghul:
If the Riddler is playing a great violin, then Ra's is composing a masterful symphony. A guy with a gun is not a threat to Ra's, Punisher is a mouse to Ra's, Ra's is a guy who has lived far longer than The Punisher has been killing, is the guy who immediately figured out Batman's identity, has a pit where he can recover from DEATH, -y'know that thing the thing The Punisher trusts to keep things in control- he is rich, he has global contacts all around the world, has resources that other Batman villains don't, its not a question of whether he knows the Punisher and what he will do, its a question of how will the Punisher will be dealt with, especially since Ra's as far as I know, is the only Batman villain who consistency remains in the shadows unheard of by the world at large aside from Batman himself. Ra's will simply make The Punisher's death look like an accident then carry on with his plans while sighing at the loss of The Detective he respects.

Bane:
Yeah genius level intellect, super-strength, reflexes, endurance, and super-healing all granted by venom? This is the guy who Broke the Bat himself, and The Punisher ain't ain't no Bat. Bane will just outwit Punisher into a position where he can melee the guy then throw him into a building, dead Punisher.

The Joker:
and then finally, we come to the Clown Prince of Crime himself. Lets let the Joker himself have a say:

The Joker: why hello, little Punny! Thats what I'm calling you, Punny. Your here to kill me right? Put a bullet in the ol' clown eh? Well I do admit you are more willing to kill than Batsy, but see that was never the point. You see I toyed with him because he was fun. He had the most deliciously brilliant mind to counter my own, we were two of a kind, violent unsound of mind, the yin to my yang, can't you see? My goal was never to kill him, only to break him, to make him admit that he was truly like me, to show him my joys so that we could band together and happily share my art with all the world! To put a smile on his face then spread that smile to everybody as they get the great joke of it all!

You? however are boring, Punny. What are you? a man with a vest and a gun, obsessed only with my death. There is no challenge, no pleasure in breaking you or toying with you, heck you do all the breaking of you yourself. a self-destructive gun-nut who has forced all of Gotham's hand to stop playing around and get down to business, that is all you are. Its kill or be killed with you, so we can't afford to take risks like we could with Batsy, because we all knew he could never bring himself to do it, no matter how hard any of us tried. How you ever thought you could replace Batsy makes me wonder if your the crazy one here. I miss Batsy, there was so much I still wanted to do with him, but alas, your the one taking his place, and your not really good at that- besides, even Lock Up is more interesting than you, and he is LOCK-UP! It was funny when he made Scarecrow run in fear.

Anyway this video will now self destruct in 1, 7, 4, eleventy billion- *BOOM*


But lets say hypothetically, that The Punisher somehow succeeds in killing them all, full Gotham Villaincide Run. Everyone from the lowest gang member to the Clown Prince of Crime. The police? ain't gonna be happy with him. Sure they will celebrate the demise of every villain ever, but vigilantes don't stop being vigilantes just because they got rid of a jerk. They will go after him knowing that he is a crazy mass-murderer no matter how incompetent people think they are, and unless he is willing to kill people who aren't criminals, he has no choice but to try to run or get imprisoned and thrown into Arkham Asylum just like all the people he killed- he is in DC universe now, and DC universe rules is that you kill that many people, you've become a villain, and its only a matter of time before some takes notice and takes out the Punisher. Furthermore the innocents of Gotham view Batman as a hero, but while they're thankful a guy like Joker is gone....they are also afraid of someone like the Punisher who might kill them for any little crime they might do

But even if he gets away with that, becomes Gothams new consistent vigilante that always escapes and and saves the day.....Gotham City itself is its own worst enemy to everyone in it. Canonically speaking, Gotham is CURSED. As in straight up, magically cursed to forever be this halloween-esque place where evil gathers and nothing changes. Even if The Punisher successfully kills Batman's Rogues Gallery, all that means is that a new one will rise up to take its place, but this time adapted to Punisher's tactics and mindset, and Punisher becomes apart of the Gotham curse, with new criminals forever crawling up out of the woodwork, new supervillains haunting its darkest alleys and the killing never ending, the hope turning to fear once more as the Punisher despite his success is not and never will be Batman, as he digs himself deeper into slaughtering every criminal he comes across until he kills someone over some petty crime that Batman would've justly let the person live like a man stealing bread to feed himself, and then he just another murderous thug in Gotham that people fear.

TL; DR: The Punisher would probably get rid of the minor guys faster, get taken out by one of the big Boys when they start paying attention to him, and then the villains fight each other for control of Gotham, or Punisher "wins" and eventually becomes just as bad as everyone else in that city.

Either way, Gotham City wins.

[Jeivar]

Eh? Jason Todd's original run as Red Hood, and Jean-Paul Valley's run as Batman had people much better trained than Frank with in some cases a better arsenal go villain hunting. Most of the Batvillains still were left standing.

Hell, the Joker (pre-New52) took on an entire SWAT team coming to kill him and blew them up. He's killed a room full of bodyguards with a broken piece of glass. Ra's took down the entire Justice League. I don't really know what Frank could do to Clayface. A lot of Batman villains play on a level that Frank just isn't at. He has trouble with a random mob enforcer that got his face screwed up. That would barely count as a D-list Bat villain.


If not for editorial mandate all of Batmans Rouges Gallery would be dead 17 times over. Like LEGALLY even.

Yeah, of course the REAL reason Punisher doesn't put down more "name" villains is simply that Marvel wants to keep using them. I mean, I know the word doesn't fit well in superhero comics, but realistically supervillain tactics tend to be highly impractical, and there's no reason for the Gotham PD not to have killed the Joker already, given how homicidal American cops seem to be. No, a scrawny lunatic with no special training is realistically not going to take out a SWAT team. And no, Batman would not stand a chance against real-life commandos with guns.

[Kyberwulf]

Not to mention didn't respond hood not outright kill all villains because he wanted to do something special. And Jean Paul was trying to operate under the no killing rule. I mean for the most part...well as much as the Burton Batman anywho

[Dienekes]

If not for editorial mandate all of Batmans Rouges Gallery would be dead 17 times over. Like LEGALLY even.

I dunno the Punisher waist for batman to capture all the rouges gallery back in Arkham as he does, and then he nukes it from orbit.

99% reduction in crime follows for Gotham city but a massive rise in unemployment as all the flunkies find themselves jobless.


Meh, the only reason Bruce has problems with them.... is because he doesn't kill. If Batman killed. I doubt he would have much problems.

That's true, but what else is true is that the Punisher himself should be just as dead. Shot by a random enforcer when he tried to storm a random crime bosses home while wearing nothing but a small Kevlar vest to protect himself.

We are not talking about what if these characters were real, we're talking about what if the comic character Punisher was put into the comic city of Gotham. And if we take the actions of what happened within these comics as true, then the stronger, smarter, and weirder Batvillains will win. Ra's plots on a few levels beyond what Frank can do. Several villains have the same or similar skill sets to Frank but turned up to deal with the generally more high sci-fi setting that is Gotham. And then there's the Joker, who is just better at killing things than Frank is.

Because DC world is more than a little ridiculous. Batman is considered a hero on par with the likes of Superman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman. Does this make sense? No. But it's true.

Several of Bats villains have gone toe to toe with Justice League members and have come out on top. That's the kind of power gap Frank has to deal with. He doesn't have the tech or mental facilities to deal with Gothams more elite villains.



Now a better question. A more interesting opponent is, what happens if Judge Dredd gets sent to Gotham? Because that fascist lawman does take on Justice League level threats by himself and always wins. His tech is more advanced than Bruce's he is a better fighter and smarter than Frank. Hell, in the crossover comic he kicks Bruce's ass every time they get into a conflict. And he should, his comics are even more ridicuous than Batman's. That's a guy who could potentially take on Gotham and win. He would just also probably kill half of the civilian population in the process. Bruce knows that the petty theives are just trying to survive and makes charities to improve their lives so they no longer will have to do that. Dredd would just try to arrest them, they would run, and then Dredd would shoot them.

[comicshorse]

Lets not forget while guys like Black Mask, The Penguin, The Great White are no match for Frank in combat they won't fight him. Soon as there extensive networks get wind of whats happening they go deep underground and pull out their notebooks which have the contact details for Deadshot, or Deathstroke or David Cain

[Leewei]

This thread brings to mind Batman vs Grendel - some very good comics from decades ago. But I digress ...

The Punisher's narrative is about attacking organized criminals with military tactics, and with intelligence and enhanced interrogation that somehow works.

Batman uses many of the same tactics, but adds knowledge of forensic science, as well as a big belt full of gadgets.

Wayne is smarter than Castle, has deeper pockets, and has more tricks to call upon. Castle is willing to maim and kill. Normally, this is a sizable advantage, but Wayne's gadgets allow him to incapacitate opponents by pulling a trigger. Due to this one thing, Castle is not an effective replacement for Wayne in the immediate sense.

Over time, though, Castle's body count would make him more effective, just because you don't have to contend with constant break-outs from Arkham. If Arkham could ever be fixed to effectively contain and rehabilitate its residents, Batman would remain the winner. Yeah, that isn't going to happen. Castle's bloody methodology would make Gotham better through the course of years.

As an aside, rehabilitation in the world of supers should be a thing. Since it removes bad guys, though, prisons and asylums always fail. Such institutions always get shown in a bad light in comics. (I love how the Wormverse plays with this - effective psychological treatment!) When prisons and asylums aren't effective at keeping very dangerous individuals off the streets, society will very quickly run out of patience with incarceration, and will instead opt to lawfully kill its supervillains.

[Flickerdart]

Over time, though, Castle's body count would make him more effective, just because you don't have to contend with constant break-outs from Arkham. If Arkham could ever be fixed to effectively contain and rehabilitate its residents, Batman would remain the winner. Yeah, that isn't going to happen. Castle's bloody methodology would make Gotham better through the course of years.


If Batman wasn't out of the picture, Frank's best move would be to stand just inside Arkham's doors, and ice every rogue Batman brings in.

[Leewei]

If Batman wasn't out of the picture, Frank's best move would be to stand just inside Arkham's doors, and ice every rogue Batman brings in.

If he could do so and somehow get away with it, absolutely.

[GloatingSwine]

If not for editorial mandate all of Batmans Rouges Gallery would be dead 17 times over. Like LEGALLY even.

I dunno the Punisher waist for batman to capture all the rouges gallery back in Arkham as he does, and then he nukes it from orbit.

99% reduction in crime follows for Gotham city but a massive rise in unemployment as all the flunkies find themselves jobless.

Being dead 17 times over wouldn't be much of an impediment to the average comic character.

[Dienekes]

If Batman wasn't out of the picture, Frank's best move would be to stand just inside Arkham's doors, and ice every rogue Batman brings in.


If he could do so and somehow get away with it, absolutely.

Already had this crossover. They teamup, then Frank does something that crosses Bruce's code. They fight and Bruce wins pretty much effortlessly.

[Flickerdart]

Already had this crossover. They teamup, then Frank does something that crosses Bruce's code. They fight and Bruce wins pretty much effortlessly.
Well, the whole trick hinges on not doing it where Batman can see, you know?

[Dienekes]

Well, the whole trick hinges on not doing it where Batman can see, you know?

You think he can keep himself hidden from the World's Greatest Detective? (Ignoring detective chimp, of course)

This is the guy that lost to the Shocker! The goddamn Shocker!

[BWR]

edit: nevermind

[Leewei]

You think he can keep himself hidden from the World's Greatest Detective? (Ignoring detective chimp, of course)

This is the guy that lost to the Shocker! The goddamn Shocker!

This seems very sensible on the first read, but consider that the vast majority of Batman storyline involves a bad guy doing something bad with Batman not yet being aware of it.

[Bohandas]

The issue with the likes of Riddler, Joker, Bane, or Catwoman is that they all have personal relationships with Batman that cause them to act in a particular way. Joker is willing to get caught, and in fact does most of what he does to antagonize Batman. As soon as Bats is gone and the Punisher rolls into town...well, if Frank has heard of Joker, Joker's heard of him too. He's going to know how trigger-happy his new opponent is, and work accordingly.

Plus the Punisher is already what half of the Joker's plans are aimed at turning Batman into

[Bohandas]

If not for editorial mandate all of Batmans Rouges Gallery would be dead 17 times over.

Yeah. During the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films they had about a 50% attrition rate per film.

Speaking of which, does anyone else find it disturbing how mundane the Riddler's evil plan from Batman Forever has become? I mean, he basically had the same business plan as Facebook and Google

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah. During the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films they had about a 50% attrition rate per film.

Speaking of which, does anyone else find it disturbing how mundane the Riddler's evil plan from Batman Forever has become? I mean, he basically had the same business plan as Facebook and Google

His true crime was his fashion sense though.

[Dienekes]

This seems very sensible on the first read, but consider that the vast majority of Batman storyline involves a bad guy doing something bad with Batman not yet being aware of it.

Well yeah Bruce isn't all seeing (except that time he sat in Metron's chair), I have no doubt that Frank could kill some people. He could maybe rack up a body count to scratch at the bloated C-list of Batman's rogues gallery.

But Bruce would find him, and he would beat him.

[Forum Explorer]

Well yeah Bruce isn't all seeing (except that time he sat in Metron's chair), I have no doubt that Frank could kill some people. He could maybe rack up a body count to scratch at the bloated C-list of Batman's rogues gallery.

But Bruce would find him, and he would beat him.

Than he would go to Arkham Asylum. Eventually break free. And then kill more Batman Villains. :smallwink:

[Jeivar]

Yeah, Frank has been sent to prison plenty of times. It just leads to a whole lot of dead convicts.

To quote Rorschach: "I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."

[Dienekes]

Than he would go to Arkham Asylum. Eventually break free. And then kill more Batman Villains. :smallwink:

And he becomes just another villain in the Bat rogues gallery. Probably C or B list.

[Durzan]

To be honest Frank Castle isn't stupid... but he definitely doesn't have the exaggerated bat-telligence that batman has... nor the funds. Though if Punisher took over for batman, chances are he would eventually figure out how to get into the bat-cave...

Honestly, I think Frank would probably kill criminals, deliberately to get batman to throw him in jail then kill as many batman villains as he can. Of course, batman would probably figure this out, so...

[Clertar]

It looks like everybody on this thread is familiar with the Punisher exclusively through the Netflix Daredevil series or the Punisher movies: he's only used to fighting goons, his thing is to fight organized crime... https://www.racocatala.cat/imatges/smileys/noentenc.gif

The Punisher has been around in Marvel comics for decades now, and he has gone toe to toe with many a superpowered hero and villain.

[comicshorse]

It looks like everybody on this thread is familiar with the Punisher exclusively through the Netflix Daredevil series or the Punisher movies: he's only used to fighting goons, his thing is to fight organized crime... https://www.racocatala.cat/imatges/smileys/noentenc.gif

The Punisher has been around in Marvel comics for decades now, and he has gone toe to toe with many a superpowered hero and villain.

The Rev., Bushwacker, The Owl, Daredevil.................Drawing a blank apart from those. And those issues are by far in the minority as I remember

[Dienekes]

It looks like everybody on this thread is familiar with the Punisher exclusively through the Netflix Daredevil series or the Punisher movies: he's only used to fighting goons, his thing is to fight organized crime... https://www.racocatala.cat/imatges/smileys/noentenc.gif

The Punisher has been around in Marvel comics for decades now, and he has gone toe to toe with many a superpowered hero and villain.

And rarely if ever actually kills them. I mean he had his weird stint as an angel. And the Punisher kills the Marvel Universe was a thing. But Punisher has lost to Captain America 3 times by my count, Spider-Man, Molly from the Runaways (in one punch), Batman twice, Daredevil every time they meet, Kingpin, and again freaking Shocker!

[BRC]

Remember, we're not talking Slugfests here. This is "The Punisher gets dropped into Gotham".


Let's take Batman and his associates out of the picture here. It's just The Punisher (Assume he has access to a standard arsenal of military grade weapons), The GCPD, and the Villains.

Let's also assume Frank has at least the common-mans knowledge of the various villains and their powers. He doesn't have Batman's meticulous records, or their psych profiles from Arkham or anything, but he knows who Clayface, Freeze, The Penguin, ect are.


Now, Batman's Villains can generally be split into Gangsters (Two-Face, Penguin, Falcone, rarely The Joker) who are usually just treated as standard organized criminals, if a bit more colorful. Monsters (Clayface, Killer-Croc, Freeze, Ivy), who are defined by their supernatural powers, and a third group let's call Artists (Riddler, Joker, Hugo Strange, Hush), who are motivated by The Batman himself.

There are plenty of villains that don't match these catagories, but whatever.


Assuming the GCPD won't cause much of a problem for The Punisher, his main target will be the Gangsters. This will probably go about as it goes in the Marvel comics. Frank kills a bunch of henchmen and gangsters, but the kingpins are too used to dodging Batman and each other, and are very adept at going into hiding. Frank is an excellent soldier, but IIRC he's not an extraordiary detective. He could probably survive whatever goons they throw at him (Unless they get around to hiring Deathstroke or whatever, but that's another whole discussion) and drive the big players underground for a while. But, if Organized Crime in gotham can thrive under the thumb of the extended bat-family, I kind of doubt The Punisher is going to do much to put a dent in it long-term.

The Artists would have no interest in Frank. He's not The Batman, and his Schtick isn't really interesting enough to gather their interest. Batman has a whole mess of fascinating contradictions, Frank is an angry man with a gun who hates crimes. If The Batman is out of the picture, the Artists are going to stay quiet.

Which brings us to the Monsters. Batman usually defeats these "Monsters" through some combination of extreme preparation and specialized gear (Ice attacks against Clayface, Weed-killer batarangs against Ivy, Ultrasonics against Killer Croc), but Batman ultimately hamstrings himself by rejecting a couple centuries of advancement in the field of personal weaponry. The fact of the matter is that the Punisher is no better equipped than elite goons working for various crime families, or even a militant GCPD SWAT team. Any villain used to going up against such odds (Like Freeze or Ivy) will be tough for the Punisher to stop. He could probably handle Killer Croc, who when you get down to it is just a big guy with tough skin. Freeze it depends on how armored his suit is, but with sufficient explosives and agility, Frank would let him come out on top there. With Ivy, it depends which version of Ivy we have. An Ivy that mostly relies on mind-controlling men with pheromones he could probably handle with a gas mask and a sniper rifle, but a "Tears buildings apart with giant vines" Ivy may be beyond him.

Clayface is the immediate Big Problem, as far as I can tell. He's basically invincible unless you have specialized equipment, which Frank doesn't have (And, IIRC, the GCPD doesn't carry liquid nitrogen or anything around with them for him to steal). I guess you could use a Grenade, but Clayface tends to pull heists in public areas where using high explosives is likely to kill civilians, and his disguises make him basically impossible to track down once he gets away. Freeze tends to hit tech labs and the like, where Frank could set off some explosives without causing too much damage, but Clayface is fond of going after banks and the like in broad daylight.

[lord_khaine]

Now a better question. A more interesting opponent is, what happens if Judge Dredd gets sent to Gotham? Because that fascist lawman does take on Justice League level threats by himself and always wins. His tech is more advanced than Bruce's he is a better fighter and smarter than Frank. Hell, in the crossover comic he kicks Bruce's ass every time they get into a conflict. And he should, his comics are even more ridicuous than Batman's. That's a guy who could potentially take on Gotham and win. He would just also probably kill half of the civilian population in the process. Bruce knows that the petty theives are just trying to survive and makes charities to improve their lives so they no longer will have to do that. Dredd would just try to arrest them, they would run, and then Dredd would shoot them.

What?! Justice League level threats? He is a guy with a fancy gun?

How on earth would he deal with things like a white marsian invasion? thats a dozen shapeshifting telepaths who more or less have supermans basic powerset.
Or the maggedon device. Thats a doomsday device from a previous universe, and its a few times bigger than the earth in size. Thats Justice league level threats.

[comicshorse]

Dredd has dealt with the Dark Judges, four beings who killed everybody on their home world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Judges

And Sabbat, a Necromancer who killed his homeworld

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_Day_(Judge_Dredd)

Oh and imprisoned Satan in a Iso Cube

[Dienekes]

What?! Justice League level threats? He is a guy with a fancy gun?

How on earth would he deal with things like a white marsian invasion? thats a dozen shapeshifting telepaths who more or less have supermans basic powerset.
Or the maggedon device. Thats a doomsday device from a previous universe, and its a few times bigger than the earth in size. Thats Justice league level threats.

He's beaten alien invasions before.
He's beaten telepaths by shear willpower.
He's beaten the personification of death.
He's beaten a Necromancer that can destroy worlds.
He's beaten an eldritch abomination that consumes galaxies.
He's beaten the devil.
He's beaten several people using world destroying devices.
He's beaten mutants with powers that seem on par with Jean Grey.


He is a guy with a gun, in the same way that Bruce is just a man with a bank account. That's totally accurate, but you're missing that comicbooks don't make sense, and characters canonically do crazy things often based on how awesome they are.

And Dredd, well, Dredd is pretty damn awesome.

[GloatingSwine]

Now a better question. A more interesting opponent is, what happens if Judge Dredd gets sent to Gotham? Because that fascist lawman does take on Justice League level threats by himself and always wins. His tech is more advanced than Bruce's he is a better fighter and smarter than Frank. Hell, in the crossover comic he kicks Bruce's ass every time they get into a conflict. And he should, his comics are even more ridicuous than Batman's. That's a guy who could potentially take on Gotham and win. He would just also probably kill half of the civilian population in the process. Bruce knows that the petty theives are just trying to survive and makes charities to improve their lives so they no longer will have to do that. Dredd would just try to arrest them, they would run, and then Dredd would shoot them.

Dredd would be out of his jurisdiction, and he knows it. Explicitly states it in Judgement on Gotham, in fact.

Unless he was specifically empowered to act for the protection of Mega City One, or in pursuit after a crime committed in Mega City One, he would take no action.

He would boil and seethe with anger at the state of Gotham City, but he would not be empowered to act by the laws of Mega City One, and he takes that very seriously.

(Also Dredd is old now. Time passes in 2000AD in the way it does not in DC. Characters age in real time.)

[Dienekes]

Dredd would be out of his jurisdiction, and he knows it. Explicitly states it in Judgement on Gotham, in fact.

Unless he was specifically empowered to act for the protection of Mega City One, or in pursuit after a crime committed in Mega City One, he would take no action.

He would boil and seethe with anger at the state of Gotham City, but he would not be empowered to act by the laws of Mega City One, and he takes that very seriously.

I was going on the assumption that he was given leave to actually work in Gotham. I should have clarified.

[comicshorse]

I was going on the assumption that he was given leave to actually work in Gotham. I should have clarified.

Then he'd stick exactly to the local laws. Which means only shooting to preserve his life or civiliains (though any crazy trying the old 'drop your gun or I'll kill my hostage' will get his head blown off in short order)

[Lord Raziere]

And he becomes just another villain in the Bat rogues gallery. Probably C or B list.

Yup, The Punisher is pretty much just a little more experienced version of the guys that Batman has faced so far, and really is just a "kill em all" version of Lock-Up. The only question is what Batman would do with him, knowing that he would probably just kill everyone in prison. I can see Batman contacting the Justice league to ship him somewhere far away from the criminals they're trying to redeem. I'm pretty sure that given the DC Universes ridiculousness that they have some way or other of keeping The Punisher out of the picture that doesn't involve prisons.

someone brings up Rorshach and that makes me wonder: if Punisher and Rorshach met, would they be allies or enemies? Because in the right circumstances they'd agree that Criminals Need to Die and team up. But in the wrong circumstances they'd mistake each for criminal murderers and kill each other for the crime of murder. Which is the funny part of the whole thing about Villainicide Heroes like them: its all too easy for one to mistake this kind of hero for the villains they fight. In a world of Villainicide Heroes, its all too likely that they would start killing each other proclaiming each other murderers while claiming "no, I'm not the murderer, I just punish people permanently!"

[Clertar]

The Rev., Bushwacker, The Owl, Daredevil.................Drawing a blank apart from those. And those issues are by far in the minority as I remember

Obviously he's not a superpowered enemy, but he's way more resourceful and cunning than just indiscriminate bullets and grenades:

http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/images/venom_funeral_pyre/002.jpg

[khadgar567]

Even we just remove the bats we have still damian, ****, barbara, cassandra, tim on the work solving plot where bruce is replaced by this gun nut wack job called punnisher and bring the cowl back to his proper universe
what happens
**** becomes bats again, cassandra, damien and **** start basic crysis control ( which bat rouges gets the memo). Barbara starts to lock him out of resources and tim would make bruce proud by dismantleing frank so uterly that he breaks sobbing while hugging joker made tnt bear

tldr bat family wins with or without rouges help

[Kyberwulf]

Lol. The fanboyism is real. Sure, you could describe punisher as low rate thug with a gun. The same tokeb... joker is just a clown who kills.

I don't think punisher would kill all of gotham. He is after all. Just one man. There would be a flashpoint were the enemies of Gotham would call in the big guns. I do however think most of Batman villains could be killed. People are vastly oversimplifying punishers skills. And making the plot armor of some of the villains way to much.

[Rynjin]

I'm going to be the odd man out and say Punisher probably kills Joker. Probably close to the first one he does off, besides mooks.

Joker would want to come and investigate, scope out the new playtoy, assuming Punisher would let him monologue for a bit...and Castle would probably pop a cap in his jolly ass on sight, presuming the conceit of the OP that he knows everybody.

But I also agree that Punisher is basically deep dicked by any of the mob bosses going "Hey Dead Shot, take him out" and having to fight, basically, himself with fancier toys. And that's if he's lucky. I can see him taking down one of Black Mask or Penguin or Two-Face and the rest banding together to declare open season on him. It'd be kinda like the Arkham Origins game (meh as it was). Deathstroke, Deadshot, Shiva, potentially someone like Talia Al'Ghul, and so on and so forth. All of whom could probably kick Castle's ass without breaking a sweat. Particularly Deathstroke, who is like Captain America (who ol' Frankie boy is 0 for however many against) except instead of a knockout blow would be shaving a little off the top of Punisher's neck at the end of the fight.

There's no feasible way Punisher manages to wipe out crime in Gotham. Even just the organized crime syndicates.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, I like how the common consensus seems to be good ole Frankie is going to the old west. Walking down main street say.. all ye ole varmits. I am calling you out.. at high noon.

That isn't how he operates.

[Kitten Champion]

There's no feasible way Punisher manages to wipe out crime in Gotham. Even just the organized crime syndicates.

While I think people here are rather overly dismissive of Castle's capabilities - particularly his capacity for tactics - it's an inescapable conclusion that his New York is sufficiently similar to Gotham that at best you could state that he'd find equivalent success. Which is to say, as much success as the DC editorial department would let him have. Reasonably speaking, he could kill everyone who'd die to a bullet and may very well find a way to thwart some of the lower-level superhuman threats, but it's equally likely that he dies himself - depends on your prerogative mostly - and could no more kill'em all than he could clear New York of scum and villainy.

Though, it should be noted that Frank doesn't use the equipment he does because it's his superhero gimmick like Captain America's shield, it's what he can get his hands on and what he's trained to use in the MU. Meaning, at least in this theoretical crossover, he'd go about forming his armory around what can be purchased in the DCU with the same means.

[Jeivar]

Obviously he's not a superpowered enemy, but he's way more resourceful and cunning than just indiscriminate bullets and grenades:

Yeah, when he's written properly Punisher is a master tactician who approaches everything he does in a cold, calculated way. He researches his targets and seeks the opportune time and place to strike, and he has decades of experience.

[lord_khaine]

Dredd has dealt with the Dark Judges, four beings who killed everybody on their home world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Judges

And Sabbat, a Necromancer who killed his homeworld

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgem..._(Judge_Dredd)

Yeah no.. neither of those are Justice League level threats. The moment you can solve your problem with a gun its almost by definition one of those.


Oh and imprisoned Satan in a Iso Cube

Sounds like the cube did most of the work though.


Yeah, when he's written properly Punisher is a master tactician who approaches everything he does in a cold, calculated way. He researches his targets and seeks the opportune time and place to strike, and he has decades of experience.

Sadly most of his targets have decades of experience as well. And the advantace of being at home.

[comicshorse]

Yeah, I like how the common consensus seems to be good ole Frankie is going to the old west. Walking down main street say.. all ye ole varmits. I am calling you out.. at high noon.

That isn't how he operates.

Nobody has said that. However neither are the villains ( at least most of them) going to be just sitting back and waiting for him once the word gets out whose in town. As has been pointed out many of them have access to huge wealth and actual superhuman assassins who find and kill people on an international level

IMHO Frank's best doing a quick, say a week, purge of the more obvious villains. Killer Croc, Zzassz, Firefly and then get out of town before the back-up arrives

[Bohandas]

He's beaten alien invasions before.
He's beaten telepaths by shear willpower.
He's beaten the personification of death.
He's beaten a Necromancer that can destroy worlds.
He's beaten an eldritch abomination that consumes galaxies.
He's beaten the devil.
He's beaten several people using world destroying devices.
He's beaten mutants with powers that seem on par with Jean Grey.

I take it you mean Jean Grey as Pheonix, not Jean Grey as emergency backup telepath, yes?

[Friv]

Then he'd stick exactly to the local laws. Which means only shooting to preserve his life or civiliains (though any crazy trying the old 'drop your gun or I'll kill my hostage' will get his head blown off in short order)

God, I would pay for the Dredd-Gordon conversations in this fictional setting.

DREDD: I suggest shooting...
GORDON: No! No! We are not shooting everyone in lockup for being bad people! That is not how this works!
DREDD: *wordless grumbling*

[Traab]

He defeated wolverine. Like, badly. He basically tore his face off and parked a steam roller on him to keep him down. I think he blew wolverines crotch off at one point too. Then apparently wolverine got revenge by implying frank was gay? It was very strange. But still, he took out mister, "Im the best at what i do, and what I do aint nice." Maybe not permanently, but he clearly won the fight. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sjQ_YilaJ-o/T0cZD8rpfJI/AAAAAAAAAFY/YyH6GJ_trb4/s1600/wolverine-punisher.jpg

[Alabenson]

I'm going to add my vote to the "Frank doesn't survive Gotham very long" crowd.

Now, that's not to say I don't think Frank would have some early successes. He'd probably take out Zzassz, severely disrupt the organizations of Gotham's more conventional villains (Penguin, Two-Face, Rupert Thorne, Black Mask) and might actually take down the Falcone family.

After that, however, things are going to start to go poorly for Frank very quickly. Once Gotham's underground realizes who they're dealing with they're going to put a very, very large bounty on his head. This is going to draw out many of the members of Batman's rogues gallery and the DCU at large that Frank has no real way of dealing with, e.g. Killer Croc, Clayface, Bane, Deadshot, Deathstroke. Ultimately, even if Frank can avoid being killed by these opponents (and that is a very big if) he'll definitely be put on the defensive.

And then comes the Joker. While Frank doesn't represent the same caliber of opponent that Batman does the Joke will still almost certainly see him as a challenge/potential source of amusement. Even under the best of circumstances Frank would just not be equipped to deal with either the Joker's mind games or the majority of the Joker's arsenal. If Frank is stuck dodging multiple other threats at the same time then there's simply no hope for him. Ultimately, the Punisher would likely either be killed by a heavy hitter like Clayface or broken by the Joker.

[Jeivar]

He defeated wolverine. Like, badly. He basically tore his face off and parked a steam roller on him to keep him down. I think he blew wolverines crotch off at one point too. Then apparently wolverine got revenge by implying frank was gay? It was very strange. But still, he took out mister, "Im the best at what i do, and what I do aint nice." Maybe not permanently, but he clearly won the fight. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sjQ_YilaJ-o/T0cZD8rpfJI/AAAAAAAAAFY/YyH6GJ_trb4/s1600/wolverine-punisher.jpg

Well, that was a severe case of Garth Ennis; a mental anomaly that renders one only capable of disliking something in most extreme, childish way possible.

[Dienekes]

He defeated wolverine. Like, badly. He basically tore his face off and parked a steam roller on him to keep him down. I think he blew wolverines crotch off at one point too. Then apparently wolverine got revenge by implying frank was gay? It was very strange. But still, he took out mister, "Im the best at what i do, and what I do aint nice." Maybe not permanently, but he clearly won the fight. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sjQ_YilaJ-o/T0cZD8rpfJI/AAAAAAAAAFY/YyH6GJ_trb4/s1600/wolverine-punisher.jpg

Yeah, but Wolverine beat him right back.

Then called him gay.

It was not a very good comic.

[GloatingSwine]

http://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/77/115943-49716-molly-hayes.jpg

Punisher canonically weak to 9 year old girls.


(Okay okay that's not really an accurate depiction of what would have happened, if Molly had really punched him like that she'd have blown his liver across the room)

[Forum Explorer]

He defeated wolverine. Like, badly. He basically tore his face off and parked a steam roller on him to keep him down. I think he blew wolverines crotch off at one point too. Then apparently wolverine got revenge by implying frank was gay? It was very strange. But still, he took out mister, "Im the best at what i do, and what I do aint nice." Maybe not permanently, but he clearly won the fight. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sjQ_YilaJ-o/T0cZD8rpfJI/AAAAAAAAAFY/YyH6GJ_trb4/s1600/wolverine-punisher.jpg

Wolverine is best at getting the crap beat out of him. Which certainly isn't very nice. :smallwink:

[Kyberwulf]

lol.I love how some of these villains are being turned into some godly killing machines, that are neigh indefeatable.

First of, Joker isn't nearly as good as people make him out to be. He survives mostly due to plot armor. Meaning, that DC won't kill him off because he is popular. To be honest, if Joker ever came up against someone that wouldn't play his games, or give into his mind games. He would be dead, many times over. There are always moments people have to kill him, but don't because that would be to easy. Or to prove some kind of morality, or they have some "Need" of him. Against someone like the Punisher. He wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

I mean most of Batman's villains are fallible. They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them. By nobody, I mean comic book protagonists. I love how the popularity of characters is giving them some huge immunities.

There are some of them that frank wont be able to kill outright. In my mind though, that doesn't make them apart of Gotham. People like Ras Al, Deathstroke, Bane. They really aren't a part of Gotham. Sure they are involved a lot. They don't live there though.

[comicshorse]

I mean most of Batman's villains are fallible. They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them. By nobody, I mean comic book protagonists. I love how the popularity of characters is giving them some huge immunities.



No, they're part of the Gotham underworld. Other criminals and the police try to kill them all the time. The fact that they're still around is that they're tough and cunning and they make their preparations for these events ( and they have plot armour). Or, in other words, pretty much the same reason Frank is still around

[Alabenson]

First of, Joker isn't nearly as good as people make him out to be. He survives mostly due to plot armor. Meaning, that DC won't kill him off because he is popular. To be honest, if Joker ever came up against someone that wouldn't play his games, or give into his mind games. He would be dead, many times over. There are always moments people have to kill him, but don't because that would be to easy. Or to prove some kind of morality, or they have some "Need" of him. Against someone like the Punisher. He wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

You very clearly are underestimating how dangerous the Joker is. Even just in terms of one-on-one combat ability the Joker possesses sufficient hand to hand combat skill to hold his own against Batman and his the rest of the Bat-family, is exceptionally agile, and has an inhuman level of pain tolerance. He has access to an incredibly wide variety of weapons, including Joker Venom, a poison that is equally lethal inhaled or absorbed through the skin and can be modified to incapacitate Superman. For what it's worth, the closest approximation in the Marvel Universe would be the Red Skull's Dust of Death. On top of that, the Joker is a master tactician himself, able to routinely beat Ra's al Ghul at chess and drive people insane just by talking to them.

As for your assertion that the Joker would be dead if he ever went up against someone willing to kill him, yeah, no. There have been plenty of opponents that have actively tried to kill the Joker, some of which (such as Jason Todd or the aforementioned Red Skull) were better equipped to go about it than the Punisher. None of them have succeeded.

So yeah, the Punisher is in way, WAY out of his depth against the Joker.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

[Sapphire Guard]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

There's so much good debate here, I keep wanting to say something and being beaten to it.

Basically, you're both right. Joker does have tons of plot armour, but he's also a dangerous person, who can and has survived many assassination attempts across several continuities. He is not usually a physical threat to the Batman unless he has set things up in his favour in advance, so no, he's not some unstoppable force, but he is very very dangerous to people that aren't a Batman tier combatant. In general, though, his most dangerous attribute isn't direct combat ability, it's tricks and unpredictability. It won't be a one on one cage match, he'll have traps, tricks, explosives, and will never be where he's expected to be.

Frank would beat the Joker in a straight fight easily, but he will not voluntarily get into a straight fight. He acts a certain way towards Batman, but nobody else gets the free shots.
Joker does have plot armour, but so does Frank. So if we're doing a versus thread disregarding plot armour, it's only fair to drop all of it, from Frank as well as the Bat villains.

One thing about the Bat rogues is that the majority are very good at hiding, very often the first, biggest problem in any Batman story is to find the relevant villain.

Whoever Frank goes after first is probably dead (unless it's Ra's). He'd also be able to clean up a lot of solo threats like Tzasz or the Mad Hatter. But once the other players hear about him, they go to ground and speed-dial people like Deadshot. And Gotham is full of that kind of person, there's one scene in NML where Jean Paul Valley looks up people that can make impossibly long sniper shots and the computer comes back instantly with like 90 names.

Penguin, if he's gone after first, will be easy prey, it's just a matter of breaking in to the Iceberg Lounge. But he's also the guy that hears everything in Gotham first, so if he's not the first victim, he will hear about whoever was and go into hiding, and then put a price on his head for other people to deal with. And many of the other mobsters will react the same way.


They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them.

Not true. Batman hasn't tried to kill them, but plenty of other people have.

[Anteros]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

If you take away plot armor then Castle would be dead 1000X over as well.

I never understand this argument. "They shouldn't be as effective as they are!" It doesn't matter if you think it makes sense. The story says they are that effective, so that's how it is. If we don't presume the way they are depicted in their story is accurate, there's no reason to talk about the characters at all.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

The exact same thing can be said for Punisher. He wins because of plot armor. He should have been shot in the head years ago.

But the Joker regularly screws around with Superman. His main opponent is the goddamn Batman. Punisher's is some mobster with a messed up face.

The only real discussion here is, in the canon of comic stories. Who has gotten away with the most ridiculous disturbing and powerful shenanigans.

And there's no comparison there. The Joker's plans are bigger, his murders are more outlandish, and more insane than anything that Frank deals with.

Hell, when he's not trying to get Batman's attention he has killed people with their own cat while he was miles away. He's had the Batman chasing his tale while he tries to drown all of Gotham only stopped because Bruce is a detective, and Frank is not.

[Drascin]

lol.I love how some of these villains are being turned into some godly killing machines, that are neigh indefeatable. .

Soooo... much like Frank is in Punisher wank comics?

Frank is just a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex. He already gets to kill a hell of a lot of people that he very much should not be able to, in Marvel comics, because he gets turned into a "godly killing machine" when he should not be.

The only reason this versus is actually kind of entertaining is because the Bat comics are about the only ones that are about as disproprtionately wanked as Punisher ones, making it sort of poetically fair :smalltongue:.

[Anteros]

I think he could realistically take down about one enemy. Bat villains like to monologue and wouldn't expect to just get sniped while standing in the open. After this, his M.O. would be exposed and any one of them would destroy him. Especially since Gotham is their home turf.

If they know he's coming he can probably take most of the B listers but loses hard to every single A lister.

[ben-zayb]

I mean, Gotham already has a trigger-happy antivillain who doesn't mind the blood. And this dude has even been trained by the bats himself ever since the former was but a kid.

That said, he sure as hell wasn't the one who got the cowl and replaced the bats when all is said and done.

[Clertar]

Soooo... much like Frank is in Punisher wank comics?

Frank is just a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex.

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

Like I said, the canonic Frank Castle is not the one in the Spider-man animated series or the one in the Daredevil tv series. He's a one-man army tactical genius, with decades or army, guerrilla and hand-to-hand combat experience, he always thinks outside the box and does his homework when it comes to researching his target's most hidden secrets. For most of his classic run he was also backed up by Microchip, his own Oracle.

I've never been a fan of the Punisher in comics, but it's just ridiculous to dismiss him like "a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex". He would be in the real world, but in a world where "a fit dude with a colourful shield" is Captain America, the Punisher is no joke.

[Anteros]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

Like I said, the canonic Frank Castle is not the one in the Spider-man animated series or the one in the Daredevil tv series. He's a one-man army tactical genius, with decades or army, guerrilla and hand-to-hand combat experience, he always thinks outside the box and does his homework when it comes to researching his target's most hidden secrets. For most of his classic run he was also backed up by Microchip, his own Oracle.

I've never been a fan of the Punisher in comics, but it's just ridiculous to dismiss him like "a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex". He would be in the real world, but in a world where "a fit dude with a colourful shield" is Captain America, the Punisher is no joke.

He's not on a tier with those guys though. Either Bats or Cap could and have plant him on his butt without breaking a sweat. He might be better than any normal human, but he's still not good enough to go against Batman's top tier enemies and live.

[Rynjin]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

I've NEVER seen any evidence of this. Frank is about the equivalent of a special ops soldier gone rogue. I can buy him, somewhat, as a Jason Bourne or Sam Fisher equivalent, sure. Which means he's reasonably good at outsmarting and outperforming normal guys with guns.

He's no Batman. He's not even Green Arrow. His only edge is he's willing to kill and maim whereas those two are not. This in some ways makes his job easier so he doesn't NEED their level of expertise (it's a hell of a lot easier to gun down 4 guys with an assault rifle than take them out nonlethally) and in other ways gimps him because he's just "Dude with gun #9018973: This time with a custom t-shirt!" and people that DO require Batman's level of skill and training to take down could take Frank apart piece by piece.

Punisher is exceptional by human standards. He is NOT exceptional by super-human standards in the way other super power-less heroes like Batman are. His rogue's gallery almost entirely consists of different flavors of unpowered gangster with various schticks in one category and "People who have kicked his ass or killed him" as the other.

[Alabenson]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

To be blunt, no, the Punisher isn't nearly the Marvel universe's Batman. I will certainly concede that Frank Castle is an exceptionally skilled non-powered individual with substantial combat and tactical experience. This has allowed him to combat a vast number of conventional criminal organizations, and at times he has gone up against some of the Marvel's superpowered threats and come out alive. This is why I assumed in my analysis that the Punisher would have a substantial amount of early success against the more conventional members of Batman's Rogues Gallery. The Punisher does not, however, possess anything remotely approaching Batman's level of intellect or resources, nor does he take on the same caliber of opponents on a routine basis. The Punisher is ultimately not one of the Marvel universes' heavy hitters, whereas Batman is considered to be in the same league as Superman.

[Clertar]

Note that I specifically said "the Marvel universe's Batman." I'm perfectly aware that transitioning the Punisher to the DC universe depowers him significantly, just like placing Batman in the Marvel universe would instantly make him a very OP character.

The two universes work differently, we could say that in Marvel's universe there's less ham, especially after the Ultimate universe started bleeding into the main continuity. Thor is the Marvel universe's superman, Quicksilver is the Marvel universe's Flash,... and as Marvel's Batman, the Punisher is a toned-down, less overpowered, willing to kill version of the same concept (a non-superpowered middle-aged man who uses super preparation and the best equipment he can get to fight crime in order to avenge his murdered family). Still, if the Punisher operates in the DC universe, for the sake of fairness he should be treated with DC logic.

[Anteros]

Note that I specifically said "the Marvel universe's Batman." I'm perfectly aware that transitioning the Punisher to the DC universe depowers him significantly, just like placing Batman in the Marvel universe would instantly make him a very OP character.

The two universes work differently, we could say that in Marvel's universe there's less ham, especially after the Ultimate universe started bleeding into the main continuity. Thor is the Marvel universe's superman, Quicksilver is the Marvel universe's Flash,... and as Marvel's Batman, the Punisher is a toned-down, less overpowered, willing to kill version of the same concept (a non-superpowered middle-aged man who uses super preparation and the best equipment he can get to fight crime in order to avenge his murdered family). Still, if the Punisher operates in the DC universe, for the sake of fairness he should be treated with DC logic.

I would say Marvel's Batman is Cap though. They fill a very similar role on their respective teams and are also very physically similar in the "peak human" sense.

For what it's worth I wouldn't give Punisher good odds against Cap's enemies either.

[Sapphire Guard]

Marvel's Batman is Stark. A billionaire using expensive toys and philanthropy to try to improve the world while privately constantly battling his own demons.

[Kyberwulf]

The fanboying is real.

lol

By your logic, BATMAN isn't even a threat to Joker. Thus Batman being used as a measuring stick is pointless. I mean, Joker can pretty much Kill Batman at will. Instead he chooses not to kill him. But to play with him. Guess that makes Batman a loser.

I don't get how you guys can't admit one of your heroes is human. They have faults, flaws. They can be killed. Its like you guys are afraid to admit Joker can be defeated because it would make him less cool... or something.

fine, Joker is godking and can never be defeated. It makes him a pretty boring character though. Just like superman, or Goku.

Nothing can kill any of batmans villains... why? not because they are skilled or anything. It's because people can't admit the character they like are human. .. or humanish.


DO I think Punisher can kill ALL of Gotham? no. lol. Do I think he has a chance to kill some of the inhabitants. Yeah, fore the most part, because Batman's villains are human. or .. mortal I should say. That means they have flaws, and can be hurt. If you take off the onus of storyarchs and real-world-money-based-continuity factors. I think Punisher could punish a lot of criminals, yes even godkings before he gets taken out. Which I do think would happen. So yeah, one man vs a city? Of course he loses. But He would do a lot of damage before he goes out. IN the end though. The city would win, new criminals would step up. It would be game over.


As for Marvel's Batman? Would have to be Black Panther. Tony doesn't have the same mentality as Batman. He is what you would have if "Bruce" put on the Mantel. Batman is't a playboy. Especially after RDJ donned the armor.

[Keltest]

The fanboying is real.

lol

By your logic, BATMAN isn't even a threat to Joker. Thus Batman being used as a measuring stick is pointless. I mean, Joker can pretty much Kill Batman at will. Instead he chooses not to kill him. But to play with him. Guess that makes Batman a loser.

No, it means the Joker has a weakness for Batman, specifically. Youre absolutely right, the Joker could quite probably kill Batman if he set out to do that in the most effective way he can think of. But its part of his shtick that he doesn't want to just kill batman. He wants to prove Batman is like him. He wants to show Batman his reflection, and watch Batman cringe. And most of all, he wants to make Batman laugh. To see him feel. Because a batman who laughs, who feels... why, that's almost not Batman at all anymore, and to take down Batman in that way would be the Joker's ultimate victory.

Punisher on the other hand, doesn't have that going for him. He's just a problem to be dealt with. Theres no game to be played there, no joke to be had, just... a problem.

[Anteros]

The fanboying is real.

lol


Why are you just pointlessly insulting people who disagree with you?

[Kyberwulf]

Lol. You don't think joker can just be shot one night? People have found him before. People have got the drop. He was only saved due to plot contrivance. I am not saying it's an auto win for punisher. Like you guys seem to be saying for the joker. I think it's a toss up.

[BWR]

Since we are admitting that all characters have plot armor and benefit from writer fiat, I can only see that it comes down to this: is the Punisher allowed to kill any characters of note in Marvel? And I don't mean in stuff like "Kills the Marvel Universe" but in any form of canon? Is he allowed to kill anyone who isn't a mook or a recently introduced baddie whose entire purpose is to be killed?
If not, then he won't do **** against any players in Gotham because they all enjoy the protection of plot armor and Frank doesn't have plot-armor piercing bullets. He'll kill off a few low-level henchmen but that's it. Oh, he may hurt or appear to kill one of the big names, but that lasts only a little while before they come back looking for revenge.
Likewise, Frank will stay alive and keep on killing mooks regardless of whatever is thrown his way because that's the way the comics work.

[Drascin]

The fanboying is real.

lol


As I have said, the entire reason this vs is kind of amusing is because both sides in this contest are wanked to hell. I mean, notice how you yourself are fanboying Frank pretty hard.

The difference is that the people like Joker benefit from the nerd love of "unpredictable" characters, while Frank benefits from the Cult of the Gun.

Joker is just an unpredictable crazy with cool gadgets. Frank is just a spec ops dude with debilitating psychological issues. Simple fact is, neither of them should be a thing that is a real player on a comic world central stage. Joker should not be able to present a threat to Lex Luthor or Cheetah. Frank should never be able to so much as breathe on, say, Spidey. Yet, they're presented as genuine threats because, respectively, "chaos is impossible to counteract!" and "guns beat stupid comic stuff!", both of which are kind of silly.

So yeah, I'm entirely calling Joker vs Punisher as "whoever gets into gear and enacts their plan to kill the other guy first wins", because whoever gets into action first will kill the other guy because neither can really survive an attack without massive amounts of plot armor. And Joker has shown more proactivity in terms of his mayhem. So I think it's more probable that Joker will take it purely because he's more likely to "go first", as it were, but it still could easily go the other way.

A quick classification of Batman villains that I'm reasonably familiar with:

Frank almost certainly wins:
Penguin, Szasz, Scarecrow (at least classic version. Some versions of Scarecrow are a hell of a thing), Mad Hatter. Hugo Strange could be here depending on whether he would underestimate Frank or not (which he probably would and die from. If he takes Frank seriously it's a case of "you're never going to get him in sights", but Strange tends to underestimate people).

Frank absolutely can win if he gets the drop (I imagine he can take a couple of these down before the rest catch on and wise up to him and take him down)
Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr Freeze, Two-Face.

Frank could win under highly specific circumstances or with access to very heavy-duty military equipment way beyond his usual assault rifles and personal explosives (ie, literally bring in tanks or attack helicopters or the like), but chances are he loses:
Killer Croc (classic), Solomon Grundy (shambly dumb version)

Frank never even has a chance
Bane, Lady Shiva, Clayface, Solomon Grundy (real immortal version), Deathstroke, Ra's. Also, to be honest, probably Riddler, because Riddler's entire schtick is never showing up where he could be shot unless you can decipher his riddles, and Frank is not super good at riddling.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, I am not fanboying. I repeatedly say Frank would lose. I am merely saying he has a chance against joker. I also am merely stating everyone here is selling Punisher short. Frank does pretty well against non superpowers opponents. Which for the most part, most of Batman villains are non superpowers. Superplot powered ... yeah.

[comicshorse]

Lol. You don't think joker can just be shot one night? People have found him before. People have got the drop. He was only saved due to plot contrivance. I am not saying it's an auto win for punisher. Like you guys seem to be saying for the joker. I think it's a toss up.

And people are disagreeing. They think, me too, that the Joker is too weird, unpredictable and smart ( possibly supernatural but that's a different argument). That Frank's chances against the Joker really aren't that good. Which somehow become 'fanboyism'

[khadgar567]

Lets say frank made big body count in gotham and they dont pop a cap in his ass quick enough. Gues who enters the scene? Amanda waller and forcefully recruits him to suicide squad. Since frank gonna kill his team mate pop goes the weasel amanda blows his brain the moument frank kills one of the team member due them being bad guys. So frank cant survive in dc universe

[comicshorse]

Hey lets not forget Frank once ran a MAFIA FAMILY ! :smallsmile:
(Yeah comics do some stupid stuff and that still wasn't as bad as him being an Angel)

[khadgar567]

Hey lets not forget Frank once ran a MAFIA FAMILY ! :smallsmile:
(Yeah comics do some stupid stuff and that still wasn't as bad as him being an Angel)
Lol by the way frank is more like jason then bats. They have same methods, same trigger happy angstfull streak only diffrent between them is jason frequently sleeps with his adoptive brothers true love.

[Friv]

Why are you just pointlessly insulting people who disagree with you?

Forget it, Anteros, it's Kyberwulf.

[comicshorse]

Where's Roman Polanski with a switch blade when you need him

[Avilan the Grey]

Punisher is stupidly overpowered in the comics. Except the ones before he became a "hero" of course. I still remember when he was a psychopathic Dare Devil villain, before he got his own book because "it's cool with guns". Daredevil took him out.

Also, it's "handy" that Bats is "out of the picture", because Bats would go after Frank just like Matt did; they would both consider him a well... psychopathic murdering lunatic. And Frank is a poorly equipped weapon fetishist with no real protection except for his "skull decoy chest thing". (One of the dumbest things in comics ever, right up there with Clark's glasses). Deadshot (or just your average paid person with a rilfe) would put a bullet in his head quickly.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, by the same token.. nearly all of Batman villains would die by a bullet to the head. Barring plot armor of course. Nothing really makes batman's villains anything special but their plot armor.. And plot contrivances.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, by the same token.. nearly all of Batman villains would die by a bullet to the head. Barring plot armor of course. Nothing really makes batman's villains anything special but their plot armor.. And plot contrivances.

That's not really the whole story, though, unless you're implying they never get a chance to fight back or do anything? Besides, even of the Batman villains that CAN be dropped by headshot, relatively few villains make that a viable tactic.

Of those, Frank would never find Riddler, he's potentially matched by Hush, matched or outmatched by Deadshot, outmatched by Deathstroke (though it's arguable whether a headshot would kill him anyway), and outmatched by Ra's (to whom death is a temporary setback anyway). Of the "core" Batman Rogues cast, Two-Face, Penguin, Scarecrow, maybe Ivy, and Joker are the only ones he could be argued to have cinched up. The latter mostly because I don't think Frank would play the Joker's games.

That leaves a smattering of assorted "lesser" villains like Zsasz and Calendar Man as headshotable and ones like Killer Croc, Clayface, Freeze, and Grundy who are either immune or severely resistant to it.

[Avilan the Grey]

Agreed.

Also my point is that basically none of the other villains (I have always considered Punisher a villain), after they realize he's a Just Shoot Them kinda guy will bother with a No I Expect You To Dine or similar scenario. That's reserved for Bats and other vigilantes of that ilk. They fight ordinary turf wars with each other and more normal gangsters all the time.

We also have an (ex) punisher already: Huntress.

[Lacuna Caster]

As an aside, rehabilitation in the world of supers should be a thing. Since it removes bad guys, though, prisons and asylums always fail. Such institutions always get shown in a bad light in comics. (I love how the Wormverse plays with this - effective psychological treatment!) When prisons and asylums aren't effective at keeping very dangerous individuals off the streets, society will very quickly run out of patience with incarceration, and will instead opt to lawfully kill its supervillains.
This is very true.


Speaking of which, does anyone else find it disturbing how mundane the Riddler's evil plan from Batman Forever has become? I mean, he basically had the same business plan as Facebook and Google
Also very true. Carry on.

[HandofShadows]

I think Mack Bolan (The Executioner) in Gotham would be a lot more interesting than the Punisher. :smallbiggrin:

[khadgar567]

I think Mack Bolan (The Executioner) in Gotham would be a lot more interesting than the Punisher. :smallbiggrin:
If we gonna change characters between marvel and dc i advise doctor fate and doctor strange exchange but who am i kidding they never exchange characters

[shadow_archmagi]

I feel like most incarnations of the Joker I've seen include him standing on top of famous landmarks shouting "IT'S ME, THE JOKER, HERE TO DO CRIMES! HOO HOOO HOO HOOOOOO"

My money is on him being the first to get shot.

[Kyberwulf]

I love how it's not a viable tactic against the dc guys. But against the marvel character ... who has also been doing this for a long time dodging assassins and hiding from people as well.. shooting people from a distance is a sure way to kill him. You guys seem to forget that Frank has been hunting, yes hunting villains for a long time. It had been his sole purpose for years. Hunting people that are extremely excellent at hiding. Hunting people that are pretty much the same as the Dc guys. Everything you say about Dc guys, you can say that about him. I love this .. I don't know what else to call it other then.. fanboyism. Favoritism with ignoring facts. You guys seem to be enshrining all these aspects to Dc guys that make them invincible. You don't seem to be able to divorce skill from plot armor.

[Alabenson]

I love how it's not a viable tactic against the dc guys. But against the marvel character ... who has also been doing this for a long time dodging assassins and hiding from people as well.. shooting people from a distance is a sure way to kill him. You guys seem to forget that Frank has been hunting, yes hunting villains for a long time. It had been his sole purpose for years. Hunting people that are extremely excellent at hiding. Hunting people that are pretty much the same as the Dc guys. Everything you say about Dc guys, you can say that about him. I love this .. I don't know what else to call it other then.. fanboyism. Favoritism with ignoring facts. You guys seem to be enshrining all these aspects to Dc guys that make them invincible. You don't seem to be able to divorce skill from plot armor.

If Frank has been so successful at hunting villains, than how come the Red Skull is still around? Or Doctor Doom, or the Green Goblin, or any of the other Marvel villains in the Joker's weight class?

[Lurkmoar]

If Frank has been so successful at hunting villains, than how come the Red Skull is still around? Or Doctor Doom, or the Green Goblin, or any of the other Marvel villains in the Joker's weight class?

Plot armor is so much more superior then any bullet.

Though, the Punisher did kill the Marvel Universe that one time. (Garth Ennis again. If you're in a super hero comic and you're not Superman, he hates you on principle.)

[Anteros]

Not to mention that DC has guys who are basically the Punisher already, and they can't take out Batman's villains either.

[Alabenson]

Plot armor is so much more superior then any bullet.

Though, the Punisher did kill the Marvel Universe that one time. (Garth Ennis again. If you're in a super hero comic and you're not Superman, he hates you on principle.)

I tend to discount feats accomplished in Elseworlds stories or otherwise outside of cannon for the purposes of these discussions.

I will concede that, under ideal circumstances, the Punisher might be able to take down the Joker. This would entail, however;
1) Actually finding the Joker, which is an exceptionally difficult task even for Batman, who has a skillset far better suited to the task than the Punisher. This also presumes that the Punisher even knows that the Joker is currently active, which isn't a given as the Joker has a nasty habit of vanishing until he's ready for his next major crime.
2) Watching the Joker to determine the optimal method of attack. Again, extremely difficult to accomplish even for individuals better suited to the task.
3) Carrying out said attack without getting killed in the process.
And the Punisher would need to accomplish all of this without making a single mistake, not once drawing attention to himself, attacking a single other criminal in an extremely target-rich environment or being noticed by anyone in Gotham. Because the minute the Punisher is made the Joker will find out about it and he will be prepared for whatever the Punisher attempts.

[comicshorse]

I love how it's not a viable tactic against the dc guys. But against the marvel character ... who has also been doing this for a long time dodging assassins and hiding from people as well.. shooting people from a distance is a sure way to kill him. You guys seem to forget that Frank has been hunting, yes hunting villains for a long time. It had been his sole purpose for years. Hunting people that are extremely excellent at hiding. Hunting people that are pretty much the same as the Dc guys. Everything you say about Dc guys, you can say that about him. I love this .. I don't know what else to call it other then.. fanboyism. Favoritism with ignoring facts. You guys seem to be enshrining all these aspects to Dc guys that make them invincible. You don't seem to be able to divorce skill from plot armor.

And how many popular Marvel villains has he killed with this technique ? None.
A fact you seem to be avoiding, its almost like......what's the word, oh yes 'fanboyism'

[Kyberwulf]

Lol. He hasn't killed them.. because.. dun dun duun.. they are popular.. and worth a lot of money to marvel. That's the main problem with comics. They aren't allowed to change.

Sure. You can level accusations of fanboyism at me. I am not the one saying he is immortal and invincible.

I am saying he has a good shot at killing some of villains. In the end though he would lose. It's one man vs. A city. Lol.

[comicshorse]

Lol. He hasn't killed them.. because.. dun dun duun.. they are popular.. and worth a lot of money to marvel. That's the main problem with comics. They aren't allowed to change.

Sure. You can level accusations of fanboyism at me. I am not the one saying he is immortal and invincible.

I am saying he has a good shot at killing some of villains. In the end though he would lose. It's one man vs. A city. Lol.

No but you are the one, constantly, leveling accusations of 'fanboyism' at people who provide reasonable explanations of why they think you're wrong

(and you're really overusing Lol as well)

P.S
Actually as you don't really indicate who your replying to, I'm pretty sure you're calling people fanboys who are mostly agreeing with you :smallsmile:

[Kyberwulf]

I don't want to indicate anyone, because I have been warned before about saying something to someone. Eventhough worse has been said to other people by other people. And other thibgs.So now I tend to keep myself as vague as possible

Anywho. The general defense if joker seems to be.... na uh. Joker would win because he is the coolest bestest shiniest smartestest bad guy to ever bad guy. My defense is.. He is a semi trained guy in stuff... going against a guy who is trained in this on specific area, The only real reason joker is still alive. Isn't through skill. It's though sheer popularity and the unwillingness to kill him.

[Grim Portent]

Joker's actually a lot like Riddler in that knowing where he is or what he's doing at any given time is hard. He likes to use gags, jokes and props as hints to Batman about where to go to find him, like the dentures in the animated series to tell him he was going after Gordon at his dentist appointment. Simple enough things, but they mean little to someone with no personal investment with him.

Not like he can walk around in public much after all, he's rather obvious. So he mostly travels around in ways that he's hard to spot or recognize, like nondescript cars, at night or underground.

Interrupting him in the middle of a scheme would be very risky, as that's when he has a lot of armed goons and usually a truckload of chemical weapons handy. Plus hostages, he likes hostages.

Someone like Penguin you could probably just snipe while he walked from his car to the door of the Iceberg Lounge, you know where he lives and where he works, he mostly relies on there being little proof he's done anything at the moment to stay out of Arkham. Joker doesn't really live anywhere, his only frequented location across most iterations is usually Ace Chemicals, and that's a dumb place to have a firefight or use explosives because of the possible collateral damage.

If you can draw a bead on him with a gun he's dead (usually,) but there's only a few people in Gotham who really know him well enough to always figure out what he's up to.

[Forum Explorer]

I don't want to indicate anyone, because I have been warned before about saying something to someone. Eventhough worse has been said to other people by other people. And other thibgs.So now I tend to keep myself as vague as possible

Anywho. The general defense if joker seems to be.... na uh. Joker would win because he is the coolest bestest shiniest smartestest bad guy to ever bad guy. My defense is.. He is a semi trained guy in stuff... going against a guy who is trained in this on specific area, The only real reason joker is still alive. Isn't through skill. It's though sheer popularity and the unwillingness to kill him.

That's mixing Doylism and Watism reasons together (if those are the correct terms).

In universe the Punisher is a scary vigiliant who has taken down numerous criminals and gang lords. His failure to take out any actual important supervillains isn't really noted by the other characters in the MU (as far as I know anyways).

The Doylest reason is the Punisher isn't allowed to permanently kill off anyone who is popular, or to be killed off because he also is popular.

In universe, the Joker is a mad genius who can only be matched by Batman, as he is easily capable of taking out pretty much any other resident of Gotham, more or less. He is one of the scariest villains in the DC universe, and a grade A threat.

The Doylest reason is that Joker is popular, and his abilities have been exaggerated so he can have a larger role in the mythos of DC.

By Doylist reasoning, the Punisher will fail but survive, because both characters are too popular to have them killed off. Since the Joker is more popular, it's more likely that the Punisher will fail, but barely survive, rather then the Joker almost getting killed.

By Watsean reasoning, the Punisher will fail, and likely die, because the Joker operates on a higher power level then the Punisher. That doesn't quite make sense, because the Joker doesn't have any actual supernatural abilities, but neither does Batman being considered Superman's equal.

[TeChameleon]

It's 'Watsonian' (as in 'Doylist'- Arthur Conan Doyle, the author, for the out-of-story reason, and 'Watsonian' as in Dr. John Watson, Sherlock's compatriot who is recording his adventures, for the in-story reason).

Anyway... Az-Bats, Red Hood and Huntress are all in-canon 'rebuttals' to the Punisher's methods, with his royal Nineties-ness Jean-Paul Valley being the most blatant one. In DCU-logic, the Punisher's methods cannot work because the Comics Code Authority has been narratively enshrined there, so characters that run around killing people, regardless of motive, don't get to be 'heroes' (with the aforementioned Ennis exceptions, of course... hi there, Tommy Monaghan! Why in the nine hells was this mook invited to join the JLA, anyhow?), and thus lack the plot-given protagonist-powers. Not just plot armour, but also little things like initiative, the ability to be intelligent enough to figure out anything before the lead character (unless they're the token 'smart one' who somehow lacks agency to take on the antagonists physically, like being wheelchair-bound, or simply not able to match the antagonists because they're small and badly out of shape), or have anyone listen to or believe them if they need to be convincing in some way.

So if Frankie got dumped into the DCU Gotham, he'd get very, very frustrated at being involuntarily villainized while his methods were somehow even less effective than they were in New York, with every 'name' player escaping him because he was using 'bad guy' methods, and thus not allowed to succeed in the long run.

If an aura of Marvel-ness (and possibly Nineties-style XXXXXXTREEEEME!!!!!1!-ness) were laid over Gotham, then the Punisher would get a few 'shock' kills, and take out Kite Man (because Kite Man always dies in these kind of things, since the writers seem to loathe him for being one of the strongest reminders that Batman has had villains that weren't kewl and edgy), the Ten-Eyed Man (which the plot would insist was some kind of incredible accomplishment, despite all evidence to the contrary), get into a massively destructive but inconclusive firefight with Deathstroke (who had any kind of advantage would depend mostly on comparative sales, with Deathstroke's 'using 90% of his brain' "powers" or the Punisher's 'superior tactical acumen/planning ahead' being cited as the deciding factor, depending), bring down but not quite manage to kill Killer Croc and/or Clayface in a 'surprise' victory, appear to kill the Joker, and then fade into frustrated, bitter obscurity, ending up at the bar in limbo sharing drinks and stories about how much better the 'old days' were with Azrael, Hitman, and Aquaman's beard.

[Anteros]

I don't want to indicate anyone, because I have been warned before about saying something to someone. Eventhough worse has been said to other people by other people. And other thibgs.So now I tend to keep myself as vague as possible

Anywho. The general defense if joker seems to be.... na uh. Joker would win because he is the coolest bestest shiniest smartestest bad guy to ever bad guy. My defense is.. He is a semi trained guy in stuff... going against a guy who is trained in this on specific area, The only real reason joker is still alive. Isn't through skill. It's though sheer popularity and the unwillingness to kill him.

So instead of just not insulting people, you still throw out the insults but keep the targets vague? :smallconfused: I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.

[Kyberwulf]

That depends. Really. I don't think what I said was an insult. It was a description of a thought process I saw. I lacked a better term. I can't control how people think or act. If people want to be insulted. I can't change their minds.

No one has really offered any scenario that doesn't boil down to.. he's to smart, he is too weird.. or he has beaten so-and-so.. ergo he is unbeatable.

I retort with.. You can't really use past battles with other people.. because they are written a certain way, so that nothing really changes.

There are always deus ex kismit that forces certain outcomes. On both sides. So you have to go back to what is in their training. Which punished has a more fleshed out back story then the joker. His "mysterious" past works against him. Because you can't just sit there and say he can do this because...just because. Which is all his character is. Just because he is a wild card.. doesn't always mean he wins. When you gamble and depend on the wild card. You lose more often then you win.

[Knaight]

That depends. Really. I don't think what I said was an insult. It was a description of a thought process I saw. I lacked a better term. I can't control how people think or act. If people want to be insulted. I can't change their minds.
This line can be used for basically any insult, and the whole general attitude how how insults only exist on the recipient side is ludicrous.


No one has really offered any scenario that doesn't boil down to.. he's to smart, he is too weird.. or he has beaten so-and-so.. ergo he is unbeatable.

I retort with.. You can't really use past battles with other people.. because they are written a certain way, so that nothing really changes.

There are always deus ex kismit that forces certain outcomes. On both sides. So you have to go back to what is in their training. Which punished has a more fleshed out back story then the joker. His "mysterious" past works against him. Because you can't just sit there and say he can do this because...just because. Which is all his character is. Just because he is a wild card.. doesn't always mean he wins. When you gamble and depend on the wild card. You lose more often then you win.
Sol what I'm hearing is that all information that doesn't fit neatly on what is basically a character sheet gets thrown out, so the Punisher wins by default because the Joker's past wasn't specified. Yet it's deciding to work off of abilities displayed and not training explicitly shown to have been received that is fanboyish. Fascinating.

The Joker also isn't just a wildcard. He's displayed particular abilities, he's displayed particular tactics, and the general way he operates is known. We don't know the training received, but that counts for a lot less than abilities displayed - as numerous fictional characters in numerous media have shown. We also don't know the specifics of how Owain was trained compared to the various other Arthurian knights, and we certainly didn't see any training that lets him get a lion companion. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have a lion companion. We don't know the specifics of how Guan Yu was trained, and what information we have suggests that he has less training than was common. That doesn't mean that we should assume he loses to some random captain with better training than him after we've seen him outfight everyone he's matched against that isn't named Lu Bu. Similarly, we don't know what training the Joker has. What we see on panel/screen is someone who's highly capable, physically resilient, and who gives Batman real trouble. That positions him well to handle The Punisher.

[Forum Explorer]

Sol what I'm hearing is that all information that doesn't fit neatly on what is basically a character sheet gets thrown out, so the Punisher wins by default because the Joker's past wasn't specified. Yet it's deciding to work off of abilities displayed and not training explicitly shown to have been received that is fanboyish. Fascinating.

The Joker also isn't just a wildcard. He's displayed particular abilities, he's displayed particular tactics, and the general way he operates is known. We don't know the training received, but that counts for a lot less than abilities displayed - as numerous fictional characters in numerous media have shown. We also don't know the specifics of how Owain was trained compared to the various other Arthurian knights, and we certainly didn't see any training that lets him get a lion companion. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have a lion companion. We don't know the specifics of how Guan Yu was trained, and what information we have suggests that he has less training than was common. That doesn't mean that we should assume he loses to some random captain with better training than him after we've seen him outfight everyone he's matched against that isn't named Lu Bu. Similarly, we don't know what training the Joker has. What we see on panel/screen is someone who's highly capable, physically resilient, and who gives Batman real trouble. That positions him well to handle The Punisher.

And he's going easy on Batman. Though you can argue Batman is handicapping himself with the whole 'won't kill' thing so it evens out. Regardless, the Joker is more dangerous to other opponents.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah.. the problem with the joker. Is he is given any skills he needs, so that he is a threat. Why? He is the most popular villain. He is almost as bad as superman was. Except with joker. It is acceptable because if his popularity.

[Knaight]

Yeah.. the problem with the joker. Is he is given any skills he needs, so that he is a threat. Why? He is the most popular villain. He is almost as bad as superman was. Except with joker. It is acceptable because if his popularity.

I'm not defending the writing quality here - the character is a bit unfocused, although that has less to do with the specifics of the character and more to do with how both Marvel and DC are more than willing to keep popular characters running in weekly comics for decades on end and how dross tends to accumulate. The quality of the writing doesn't matter though; this isn't a thread that asks whether the Punisher or the general setting of Gotham are better written, but about what havoc the Punisher could wreak among Gotham's supervillain class. That makes the displayed actions relevant, even if the reasoning behind them is pretty stupid.

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah.. the problem with the joker. Is he is given any skills he needs, so that he is a threat. Why? He is the most popular villain. He is almost as bad as superman was. Except with joker. It is acceptable because if his popularity.

Oh, I agree. I really don't like any of DCs writing, beyond the stuff that's completely self contained.

But that's neither here nor there.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, then this whole question is pretty moot. I mean, He would come to town, kill some no names. Not die, not kill anyone of important note. Then leave, after Batman comes back from whatever put him out in the first place.. Thereby making no winner. A standard comic book storyarc.

[Knaight]

Oh, I agree. I really don't like any of DCs writing, beyond the stuff that's completely self contained.

But that's neither here nor there.

Really, Marvel and DC would both produce better stories if they'd allow for shorter runs of the character and just drop the whole single universe conceit where all the characters are in the same universe and it's all part of one big canon so they can have crossovers. If the individual stories were allowed to be individual stories without the baggage of tens of thousands of what should be unrelated comics they'd be much stronger.

[Avilan the Grey]

Bats would do better in Marvel than Punisher in. Gotham. Not only would Frank be viewed as a villain by most heroes, but his modus operandi would prevent him from a major impact as discussed above.
In fact I bet his storyline would put him as the villain and have Batgirl or similar person as the hero, hunting him down.

Bats on the other hand would handle things better and quite easily cooperate with the heroes on his level (Daredevil, etc).
He would also feel rather at home against enemies like Typhoid Mary, Kraven, Bullseye, Electra, Etc etc.

[khadgar567]

Bats would do better in Marvel than Punisher in. Gotham. Not only would Frank be viewed as a villain by most heroes, but his modus operandi would prevent him from a major impact as discussed above.
In fact I bet his storyline would put him as the villain and have Batgirl or similar person as the hero, hunting him down.

Bats on the other hand would handle things better and quite easily cooperate with the heroes on his level (Daredevil, etc).
He would also feel rather at home against enemies like Typhoid Mary, Kraven, Bullseye, Electra, Etc etc.
lack of luthor and maxvel lord makes bruce flex his competitive muscles more easily and closest bastard to his style is nearly 24/7 drunk and needs cutting edge armor and ai to save his ass every time bats in marvel probably become major super power and thanks to abundance of telepaths in marvel and his own charisma Bruce'y probably hook him self with emma frost erasing his trauma and basicly living his life like a G without problem.

[Keltest]

lack of luthor and maxvel lord makes bruce flex his competitive muscles more easily and closest bastard to his style is nearly 24/7 drunk and needs cutting edge armor and ai to save his ass every time bats in marvel probably become major super power and thanks to abundance of telepaths in marvel and his own charisma Bruce'y probably hook him self with emma frost erasing his trauma and basicly living his life like a G without problem.

Bruce would never want to erase his trauma. Its part of his identity. How could he brood without his trauma?

[khadgar567]

Bruce would never want to erase his trauma. Its part of his identity. How could he brood without his trauma?
he wont do in dc universe if no way to get back to Gotham he eventually find his way to major league and thanks to his bat charisma he gonna hook up with some sort of ice queen so i choose hardest one to conquer emma frost and we know emma loves using emotional wrecks as toys so brucie gonna be her toughest nut to crack( see the similarities of talya end serena). thus either he does where the no one does and defrosts ms frost or emma gonna fix him up to lost cause for dc universe .

[Kyberwulf]

I assume you mean Iron Man, when you say someone closest to his style. I don't see that at all. I never get the comparison. Other then he is rich, and build stuff. Their personalities are totally different. What drives them is so far apart. I don't think there is anyone in the Marvel Universe that really is a good analog for Batman/Bruce Wayne. That's fine, I don't get this need people have that is like, There is one in one universe so there has to be one in the other Universe.

Of course Batman would do better in Marvel. He is a pretty standard superhero. What makes Punisher different. Is the fact they wanted to do something different with a comic book hero. If you look back at the history of Batman, you will find that Punisher actually saved that brand. Before Punisher came out. Batman was pretty much Superman. The same personalities albeit a little darker. It wasn't until Punisher came out that Batman really changed. What with the Frank Miller run. They wanted him to be more like the punisher, but without the killing.

[Kitten Champion]

lack of luthor and maxvel lord makes bruce flex his competitive muscles more easily and closest bastard to his style is nearly 24/7 drunk and needs cutting edge armor and ai to save his ass every time bats in marvel probably become major super power and thanks to abundance of telepaths in marvel and his own charisma Bruce'y probably hook him self with emma frost erasing his trauma and basicly living his life like a G without problem.

Stark dealt with his alcoholism a long, long, long while ago. Plus he makes and actively improves the tech he uses, and of course he relies on it because he fights almost exclusively against the upper-tier threats in the MU and would be easily annihilated otherwise.

Also the Batman-equivalent in the Marvel Universe - excluding Nighthawk because that's cheap mimicry - is Moon Knight. The only cross comparisons between Stark and Wayne are their money and being fundamentally mundane superheroes with super-gadgetry, which isn't too exclusive as far as superheroes go. Black Panther has adopted a similar role to Batman in terms of being the paranoid polymath mundane with huge resources in the MU, but that's relatively recent and there are more contrasts between them when you get into the details.

Moon Knight has a similar motif, similar technology at his disposal, and also has notable skills as a detective -- he's somewhat toned-down power/money/competency-wise to fit the Marvel style and obviously has the twist of being varying levels of psychotic, but the intent is pretty clear in his inception and art.

[Kyberwulf]

I don't like Moon Knight, just because he has magical abilities doesn't he? Something to do with the moon? Not only that, he isn't nearly as skilled. I mean, if you don't want to use Punisher because he lacks the skill, then almost everyone in marvel lacks the skill. Batman IS Superman, not some alien posing as a man. His abilities are the best in all aspects. No one in Marvel is that way, outside of magical or comic book level of science. I mean even Black Panther is blessed by gods to, isn't he?

I am pretty sure Batman has no real counterpart in Marvel.

[Starbuck_II]

Stark dealt with his alcoholism a long, long, long while ago. Plus he makes and actively improves the tech he uses, and of course he relies on it because he fights almost exclusively against the upper-tier threats in the MU and would be easily annihilated otherwise.

Also the Batman-equivalent in the Marvel Universe - excluding Nighthawk because that's cheap mimicry - is Moon Knight. The only cross comparisons between Stark and Wayne are their money and being fundamentally mundane superheroes with super-gadgetry, which isn't too exclusive as far as superheroes go. Black Panther has adopted a similar role to Batman in terms of being the paranoid polymath mundane with huge resources in the MU, but that's relatively recent and there are more contrasts between them when you get into the details.

Moon Knight has a similar motif, similar technology at his disposal, and also has notable skills as a detective -- he's somewhat toned-down power/money/competency-wise to fit the Marvel style and obviously has the twist of being varying levels of psychotic, but the intent is pretty clear in his inception and art.

Wait, shouldn't Iron Fist be the Batman analog?
Both are rich, gave own company, usually fight unarmed, stop crime, both know martial arts, etc.
Only Iron Fist doesn't use technology like Batman (I've never figured out why)

[khadgar567]

You know maybe we need to look villan side to find good match to bruce since hyperion is marvels superman clone batss will probably have a obscure villian counter part.
and for stark, bruce similarities they both build stuff( stark builds armor, bruce builds smaller toys), they both are womanizers, they both lost their parents in some event.
any more info need

[Kitten Champion]

I don't like Moon Knight, just because he has magical abilities doesn't he? Something to do with the moon? Not only that, he isn't nearly as skilled. I mean, if you don't want to use Punisher because he lacks the skill, then almost everyone in marvel lacks the skill. Batman IS Superman, not some alien posing as a man. His abilities are the best in all aspects. No one in Marvel is that way, outside of magical or comic book level of science. I mean even Black Panther is blessed by gods to, isn't he?

I am pretty sure Batman has no real counterpart in Marvel.

Black Panther had and lost superpowers. Even without it he's a polymath super-genius ubermench who's a master martial artist, tactician, inventor, and skilled detective. A venn diagram between the him and Batman's capability would be incredibly close only one kind of runs a ginormous business while the other a ludicrously economically and technologically advanced kingdom, the characterizations are quite distant though.

Moon Knight has slight superhuman physical enhancements at night, depends a bit on the writer. Though, as I said, it's less that he's one-for-one a Batman copy and more theme/art/concept, He is - again - a toned-down Batman with a multiple personality shtick and more mysticism attached to him, it's pretty evident. The billionaire going on a secret crusade against criminals at night, dressed in full cape in cowl, carrying all sorts of character-themed gadgets and weapons,

He's got a goddamned Mooncopter.


Wait, shouldn't Iron Fist be the Batman analog?
Both are rich, gave own company, usually fight unarmed, stop crime, both know martial arts, etc.
Only Iron Fist doesn't use technology like Batman (I've never figured out why)

It's a glamorous and useful trope to build a hero on, there are several more in DC and Marvel alone, plus older examples like Green Hornet. Though, Iron Fist's backstory is more similar to Green Arrow but with 70's Martial Arts exploitation movie motif as the base rather than Robin Hood.


You know maybe we need to look villan side to find good match to bruce since hyperion is marvels superman clone batss will probably have a obscure villian counter part.

Nighthawk is explicitly Batman's counterpart as Hyperion is to Superman, in the sense that he was created as a Batman expy so Marvel could have crossover fights with DC characters without DC's actual involvement using villainous forms of the Justice League.



and for stark, bruce similarities they both build stuff( stark builds armor, bruce builds smaller toys), they both are womanizers, they both lost their parents in some event.
any more info need

They've got some overlapping superhero tropes sure, but their overarching characterization, motivations, and sub-genre are too different.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah. Bruce Wayne isn't really a part of Batman's persona. It his disguise. It's who he pretends to be.

[Lacuna Caster]

All I know about Moon Knight is what Mr. Edwards tells me (https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2016/03/17/jet-and-silver/), but he definitely seems to have his own unique flavour, and Panther has his own distinct cultural attachments (https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/still-beautiful/).

I personally think that Bruce needs to be more than just a disguise, since the social philanthropy wing of Wayne Enterprises is one of the main counterpoints to the usual 'angry white guy venting at impoverished minorities' accusations.

[TeChameleon]

I personally think that Bruce needs to be more than just a disguise, since the social philanthropy wing of Wayne Enterprises is one of the main counterpoints to the usual 'angry white guy venting at impoverished minorities' accusations.

... 'impoverished minorities'? Sure, maybe some of the generic thugs that turn up in the Batman Cold Open of some of the stories, but about the only Bat-Rogue you can level that accusation against is Bane, and he sought Batman out. Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Ventriloquist, Humpty Dumpty, Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Zsasz, Firefly, I think all four versions of Clayface, Black Mask, Professor Pyg, Solomon Grundy, Maxie Zeus, Deathstroke, the Clock King, Deadshot, Killer Moth, Catman, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Harley Quinn... if Batman's Villain Gallery got any whiter, it'd be a bleach commercial. The only exceptions I can think of offhand are Bane (fictional Latino), Lady Shiva (Vietnamese, I think?) and Ra's al Ghul and some of his asssassins (ambiguously Middle Eastasian).

And the whole 'Bruce is the mask' thing varies heavily from writer to writer anyhow.

[Anteros]

... 'impoverished minorities'? Sure, maybe some of the generic thugs that turn up in the Batman Cold Open of some of the stories, but about the only Bat-Rogue you can level that accusation against is Bane, and he sought Batman out. Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Ventriloquist, Humpty Dumpty, Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Zsasz, Firefly, I think all four versions of Clayface, Black Mask, Professor Pyg, Solomon Grundy, Maxie Zeus, Deathstroke, the Clock King, Deadshot, Killer Moth, Catman, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Harley Quinn... if Batman's Villain Gallery got any whiter, it'd be a bleach commercial. The only exceptions I can think of offhand are Bane (fictional Latino), Lady Shiva (Vietnamese, I think?) and Ra's al Ghul and some of his asssassins (ambiguously Middle Eastasian).

And the whole 'Bruce is the mask' thing varies heavily from writer to writer anyhow.

I think perhaps it's more directed at the street level people he fights rather than big name villains.

[Lacuna Caster]

... 'impoverished minorities'? Sure, maybe some of the generic thugs that turn up in the Batman Cold Open of some of the stories...
I'm not saying this accusation is in any way balanced or reasonable, but it does get thrown out there by certain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l1PMVvfjDM) pundits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJsLicChl0&t=2m41s) (and to be fair, if you were playing the Arkham games, generic thugs of varying ethnicity will make up 80-90% of the opposition.)

You and I may know perfectly well that this is canonically nonsense, and there's a certain amount of anti-corruption measures and social philanthropy going on if you squint at the Nolan trilogy, but those are not a particularly front-and-centre element of the average Batman narrative that non-geeks would be exposed to. So it's nice to be able to cite chapter and verse and go "Nyah, GatesWayne Foundation, so there".

[Anteros]

I feel like most of the thugs in depicted in Batman mythos aren't minorities. Not that I've done a study on it or anything. We're probably skirting too close to real world stuff anyway for this forum.

[Quiver]

It's a glamorous and useful trope to build a hero on, there are several more in DC and Marvel alone, plus older examples like Green Hornet. Though, Iron Fist's backstory is more similar to Green Arrow but with 70's Martial Arts exploitation movie motif as the base rather than Robin Hood.

Man, now I really want to see Ollie and Danny cross paths at one point. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun (and provide a different place to riff from than the Green Arrow/Hawkeye comparisions)

[Mith]

Ok. I find this interesting, lets see the Punisher's capabilities and the oppositions capabilities:

-is basically a super-soldier through pure training in a bunch of stuff, from combat to stealth to camouflage to various oeprations....he basically knows everything militarily relevant to his tactics
-has martial arts capabilities
-mentally resilient enough to shrug off mind powers
-has a few super-tech from some villains

so basically, he is a Batman with less skills, less super-tech, all the guns and a completely willingness to kill any criminal he finds.

Against the Usual Thugs, he definitely wins, those are the ones he is used to. Penguin and Two-Face, yea they are definitely going down due to their insanities making them more thematic mob bosses and therefore even more predictable.

ZsasZ is just a Gotham's local knife serial killer, so he goes down.

But then you start getting the tougher ones:

Killer Croc:
super-strength, nigh-invulnerability to bullets and a completely bestial mindset. The Punisher has NO weapons that kill him due to his reliance on guns and is one of the villains that can truly justify Batman's existence- the entire point of Killer Croc is someone that Batman needs to outwit to defeat because he cannot possibly overpower him. The Punisher however doesn't use smarts, he uses guns and no matter how caliber the gun, Killer Croc is immune to it or the Gothamn Police would've already taken him down. This does not bode well for Punisher if he cannot even take down Gotham's dumbest criminal.

Clayface:
This is another Batman villain that justifies his existence- if you think that the Punisher can somehow gun down Killer Croc, then meet Clayface who is well.....a pile of sludge who can shapeshift into people and basically reshape himself however he wants. bullets don't hurt him, and he is known for his trickery, his disguises and his ability to give Batman the most trouble whenever he shows up in combat. He is another villain that doesn't need any minions to be a threat to the Dark Knight as well as needing an unorthodox approach to take down each time. Against the Punisher, Clayface could quite easily shapeshift into someone he doesn't suspect and then take him by surprise and even if the Punisher survives those first few seconds, the new few minutes aren't much better as Clayface will try to drown him in his own sludge or whatever else, there is honestly a lot of ways Clayface could kill Punisher, and seemingly no ways the Punisher could kill Clayface

Scarecrow:
Would a gas mask really be enough? guys like Scarecrow would have to be really cautious, but I can see them changing their tactics without Batman- Batman is smart, but The Punisher is more straightforward. Scarecrow I think would start fear-gassing civvies to mind control them into killing Punisher for him and stay out of his sights....and The Punishers thing is that he kills CRIMINALS. If he is attacked by civilians wielding guns under fear drugs, well, what can he do? He doesn't seem to have non-lethal options, so if a bunch of he went up against a Scarecrow who knew what he doing, Scarecrow would taunt the Punisher with the knowledge that all the people under his control are innocent people then stay as far form him as he can while gassing everyone else, and eventually either Punisher dies or he does gets ruthless enough to start killing the drugged people- and then when he finally gets to Scarecrow, Scarecrow can simply taught him with the knowledge that he has become a murderous thug that kills anyone just like the people he hunts and that he made his own fears come true, because why else would a man so dedicated to killing criminals, if not the fear of those criminals hurting the innocent? Caught off guard, Scarecrow then kills Punisher.

Poison Ivy:
Given her control over plants....hm, she might win if she keeps her distance and lets Punisher grow paranoid of every single living thing on gods green earth, but a lot of her toxins and such are close range and I don't see the Punisher allowing her to get close enough for them to apply. She would need to be stealthy and somehow seduce him in disguise and give him one of her poison kisses.....or like Scarecrow, she could mind control innocents into killing him for her and The Punisher dies because he can't super-science a way out of making a horrible decision like Batman can. But there is a good possibility of her dying here due to how impractical her powers are.

The Riddler:
The Punisher would never get close. See, The Riddler's thing is about proving how smart he is. he sets up all sorts of elaborate things and puzzles and such that you can't just brute force your way through. The Punisher being the direct "just kill him" sort of guy he is, goes after the Riddler and......gets stumped on the first puzzle and then dies to whatever trap The Riddler set while the Riddler gloats about how EASY it was to outwit him, how The Punisher is a poor replacement for Batman, and how he misses those days when he had an actual challenge.

Ra's Al Ghul:
If the Riddler is playing a great violin, then Ra's is composing a masterful symphony. A guy with a gun is not a threat to Ra's, Punisher is a mouse to Ra's, Ra's is a guy who has lived far longer than The Punisher has been killing, is the guy who immediately figured out Batman's identity, has a pit where he can recover from DEATH, -y'know that thing the thing The Punisher trusts to keep things in control- he is rich, he has global contacts all around the world, has resources that other Batman villains don't, its not a question of whether he knows the Punisher and what he will do, its a question of how will the Punisher will be dealt with, especially since Ra's as far as I know, is the only Batman villain who consistency remains in the shadows unheard of by the world at large aside from Batman himself. Ra's will simply make The Punisher's death look like an accident then carry on with his plans while sighing at the loss of The Detective he respects.

Bane:
Yeah genius level intellect, super-strength, reflexes, endurance, and super-healing all granted by venom? This is the guy who Broke the Bat himself, and The Punisher ain't ain't no Bat. Bane will just outwit Punisher into a position where he can melee the guy then throw him into a building, dead Punisher.

The Joker:
and then finally, we come to the Clown Prince of Crime himself. Lets let the Joker himself have a say:

The Joker: why hello, little Punny! Thats what I'm calling you, Punny. Your here to kill me right? Put a bullet in the ol' clown eh? Well I do admit you are more willing to kill than Batsy, but see that was never the point. You see I toyed with him because he was fun. He had the most deliciously brilliant mind to counter my own, we were two of a kind, violent unsound of mind, the yin to my yang, can't you see? My goal was never to kill him, only to break him, to make him admit that he was truly like me, to show him my joys so that we could band together and happily share my art with all the world! To put a smile on his face then spread that smile to everybody as they get the great joke of it all!

You? however are boring, Punny. What are you? a man with a vest and a gun, obsessed only with my death. There is no challenge, no pleasure in breaking you or toying with you, heck you do all the breaking of you yourself. a self-destructive gun-nut who has forced all of Gotham's hand to stop playing around and get down to business, that is all you are. Its kill or be killed with you, so we can't afford to take risks like we could with Batsy, because we all knew he could never bring himself to do it, no matter how hard any of us tried. How you ever thought you could replace Batsy makes me wonder if your the crazy one here. I miss Batsy, there was so much I still wanted to do with him, but alas, your the one taking his place, and your not really good at that- besides, even Lock Up is more interesting than you, and he is LOCK-UP! It was funny when he made Scarecrow run in fear.

Anyway this video will now self destruct in 1, 7, 4, eleventy billion- *BOOM*


But lets say hypothetically, that The Punisher somehow succeeds in killing them all, full Gotham Villaincide Run. Everyone from the lowest gang member to the Clown Prince of Crime. The police? ain't gonna be happy with him. Sure they will celebrate the demise of every villain ever, but vigilantes don't stop being vigilantes just because they got rid of a jerk. They will go after him knowing that he is a crazy mass-murderer no matter how incompetent people think they are, and unless he is willing to kill people who aren't criminals, he has no choice but to try to run or get imprisoned and thrown into Arkham Asylum just like all the people he killed- he is in DC universe now, and DC universe rules is that you kill that many people, you've become a villain, and its only a matter of time before some takes notice and takes out the Punisher. Furthermore the innocents of Gotham view Batman as a hero, but while they're thankful a guy like Joker is gone....they are also afraid of someone like the Punisher who might kill them for any little crime they might do

But even if he gets away with that, becomes Gothams new consistent vigilante that always escapes and and saves the day.....Gotham City itself is its own worst enemy to everyone in it. Canonically speaking, Gotham is CURSED. As in straight up, magically cursed to forever be this halloween-esque place where evil gathers and nothing changes. Even if The Punisher successfully kills Batman's Rogues Gallery, all that means is that a new one will rise up to take its place, but this time adapted to Punisher's tactics and mindset, and Punisher becomes apart of the Gotham curse, with new criminals forever crawling up out of the woodwork, new supervillains haunting its darkest alleys and the killing never ending, the hope turning to fear once more as the Punisher despite his success is not and never will be Batman, as he digs himself deeper into slaughtering every criminal he comes across until he kills someone over some petty crime that Batman would've justly let the person live like a man stealing bread to feed himself, and then he just another murderous thug in Gotham that people fear.

TL; DR: The Punisher would probably get rid of the minor guys faster, get taken out by one of the big Boys when they start paying attention to him, and then the villains fight each other for control of Gotham, or Punisher "wins" and eventually becomes just as bad as everyone else in that city.

Either way, Gotham City wins.

So Gotham City is a Dread Realm like Barovia. This explains so much.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm not saying this accusation is in any way balanced or reasonable, but it does get thrown out there by certain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l1PMVvfjDM) pundits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJsLicChl0&t=2m41s) (and to be fair, if you were playing the Arkham games, generic thugs of varying ethnicity will make up 80-90% of the opposition.)

You and I may know perfectly well that this is canonically nonsense, and there's a certain amount of anti-corruption measures and social philanthropy going on if you squint at the Nolan trilogy, but those are not a particularly front-and-centre element of the average Batman narrative that non-geeks would be exposed to. So it's nice to be able to cite chapter and verse and go "Nyah, GatesWayne Foundation, so there".

I keep seeing this criticism, even though it's kind of like walking into a homeless shelter and telling them homelessness is their fault. Even the Lego movie got in on it.

[Lacuna Caster]

...Yeah. Lego Batman was entertaining as a standalone composite-strawman parody, but given even BvS or TDKR had essentially the same ultimate moral takeaway about teamwork trumping solo vigilantism, it's hard to know what specific portrayal it's taking aim at, exactly.

[Keltest]

...Yeah. Lego Batman was entertaining as a standalone composite-strawman parody, but given even BvS or TDKR had essentially the same ultimate moral takeaway about teamwork trumping solo vigilantism, it's hard to know what specific portrayal it's taking aim at, exactly.

Er... all of them? When you take a step back, Batman is a pretty silly character no matter how grimdark the particular incarnation gets. Look at some of his rogues gallery. his evil opposite is a clown. Gotham is cartoonishly bad in pretty much every batman media.

[Dr.Samurai]

blasphemer!!!!!

[Lacuna Caster]

I'm just scratching my head trying to think of a previous incarnation that actually refused to work with either sidekicks, or the police, or members of wayne enterprises, or the justice league, or the outsiders, or the more amenable members of his rogue's gallery. I mean, you can grab bits and pieces from various incarnations- the Nolan version lacks sidekicks, the DKR version insists on obedience, the BvS version has no interest in second chances, the Arkham version has an unhealthy fixation on beating down petty crooks, etc.- but I'm not sure the specific idea of Batman that the Lego version wants to tear down actually exists.

[Keltest]

I'm just scratching my head trying to think of a previous incarnation that actually refused to work with either sidekicks, or the police, or members of wayne enterprises, or the justice league, or the outsiders, or the more amenable members of his rogue's gallery. I mean, you can grab bits and pieces from various incarnations- the Nolan version lacks sidekicks, the DKR version insists on obedience, the BvS version has no interest in second chances, the Arkham version has an unhealthy fixation on beating down petty crooks, etc.- but I'm not sure the specific idea of Batman that the Lego version wants to tear down actually exists.

All of them, and none of them. Batman is a character with a (very) long and storied history, which is not always especially dignified. The Lego version is tearing down the idea that Batman Is Serious Business. The animated Justice League cartoons but Batman at the butt of a few jokes, like when he had to go up on stage and sing to undo a curse on Wonder Woman. He would take it with grace, but silly things happened to him, and stoic, serious batman made people laugh sometimes, and that's good.

[Lacuna Caster]

Hmm. This is gonna be one of those discussions.

I can't say I've personally ever had a problem with serious batman. I do have a problem with versions of the character that are gratuitously brutal, my preferred flavour would probably have a few more pulp sci-fi trappings than, say, the nolan-verse incarnation, and one can always criticise the concept on the grounds of plausible logistics and social responsibility. I would even broadly agree that the character is a trifle over-exposed at this point. But pointing out wacky costumes is a superficial quibble, and, well... sometimes z-lister villains are z-listers for a reason. If you sanded down the pointy ears, blacked out the logo and had him use leet-ninja-hacker-skillz against, e.g, nazi sex traffickers, I don't think anyone would call the concept noticeably sillier than mission impossible or girl with the dragon tattoo. And I think that bringing pre-teens into combat situations would be inexcusable against villains with guns.

I do think the virtue of a given representation is heavily dependent on writing skill, so I'll happily take The Brave And The Bold over Batman Returns. I can sympathise with fans of Robin and Batgirl who'd like to see them in movies more often, and I am of course glad that B:TAS and JLU exist, though I actually think they fall a little more on the dark end of the spectrum.

So, in summary, if Lego Batman floats your boat, more power to you. Not sure it changes the landscape, though.

[Keltest]

Hmm. This is gonna be one of those discussions.

I can't say I've personally ever had a problem with serious batman. I do have a problem with versions of the character that are gratuitously brutal, my preferred flavour would probably have a few more pulp sci-fi trappings than, say, the nolan-verse incarnation, and one can always criticise the concept on the grounds of plausible logistics and social responsibility. I would even broadly agree that the character is a trifle over-exposed at this point. But pointing out wacky costumes is a superficial quibble, and, well... sometimes z-lister villains are z-listers for a reason. If you sanded down the pointy ears, blacked out the logo and had him use leet-ninja-hacker-skillz against, e.g, nazi sex traffickers, I don't think anyone would call the concept noticeably sillier than mission impossible or girl with the dragon tattoo. And I think that bringing pre-teens into combat situations would be inexcusable against villains with guns.

I do think the virtue of a given representation is heavily dependent on writing skill, so I'll happily take The Brave And The Bold over Batman Returns. I can sympathise with fans of Robin and Batgirl who'd like to see them in movies more often, and I am of course glad that B:TAS and JLU exist, though I actually think they fall a little more on the dark end of the spectrum.

So, in summary, if Lego Batman floats your boat, more power to you. Not sure it changes the landscape, though.

I mean, I don't necessarily mind Serious Batman either, as long as its done with a little perspective. Batman and his luggage can get freaking weird, and no matter how raspy his voice gets, he's never not going to be a man in a bat costume punching people. Live Action batman in particular seems to forget that sometimes.

[Sapphire Guard]

Oh, sure sure, but the the thing about the Bat is that he seems to get the criticism that could be applied to basically any superhero, even though he's most often the one that is doing the most work about it. He cooperates much more with the police and the legal system than the typical superhero. He does much more socially responsible stuff than the typical hero. He has a backroom team, sidekicks, and allies he collaborates with fairly extensively. But the parodies keep showing off this brooding loner doing nothing to solve the real problems, even though the majority of the stories that show this kind of Bat only do it because they are building towards an aesop about teamwork.

[Anteros]

I think it's just a result of him being the most popular comic figure out there, so he's always the one that jumps to people's minds. You don't see as many criticisms of Reed Richards (random example) because most people just don't know or care who he is. Everyone knows who Batman is, and everyone knows his story.

[Kyberwulf]

I think talking about the bat is a moot point. He was taking out at the beginning of the post.

[Lacuna Caster]

Oh, sure sure, but the the thing about the Bat is that he seems to get the criticism that could be applied to basically any superhero, even though he's most often the one that is doing the most work about it. He cooperates much more with the police and the legal system than the typical superhero. He does much more socially responsible stuff than the typical hero. He has a backroom team, sidekicks, and allies he collaborates with fairly extensively. But the parodies keep showing off this brooding loner doing nothing to solve the real problems, even though the majority of the stories that show this kind of Bat only do it because they are building towards an aesop about teamwork.
The flip side of this is that, to a certain extent, working outside the system is the vigilante's raison d'etre, presumably because the wider social context is so riddled with corruption that caving to pressure from peers and allies tends to be a step down, ethically speaking. (That's essentially the point of Year One or Gotham Central, for example.)

Of course, this raises it's own unsettling connotations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLUvR8zKbh0), particularly when you settle into an arms race of unpleasantness between increasingly ghoulish villains and increasingly brutal antiheroes, but I think the role and necessity (http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1553/2635) of punitive justice is never going to entirely disappear.

Is there any particular virtue to setting that type of story is a faintly fantastical universe with rejuvenating ninja illuminati, rather than doing The Wire? Hard to say. The former seems to pull in more eyeballs, though.

[Sapphire Guard]

The flip side of this is that, to a certain extent, working outside the system is the vigilante's raison d'etre, presumably because the wider social context is so riddled with corruption that caving to pressure from peers and allies tends to be a step down, ethically speaking. (That's essentially the point of Year One or Gotham Central, for example.)

Of course, this raises it's own unsettling connotations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLUvR8zKbh0), particularly when you settle into an arms race of unpleasantness between increasingly ghoulish villains and increasingly brutal antiheroes, but I think the role and necessity (http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1553/2635) of punitive justice is never going to entirely disappear.

Is there any particular virtue to setting that type of story is a faintly fantastical universe with rejuvenating ninja illuminati, rather than doing The Wire? Hard to say. The former seems to pull in more eyeballs, though.

Well, the Wire is an unrivalled flash of brilliance, very few people can pull that off successfully.

I didn't find that to be the theme of Gotham Central, so much as ' in a world of powered people, policing can be ill equipped to deal with some things, but that doesn't mean the police are not doing vital work. Like with the Wire, it was 'yes, there's corruption and incompetence, but that doesn't make everything worthless.'

That video is being kind of unfair to most of the movies it mentions, although I'll admit the MCU leans a little too heavily on 'every authority figure outside this small circle of people is either corrupt or inept'. (The DCU is a little better on this so far)

When you're dissecting on that level, it seems to amount almost to blaming the characters for either not having meta knowledge "I'm perfectly safe in this fight, so I can worry about bystanders rather than just staying alive and saving the world', or not being infallible. Batman seems to sometimes get blamed simultaneously for not being infallible -'why haven't you solved every problem ever yet?'- and being too infallible 'Why are you punching so much above your weight?'

If you're reading or watching superhero movies or reading comics, there are certain things you have to accept going in if you plan to enjoy it, much like how in every zombie story (except resident evil games) you have to accept that the military somehow didn't squash the horde in like a week, regardless of how unlikely that is.

[Dienekes]

If you're reading or watching superhero movies or reading comics, there are certain things you have to accept going in if you plan to enjoy it, much like how in every zombie story (except resident evil games) you have to accept that the military somehow didn't squash the horde in like a week, regardless of how unlikely that is.

Or Shaun of the Dead, which I maintain is the most realistic zombie film of all time.

[Lacuna Caster]

I didn't find that to be the theme of Gotham Central, so much as ' in a world of powered people, policing can be ill equipped to deal with some things, but that doesn't mean the police are not doing vital work. Like with the Wire, it was 'yes, there's corruption and incompetence, but that doesn't make everything worthless.'

That video is being kind of unfair to most of the movies it mentions, although I'll admit the MCU leans a little too heavily on 'every authority figure outside this small circle of people is either corrupt or inept'. (The DCU is a little better on this so far)
Folding Ideas addressed some of this in the comments and follow-up videos, but broadly speaking he's not blaming the characters so much as he's blaming the writers- y'know, for constructing the fictional circumstances where these shenanigans are justified. (Also, to be fair, Winter Soldier, Age Of Ultron and Civil War tackle the subject pretty squarely.)

Your mileage may vary on the Wire, but David Simon is notoriously pessimistic about the role of system and hierarchy or even the prospect of reform, and I do find it interesting that McNulty/Freeman and Omar Little wind up doing something very close to classic vigilante justice. I'm personally not quite that cynical about political process, but I reckon there's a very thin line separating this show from, say, Rene Montoya stomping off to become the next Question.

I know everyone likes to rag on the Civil War comics, but I actually think Cap Am's "No, you move" speech gets at the heart of it, because the sentiment is indispensible in one sense and dangerous in another. Democratic concensus is a powerful potential decision-making tool, but it requires, among other things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds#Failures_of_crowd_intelligenc e), that individuals have no concern for what the group thinks. And there's a thin line separating "I don't care how you feel" from "I will do what I want".

[Sapphire Guard]

Winter Soldier was one of the worst offenders for me. NPCs actually get treated like jokes, there's one scene where someone says something like 'we're Cap's only support' and then the Winter Soldier brushes them aside like they're nothing.


Your mileage may vary on the Wire, but David Simon is notoriously pessimistic about the role of system and hierarchy or even the prospect of reform, and I do find it interesting that McNulty/Freeman and Omar Little wind up doing something very close to classic vigilante justice. I'm personally not quite that cynical about political process, but I reckon there's a very thin line separating this show from, say, Rene Montoya stomping off to become the next Question.

They pretty much fail, don't they? It all cycles around again. Illegal wiretap punches a giant hole in the case and in the end Marlo walks.

[Rynjin]

... 'impoverished minorities'? Sure, maybe some of the generic thugs that turn up in the Batman Cold Open of some of the stories, but about the only Bat-Rogue you can level that accusation against is Bane, and he sought Batman out. Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Ventriloquist, Humpty Dumpty, Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Zsasz, Firefly, I think all four versions of Clayface, Black Mask, Professor Pyg, Solomon Grundy, Maxie Zeus, Deathstroke, the Clock King, Deadshot, Killer Moth, Catman, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Harley Quinn... if Batman's Villain Gallery got any whiter, it'd be a bleach commercial. The only exceptions I can think of offhand are Bane (fictional Latino), Lady Shiva (Vietnamese, I think?) and Ra's al Ghul and some of his asssassins (ambiguously Middle Eastasian).

And the whole 'Bruce is the mask' thing varies heavily from writer to writer anyhow.

What little I've seen of unmutated Croc pegs him as being Hispanic. Him being born in Tampa makes that very likely as well. One version of Clayface is black.

Other than that spot on I think.

[Dienekes]

What little I've seen of unmutated Croc pegs him as being Hispanic. Him being born in Tampa makes that very likely as well. One version of Clayface is black.

Other than that spot on I think.

Huh? Waylon Jones -Killer Croc- was originally an African American Cajun. Where was he Hispanic? I'm not trying to be a know-it-all in this case, I'm honestly curious. I actually kind of like Croc, and would like to read a different interpretation of him.

[TeChameleon]

Huh? Waylon Jones -Killer Croc- was originally an African American Cajun. Where was he Hispanic? I'm not trying to be a know-it-all in this case, I'm honestly curious. I actually kind of like Croc, and would like to read a different interpretation of him.

Wait, what? I've honestly never gotten so much as a hint of that in all the depictions of Croc that I've seen.

... also glanced at Orca's wiki page out of curiousity when I was looking at Croc's bio, and holy crap... is Batman's rogues gallery seriously comprised of like 50% PhDs, or what?

[Keltest]

Wait, what? I've honestly never gotten so much as a hint of that in all the depictions of Croc that I've seen.

... also glanced at Orca's wiki page out of curiousity when I was looking at Croc's bio, and holy crap... is Batman's rogues gallery seriously comprised of like 50% PhDs, or what?

probably. If they were ordinary idiots, then Gotham wouldn't need Batman.

[Jeivar]

probably. If they were ordinary idiots, then Gotham wouldn't need Batman.

Hey, realistically Gotham wouldn't need a superhero to deal with anything bullets can kill, but it's comic books.

Joker should be dead 500 times over.

[Sapphire Guard]

Or Gotham would be a smoking crater by now.

[khadgar567]

Or Gotham would be a smoking crater by now.
nah with out etrigan or constantine gotham probably made hell gate for demonic invasions i mean even trigon likes the place.

[Anteros]

Wait, what? I've honestly never gotten so much as a hint of that in all the depictions of Croc that I've seen.

... also glanced at Orca's wiki page out of curiousity when I was looking at Croc's bio, and holy crap... is Batman's rogues gallery seriously comprised of like 50% PhDs, or what?

I couldn't tell you the origin of it, but I can tell you that I also knew he was cajun before their post...so it must exist somewhere.

[Dienekes]

Hey, realistically Gotham wouldn't need a superhero to deal with anything bullets can kill, but it's comic books.

Joker should be dead 500 times over.

Eh, maybe. But The Man Who Laughs, which for awhile was considered the canonical first Joker story. I'm not sure anymore. Anyway, it was a Joker's introduction, and in it I don't think anyone but Batman even gets close enough to shoot him.

And he would have drowned all of Gotham by the end of it.

That was a fun comic.

[Lacuna Caster]

Winter Soldier was one of the worst offenders for me. NPCs actually get treated like jokes, there's one scene where someone says something like 'we're Cap's only support' and then the Winter Soldier brushes them aside like they're nothing.
Winter Soldier can kinda be read both ways, depending on whether you consider SHIELD/HYDRA to represent governing authority itself or the principle of barely-supervised unilateral foreign interventionism.
I think it's honestly kind of hard to make a compelling character narrative that centres about deferring to an established and functional government or authority figure, though. Characters are defined by the resistance they meet, and that's pretty much the path of least resistance. (Cyclops has this problem at times.)


They pretty much fail, don't they? It all cycles around again. Illegal wiretap punches a giant hole in the case and in the end Marlo walks.

I'd characterise The Wire's endgame as being something of a draw between the gangs and the suits, in large part due to the inherent frailties of human nature operating within a system of perverse incentives, but... it also does a fair job of arguing for some theoretically workable policy solutions- the 'free trade' zones, special-ed classes, actual police work- even when they don't get due credit in practice. 'Coulda shoulda woulda', as the saying goes.

It's also ironic that Marlo gets exactly what Stringer Bell always aspired to, but isn't capable of savouring it.

[Sapphire Guard]

Winter Soldier can kinda be read both ways, depending on whether you consider SHIELD/HYDRA to represent governing authority itself or the principle of barely-supervised unilateral foreign interventionism.


Pair that interpretation with Civil War, and what you get is Your barely supervised foreign interventionism is pure evil, while my barely supervised foreign interventionism is absolutely necessary and you're super wrong for suggesting any limitations.


I think it's honestly kind of hard to make a compelling character narrative that centres about deferring to an established and functional government or authority figure, though. Characters are defined by the resistance they meet, and that's pretty much the path of least resistance. (Cyclops has this problem at times.)

There's a middle ground, and it's for me where the best stories are found. It really bothered me that the non Hydra side of SHIELD were so worthless in the struggle, aside from Maria Hill and Nick Fury. They were literally a punchline. 'Everyone is wrong or incompetent but me and maybe a couple of my friends' isn't a story I find interesting.



What both of these did, and did well, which was why they were so great, was present the advantages and disadvantages of both sides of the coin. The LT wasn't necessarily incompetent or spiteful, but it wasn't just a question of automatically deferring either.

Vigilanteism has some benefits, but also some flaws. Hamsterdam cuts drug violence, but also kills Bubbles' friend. Bullock got a lot of things done, but also made some major mistakes. Procedure can be obstructive, but it can also be lifesaving. IA can be annoying, but they can also have very good reasons for what they do.


The DCU is presenting various authority figures quite well so far, I think. They're ill equipped to deal with Superman level threats, but that doesn't mean they're only allowed to be useless or obstructive.

[khadgar567]

@shappire I dont know about you but all luthors, maxvel lord, amanda waller and any genre savy badie can handle Superman level treats with small dificulties. Luthor has litteraly have a phd in fighting supes level treats, maxvell lord is same or slightly low caliber then luthor and waller is simply the biggest magnificent b*tch in dc universe so they can handle big treats better then marvel

[TeChameleon]

The DCU is presenting various authority figures quite well so far, I think. They're ill equipped to deal with Superman level threats, but that doesn't mean they're only allowed to be useless or obstructive.

I suspect that's in large part because the DCU is inherently more optimistic than the Marvel Universe; part of me wants to say that's because the DCU has its deepest roots in the 40s, with the whole 'Greatest Generation' thing going on where patriotism was a good thing, whilst Marvel has its deepest roots (barring the fragmentary holdouts from Timely, like Cap, the Android Torch and Namor) in the 60s, where 'the establishment' was the enemy, and 'the man' couldn't be trusted any further than you could throw them.

At least, that's my best guess for the origin of the weirdly deeply-rooted anti-authoritarian themes that have been present at Marvel for a very, very long time. I wasn't around for the sixties, much less the forties, and I'm not American anyways, so it's kind of an armchair historian thing going on here :smalltongue:

[BWR]

I suspect that's in large part because the DCU is inherently more optimistic than the Marvel Universe; part of me wants to say that's because the DCU has its deepest roots in the 40s, with the whole 'Greatest Generation' thing going on where patriotism was a good thing, whilst Marvel has its deepest roots (barring the fragmentary holdouts from Timely, like Cap, the Android Torch and Namor) in the 60s, where 'the establishment' was the enemy, and 'the man' couldn't be trusted any further than you could throw them.

At least, that's my best guess for the origin of the weirdly deeply-rooted anti-authoritarian themes that have been present at Marvel for a very, very long time. I wasn't around for the sixties, much less the forties, and I'm not American anyways, so it's kind of an armchair historian thing going on here :smalltongue:

Maybe Marvel just tries to be more 'edgy' and 'gritty'.

[Jeivar]

Maybe Marvel just tries to be more 'edgy' and 'gritty'.

Which, given the tone of the different sets of movies, is pretty damn ironic.

[Lacuna Caster]

There's an excellent and comprehensive post on the whole 'Marvel v DC' topic and their respective golden/silver-age roots over on the Adept Press (https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/context-too/) blog, which I'll excerpt here:

There’s also the important blip of Carmine Infantino’s editorship from 1968 through 1975, which I wrote a little bit about in And the horse you rode in on (https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on/). It’s very clearly a bottom-up Marvel-reader invasion of DC in the form of hiring new, very young creators, as well as some saber-toothed Warren and war-mag veterans like Archie Goodwin. Batman gets redefined as a tormented nutbar in direct revolt against the legacy of the TV show (Goodwin, Neal Adams, Denny O’Neil, Frank Robbins, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers); Green Lantern/Green Arrow gets its “social conscious road trip” and Speedy’s interesting descent into heroin addiction (O’Neil and Adams), perhaps the single most iconic defiance of the Weisinger-Schwartz “good clean science fiction” idiom for superheroes. DC fandom still struggles to reconcile the undeniable greatness of the work with its inadmissible utter Marvel-ness; e.g., Batman’s “ambiguity” ever since is nothing but this struggle.

...I don’t know the answers – as far as I know these questions have never been asked – but some of the effects of the history are clear to me. Marvel was forced, the whole time, to seek a hit in strictly comics terms, hoping to leverage it into visual and other media, always doing Hail-Mary passes, and for the most part it only managed to succeed at beta level at best. In practice, that made it a risk-free R&D department for DC for forty years. It’s hardly a popular thing to say, and jumped-up fandom like The Comics Journal sought hard to keep it un-said, but through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Marvel consistently contributed content-innovations which soon appeared in refined and – eventually – better-promoted forms at DC, sometimes by the same creators and sometimes not.


@shappire I dont know about you but all luthors, maxvel lord, amanda waller and any genre savy badie can handle Superman level treats with small difficulties...
Comic versions, maybe. But if you're looking the DCU movies, not so much.


Pair that interpretation with Civil War, and what you get is your barely supervised foreign interventionism is pure evil, while my barely supervised foreign interventionism is absolutely necessary and you're super wrong for suggesting any limitations.

There's a middle ground, and it's for me where the best stories are found. It really bothered me that the non Hydra side of SHIELD were so worthless in the struggle, aside from Maria Hill and Nick Fury. They were literally a punchline. 'Everyone is wrong or incompetent but me and maybe a couple of my friends' isn't a story I find interesting.

What both [GC and The Wire] did, and did well, which was why they were so great, was present the advantages and disadvantages of both sides of the coin. The LT wasn't necessarily incompetent or spiteful, but it wasn't just a question of automatically deferring either.

Vigilanteism has some benefits, but also some flaws. Hamsterdam cuts drug violence, but also kills Bubbles' friend. Bullock got a lot of things done, but also made some major mistakes. Procedure can be obstructive, but it can also be lifesaving. IA can be annoying, but they can also have very good reasons for what they do.

I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that vigilantism as an actual, real-world social phenomenon has a particularly stellar track record of positive results, particularly in countries that already have, on average, pretty modest levels of violent crime and political checks and balances in place. (Best-case scenario might be the guardian angels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Angels), but status-quo Gotham would probably have more in common with somewhere like Mexico City these days than New York or even Baltimore. So, uh, if you have any bored billionaire-ninja friends in the audience, you know where to point them.)

There are occasional nods toward certain supervillains just being a different brand of vigilante, and one can always apply the 'mythic avatar' interpretation where super-agonists are broad soap-opera representatives of certain ethical ideas or social positions, without getting too hung up over whether regular gubments would be okay with their antics. Powerful people bickering over their favoured definition of the good is essentially politics, after all.

EDIT: (I should mention my nitty-simulationist instincts usually tend toward the more grounded approach, so 'mythic avatars' do strike me as glossing over some significant details. But, in principle, the argument can be made.)

[khadgar567]

Comic versions, maybe. But if you're looking the DCU movies, not so much.

just the movies we have lot more things the point of luthor maxvel lord and waller is they like to play plans in long game lot of luthors d*ckness can be weaponize in situations were destructive baddies like zod barks in his way and waller basically never dirty her hands unless she is killing one of her squad assets which just saved universe so you dont see dc major big bads in direct conflict unless either they stack the deck for them selfs or have supes class durabilties.

[Sapphire Guard]

There's an excellent and comprehensive post on the whole 'Marvel v DC' topic and their respective golden/silver-age roots over on the Adept Press (https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/context-too/) blog, which I'll excerpt here:



Comic versions, maybe. But if you're looking the DCU movies, not so much.


I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that vigilantism as an actual, real-world social phenomenon has a particularly stellar track record of positive results, particularly in countries that already have, on average, pretty modest levels of violent crime and political checks and balances in place. (Best-case scenario might be the guardian angels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Angels), but status-quo Gotham would probably have more in common with somewhere like Mexico City these days than New York or even Baltimore. So, uh, if you have any bored billionaire-ninja friends in the audience, you know where to point them.)

There are occasional nods toward certain supervillains just being a different brand of vigilante, and one can always apply the 'mythic avatar' interpretation where super-agonists are broad soap-opera representatives of certain ethical ideas or social positions, without getting too hung up over whether regular gubments would be okay with their antics. Powerful people bickering over their favoured definition of the good is essentially politics, after all.

EDIT: (I should mention my nitty-simulationist instincts usually tend toward the more grounded approach, so 'mythic avatars' do strike me as glossing over some significant details. But, in principle, the argument can be made.)

I'm not sure I understand. I wasn't intending to advocate real vigilanteism or dissing Marvel, I just feel that it isn't some inherent rule that every superhero story must have obstructive, evil, or ineffective authority figures, and Winter Soldier and Civil War were examples of stories that leaned too heavily on that for my taste.

[Keltest]

I'm not sure I understand. I wasn't intending to advocate real vigilanteism or dissing Marvel, I just feel that it isn't some inherent rule that every superhero story must have obstructive, evil, or ineffective authority figures, and Winter Soldier and Civil War were examples of stories that leaned too heavily on that for my taste.

The thing is, if the authority figures are doing their jobs effectively, then the superheroes aren't actually necessary. if Gotham PD were actually able to shut down the Joker, why would we need Batman?

[Dienekes]

The thing is, if the authority figures are doing their jobs effectively, then the superheroes aren't actually necessary. if Gotham PD were actually able to shut down the Joker, why would we need Batman?

I do think there is a balance to be had here. You can make background characters who are at some level capable and proficient in their occupation without overshadowing the hero.

To use the Joker example. You can get a point in the story where it's clear that, yes, The Joker is so smart and crazy he beats out the usual cops. But when the police can't even solve a single homicide where the main suspect has the murder weapon in his hands and a video recording explaining how he did it and a motive a mile long without the Batman going "Yeah, you should probably arrest that guy." Then it starts to break credibility.

While I actually really loved Cap 2, I can see the argument that once Cap reveals the truth the loyal agents of SHIELD don't actually do anything but die to show how serious the situation is.

[Sapphire Guard]

Because the Bat can't be everywhere. Maybe they can't take the Joker, but they can take some of his thugs, which means the Bat can focus on Mr J and a few of his top thugs rather than the entire gang. They can't solve the main problem, but they can smooth the path for the PC. (See: Gotham Central)

With WS
maybe non-Hydra Shield couldn't bring down the helicarrier, but they could, say, damage some of the guns, or deal with some Hydra mooks so that Cap has time to deal with the main problem. Instead they chose to make everyone not a PC worthless in the conflict, which for me damaged the story, and ended up making me not like the movie.

[Lacuna Caster]

Combat value aside, a very valuable role that the GCPD can theoretically play is doing simple gumshoe work- taking statements, bagging bodies, long-term surveillance or undercover gigs, etc. Batman (or Frank) would be more like the SWAT team you call in to actually conduct a bust at the end of an investigation.


I'm not sure I understand. I wasn't intending to advocate real vigilanteism or dissing Marvel, I just feel that it isn't some inherent rule that every superhero story must have obstructive, evil, or ineffective authority figures, and Winter Soldier and Civil War were examples of stories that leaned too heavily on that for my taste.
Oh, just one of my tangents. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, and I don't substantially disagree with any of the points you raised. I guess my overall thrust is that one needs slightly artificial- or at least extreme- circumstances to justify vigilantism at all, so while it's perfectly fair to suggest that the little guy needn't be wholly impotent- they do have weight of numbers, after all- it can be tricky to plug that into a narrative focused on much bigger players without resorting to either contrivance or statistics. Dearly as I love the GCPD, I'm not sure even Central skirted that pit entirely.

[MarkRivers]

Batman is stronger than Punisher in my opinion, but at least Frank would definitely killed The Joker. Gotham would be safer with him. ;)

[Sapphire Guard]

Combat value aside, a very valuable role that the GCPD can theoretically play is doing simple gumshoe work- taking statements, bagging bodies, long-term surveillance or undercover gigs, etc. Batman (or Frank) would be more like the SWAT team you call in to actually conduct a bust at the end of an investigation.


Oh, just one of my tangents. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, and I don't substantially disagree with any of the points you raised. I guess my overall thrust is that one needs slightly artificial- or at least extreme- circumstances to justify vigilantism at all, so while it's perfectly fair to suggest that the little guy needn't be wholly impotent- they do have weight of numbers, after all- it can be tricky to plug that into a narrative focused on much bigger players without resorting to either contrivance or statistics. Dearly as I love the GCPD, I'm not sure even Central skirted that pit entirely.

GC's not perfect, but I respect it for making the effort more than I do stories that take the easier route. I'm honestly cooling on the MCU mostly because of its treatment of NPCs.

[Dienekes]

GC's not perfect, but I respect it for making the effort more than I do stories that take the easier route. I'm honestly cooling on the MCU mostly because of its treatment of NPCs.

I'm curious about your thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy. On one hand the Guardians are clearly the ones that save everything. But the Nova Corps and the Ravagers do actively help save the day. Even if one of the two main Nova members dies in the process.

[Sapphire Guard]

Haven't seen it, sorry.

[Lacuna Caster]

I did rather enjoy the scene where the Nova Corps form an interlocking barrier with their ships to keep whatsisface in blue face-paint at bay. (Discipline! Efficiency! Organisation!) GotG is very on-the-nose about the value of to-geth-er-ness, so I don't see it as especially tonally dissonant.

I'm afraid I don't really know enough about the Punisher to comment intelligently, but as others have pointed out, there's a slew of meta-factors at play here that make the question of 'who would win' virtually unanswerable. Which is why versus threads are so daft.

[alisonrussell]

:smallsmile::smallsmile::smallsmile::smallsmile::s mallsmile::smallsmile::smallsmile::smallsmile:

[pendell]

I'm going to go off the classic Punisher I'm familiar with from the 1980s -- the one who was backed by Microchip and had a certain amount of investment.

I would describe Frank Castle as a 'low budget Batman'. He has a degree of ruthlessness that Bruce Wayne does not have , but he's also not a billionaire. So that means no bat-planes, no bat-mobile, no universal utility belt, no batarangs. But he should be able to acquire any off-the-shelf military technology for his uses.

So if there is an enemy in the DC universe that could, plausibly, be taken out by a human being who does not have superpowers, then Frank Castle has a path to victory to overcome that foe.

Which means, any foe Batman could take out Frank Castle could also take out.

Would he, though? That comes down to author fiat. There's an alternate history story where Castle Killed every superhero and supervillain in the marvel universe, including himself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe).

I think a key thing most writers are missing is that neither Castle nor his adversaries nor the Gotham PD are going to be static in all of this; Frank is going to be consciously studying his opponents and adapting to them. The Frank who just arrived in Gotham would be easy meat for some villains. If he survives a year or two, though, he'll be much tougher.

Equally, the DC villains will adapt to him. I think the Joker would, frankly, find him boring. There aren't any twisted psychological games to play to make Frank "no better than I am". Frank is already as dark as you can be, a willful murderer. He's less a hero than a villain who happens to target other villains. An anti-villain, perhaps? Or some variant on anti-hero?

At any rate, I don't think the Joker would play or toy with Frank Castle. He'd just kill him, probably as ruthlessly and efficiently as possible.

Also, while Frank is violent and kills his targets, I'm not sure in the long run this would actually make Gotham safer. While the supervillain population of Gotham city is fairly stable, I suspect this is due more to lazy writing than any true lack of superpower potential; killing one supervillain simply makes room for more budding supervillains to step into the gap, and possibly to fight each other for the now-dead villain's spot in the pecking order.

Frank Castle's killing of supervillains might, instead, trigger off a supervillain civil war on the streets of Gotham, making everyone's life just that bit more nasty than it already is.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jeivar]

Would he, though? That comes down to author fiat. There's an alternate history story where Castle Killed every superhero and supervillain in the marvel universe, including himself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe).

I agree with almost everything in your post, but I want to point out that that particular story was written by Garth Ennis, who is a massive baby about anything he dislikes, and completely disregards anything about long-established characters that gets in the way of him getting them killed/beat up/sodomised.

(I have really, really gone off that guy since my teens)