Frank Castle has learned of the death of Captain America–the man he (and many others) believed to be the last true American, with values and courage and strength and all that. Punisher even gets his own version of a Cap costume.
Fitting that he decides to take on the opposite of Cap: Hate-Monger. Only this isn’t the Hitler clone version, this is a new one, who also goes by the name “Diablo.”
This Hate Monger has an army of Nazis dressed in white uniforms who attack illegal immigrants and burn them alive. He also sometimes dresses like Captain America when he does it.
Frank is offended at the blaspheming of Cap’s memory and decides to infiltrate the gang and proves himself to them by wearing a Confederate T-Shirt and breaking a board over a bull’s head.
Hate Monger figures out who Frank really is and ties him to a barbed wire fence.
When Hate Monger is ready to execute Punisher, former SHIELD agent GW Bridge rescues him.
Punisher then chases Hate-Monger down and kills him.
As he rides off into the sunset, Frank ponders whether he should take on the mantle of Captain America, now that the hero is gone and the title is up for grabs.
This is the arc that loses me. In comparison to Ennis’s slaver arc or alot of max that has the cynicism to approach this topic, Matt Fraction’s presents a shallow about beating up Nazi’s as a form of wish fulliment. For most other marvel characters I would cheer. But for Punisher his comics were trying to say something about vigilantism in the world. Frank can’t be idolized
I find I have to treat Fraction Punisher and Ennis Punisher as two completely different versions of the character. They’re not really comparable. And pretty much any punisher you compare to Slavers is going to lose.
Fraction is channeling Gruenwald here and I’m all about it.
Hmmm. Maybe. Yeah, I can see that. But Gruenwald was a great plotter and just an above-average scriptwriter. Fraction is very good at capturing different characters’ voices.