I recommend the entirety of Garth Ennis' Punisher run. But I haven't read the whole thing, and I'm a big fan of origin stories, so I recommend starting with Punisher: Born and Punisher:Tyger.

The Punisher is one of Marvel comic's darkest protagonists. He's a vigilante who mercilessly tortures, interrogates, and kills his victims. But why? Besides the fact that Marvel executives wanted to get edgier?

According to Garth Ennis, it's because the world is a shitty place populated with irredeemable pedophiles, rapists, and slavers, and someone needs to deal with monsters without losing their nerve or being afraid to descend into darkness.

Punisher:The Tyger shows Frank as a boy in New York who enjoyed poetry, and explores the formative events that set him up to become the Punisher.



In Punisher:Born, Frank Castle lives out the last four days of his deployment in Vietnam. It's a war he doesn't quite want to stop fighting.


(The ending is a great, chilling ending.)

Both are excellent, pessmistic stories. The Punisher is difficult to write because it's easy to just make him over-the-top and out-of-place in the Marvel Universe, but Garth Ennis justifies the character's existence by pitting him against foes that no other hero could touch, lest their resolve crumble... and, as a reader, do you really want to see the kingpin of a sexual slavery ring survive to the end of the book? It's amazing that Garth Ennis is able to give a one-note character purpose, form, and complexity in nothing but brushstrokes of black paint.

You might not like the Punisher if you find the style and themes too melodramatic, or if you like happy endings.