Punisher

When U.S. Marine veteran Frank Castle's family's was murdered for witnessing a mob hit, the man vowed to avenge their deaths and became a one-man army in his personal war against the criminal underworld. With a distinct death's head skull adorning his chest, Frank Castle became the vigilante known as the Punisher.

Unable to move on and failed by a corrupt criminal justice system, Frank Castle sought revenge, prompting him to "disappear" just as he was to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As he resurfaced, he was the vigilante now known as the Punisher, wearing Kevlar body armor with a large skull imprinted on his chest and armed with a variety of weapons. Frank not only vowed to have revenge for his family, but also dedicated the rest of his life to fighting crime.

Castle has an extensive background with weapons and hand-to-hand combat and is in peak physical condition. His missions are always well planned and carried out with the utmost preparation and attention to detail. He is able to access and adapt to just about any situation and turn it to his advantage using only his skills and killer instinct. He has a very high threshold for pain, able to undergo surgery without any kind of anesthesia, take multiple gunshots and stab wounds and continue fighting, survive multiple explosions that would kill most humans, as well as take hits from superheroes and villains with superhuman strength and continue fighting.

He exercises his body and perfects his marksmanship rigorously every two days and is constantly at work as an engineer - fixing, creating and customizing his own vehicles, weapons and gadgets.

He knows and is skilled with just about every type of firearm known to man, even able to grasp the most advanced weaponry from SHIELD and other hi-tech organizations. The Punisher though does prefer his more traditional armory made up of conventional firearms. He is a skilled point shooter (the ability to fire a gun accurately with both eyes open), as well as hit moving targets in vehicles and heroes and villains with amazing speed and precision as a result of his extensive training and experience. Deadly accurate with sniper rifles, assault rifles and pistols, he has no qualms shooting a criminal dead that has a hostage held close at gunpoint.

He is also an accomplished knife fighter, and his hand-to-hand combat techniques are extremely deadly. He was also able to show impressive skill in hand-to-hand combat against Daredevil, US Agent and Black Widow. He improvises his fighting skills with a series of lethal maneuvers. He is more than capable of killing up to a dozen enemies unarmed. He is very rarely unarmed, so these skills aren't used often but it is a well-known point that the less options he has at hand, the more dangerous the Punisher truly becomes.

Castle is also an excellent military tactician/strategist, able to create effective plans on the spot and has repeatedly outwitted SHIELD, HAMMER and even the Avengers - a true master of both conventional and guerrilla warfare strategies. Frank using different tactics has been shown to be able to defeat characters that are quite capable of killing him in a heads-up fight. The Punisher through strategy has been able to defeat Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Wolverine when they teamed up against him on three separate occasions.

Frank Castle has constantly evaded law enforcement officers and national intelligence agencies, only ever giving himself up when he feels the need to infiltrate prison dwelling criminals and gangs. He has also broken in and out of prisons on many occasions.

Frank is a skilled programmer and hacker, being capable of programming things strong enough that the U.S Government and Microchip have had problems breaking into; as well as hacking into several key files from the police to assist in his crusade.

Castle is an exceptional pilot, having begun training for this particular skill during his time in airborne.

The Punisher is the recipient of multi-disciplinary military training from the United States Marine Corps, Force Reconnaissance. While a Marine, he also received training from the Airborne School, Navy SEALs, as well as cross-training with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment during the Vietnam War. He has assisted SHIELD, the NYPD, and many superhero factions - such as the Thunderbolts, who do the jobs the likes of the Avengers don't see as an immediate world threat yet would be in short time.

He is a reconnaissance and survival expert, armorer and gunsmith. He modifies his own weapons and is also a demolitions expert.

Frank is a master martial artist and hand-to-hand combatant. He is a student of Nash-Ryu Jiu Jitsu, as taught by Adam Nash in the Marines among three other forms of martial arts including Hwa rang do. He has also mastered Chin Na, Ninjutsu and Shorin-Ryu.

Equipment and Gear Frank Castle has used various weapons and equipment throughout the decades of him being the vigilante known as the Punisher. During his early years working with Microchip, the Punisher had many battle vans, other armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, submarines, robots (such as the Dalek), and even his own Exo-Armor, all he would use in his war on crime.

When Frank Castle had no techie allies in the past, he usually didn't carry any custom gear, relying solely on military and law enforcement weaponry.

The Punisher mostly uses conventional firearms, explosives, and knives. Most of these weapons are confiscated from dead criminals. He keeps these weapons in his bases/garages/warehouses/safe houses, wherever they may be. He cleans and repairs his guns every other morning after extensive physical training. One of his most favored is the M60 machine gun, a weapon he has used since Vietnam. Otherwise, he was regularly seen over the decades sporting an Uzi 9mm.

His former military weapon of choice was a standard issue M16A1. Castle has kept a basement in the East Side of New York among many others in and around city and state. Because of his extensive use of the rifle since Vietnam, Castle uses an M16A3 fitted with an M203, despite his dislike of 5.56 Ammunition. His backup of choice is a Derringer D32. His knife of choice is a Gerber Mk2.

Costumes and Belongings The most common and basic costume is simply a black top with the deaths head symbol spray painted onto it, a pair of black leather trousers, boots and a black leather belt if not utility belts.