Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Marvel Comics | Tagged: born again, daredevil, forbidden planet, marvel, punisher, tom brevoort

Tom Brevoort Says New Punisher Is What Born Again Was To Daredevil

In July last year, Bleeding Cool scooped the news that Jason Aaron was to reinvent The Punisher for a new age, adding the headline story "Jesus Saiz and Paul Azaceta Join Jason Aaron on Punisher No More" In recent years there has been increasing criticism of the use of the Punisher skull by police, army, militia, white supremacist groups, QAnon events, and Sean Hannity on Fox News, even Trump Punisher pins have been popular. And then during the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington DC, many Punisher skull insignias were seen. This also followed Black Lives Matter protests and a focus on real and fictional police behaviour, including the use of Punisher imagery by the police, and Marvel's decision to then cancel current Punisher projects.

Marvel announced that series for March 2022, no longer called Punisher No More, would be simply… Punisher. Showing us Frank Castle seemingly working – indeed, leading – classic Marvel ninja group The Hand, sporting a sai or three, rather than guns as well as a new Devil Horns logo rather than the traditional skull image.

On the Forbidden Planet TV podcast talking to Andrew Sumner, Marvel Senior Executive Editor Tom Brevoort has been talking about upcoming plans, including the new Punisher series.

"The best way I've been able to describe it to people so that they can understand what it is, is we set out to craft a story that was to Frank Castle, what Born Again was to Daredevil. I'm not necessarily saying it's the exact same story, certainly the Punisher is not going to blow up Frank's building in the course of it but in the same way that Born Again was a transformative experience for Matt Murdock and for Daredevil as a series this Punisher run will serve to redefine and change Frank Castle in very meaningful ways."

"It's 12 issues long, each of the issues is oversized, 30 to 35 pages of story, and Jesus has been producing just amazing bloody and ridiculous pages in the course of it. It delves very deeply into Frank Castle's youth and upbringing and history as we learn the various forces throughout his life that guided him to becoming The Punisher, even before the deaths of his family in that Central Park shooting."

"We're really trying to make something that is an enormous touchstone for the character like Born Again. It's too early for me to really make that comparison because Born Again is clearly Born Again and a lot of people have tried to do stories like that and haven't managed it but that is our goal and that is our intention here."

Born Again was a 1986 Daredevil comic by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli that details Daredevil's descent into insanity and destitution at the Kingpin's hands, as well as a subsequent struggle to build a new life for himself. It began with Karen Page, now a heroin-addicted adult movie actor selling the information that Matt Murdock is Daredevil for a shot of heroin. This information is sold upward to the Kingpin who, over the next six months, uses his influence to have the IRS freeze Murdock's accounts, the bank foreclose on his apartment, and police testify that he saw Murdock pay a witness to perjure himself. While Murdock's girlfriend Glorianna O'Breen breaks up with him and dates his law partner and best friend Foggy Nelson. His initial plans foiled, the Kingpin has Murdock's apartment firebombed, leaving his Daredevil costume in the wreckage to show that he knows his secret identity and is responsible for his recent trials. He also gives out the order to have anyone else who handled the information on Daredevil's identity killed. It goes downhill from there…

PUNISHER #1
JASON AARON (W) • JESÚS SAIZ & PAUL AZACETA (A) • Cover by JESÚS SAIZ
WILL THE PUNISHER'S WAR END?
Born of tragedy. Devoted to war. Unstoppable in his rage. As the Punisher, Frank Castle has become the most accomplished killer the world has ever seen. Now it's time for him to face his true destiny. What shocking secret from Frank's past will convince him to take the reins of the Marvel Universe's most notorious clan of assassins? And once Frank becomes the warlord of the deadly ninjas of the Hand, will it also mean an end for the Punisher? Or a whole new bloody beginning? Join the superstar team of writer Jason Aaron and artists Jesús Saiz and Paul Azaceta for an epic exploration of the dark and violent past and inevitable future of one of Marvel's most iconic characters. 48 PGS./Parental Advisory …$5.99

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