What is Punisher's attitude towards white-collar crime?

[Crash-Man]

I was reading the "Welcome Back, Frank" Punisher arc a few weeks ago, and one of the final few pages of issue #12 surprised me.

*SPOILERS I guess...*



When Punisher confronts the Vigilante Squad, The Holy, Elite, and Mr Payback, he disregards the first two as a "psycho" and a "Nazi", which was pretty appropriate. The Holy was clearly a psychotic fuelled by religious rage, and the Elite's vigilantism was based exclusively on keeping lower-class elements out of his upper-class area.

Mr Payback, however, received a totally different reprimand from the Punisher. Frank didn't criticize his assault on selfish corporate criminals who had indirectly caused the suffering (and deaths) of their workers and customers. He brought up the fact that Payback's sloppy planning and reckless shooting had accidentally killed three innocent civilians.

He then killed all three guys, which was expected.


*END SPOILERS*


What intrigued me is the Frank's reprimand of Mr Payback. He scolded him for his methods, not his purpose.

So I'm curious. Does anyone else think that Frank's attitude indicated some level of agreement with Payback's general quest?

Has Frank ever taken his crusade to the boardroom and killed individuals like thoe that Payback offed?


This should be interesting.

[ocelotrevs]

to get the spoiler tags use .... and close with [/spoil ] without the spaces.
To produce this

[spoil]
Here you go, I'm not too sure, but I don't think he pays much attention to them. But he may just leave them as they aren't direct


Some people get really arsey about the spoil tages.

[Expletive Deleted]

To Frank, crime is crime. So, yeah, I don't think he'd have a problem with punishing white collar criminals.

I think he focuses on street crime because that's where he started. And it's probably easier to spot than corporate malfeasance.

[geordiesteve]

My knowledge of Punisher history is far from complete, so I don't know if he has targetted board level people. I think he would never want anyone to imitate him or try to become him, but if he came across someone else doing the same kind of thing, targetting criminals, and they were accurate and had good intel, he would do nothing to interfere in their business. I think he agreed with Payback in principal.

The thing of it is, the world is full of grey, everything is totally grey with political correctness and so on, Frank forces the world to be black and white, so he can do what he does without worrying too much. I don't think he's ever stopped just before he blows a thug's head off to wonder how thug-junior is going to feel when he hears that daddy thug is in the morgue. I think while he doesn't expect to be thanked for what he does, some people might appreciate why Frank is doing it, and in his mind, he is keeping the everyman safe so their family doesn't get blown away in a crossfire by mistake.

[BoosterBronze]

I think the Punisher wouldn't bother with coorporate execs so much.

"You robbed people of their pension plans!" Isn't gratifying to say to someone before you shoot them. Taking out violent criminals and drug dealers is better, becuae the morals are clearer, and involves less research. Dealing with money men muddles the waters Punisher likes to swim in.

[Lanowar]

To frank crime is crime in The Punisher The End he pretty much declares that.

He goes after anyone who makes someone else's life hell, I mean if someone told him that a CEO of a company was running drugs and arms he would go after him with pretty much everything he has. In the Punisher game he went after Kingpin pretty hard as well.

[Shellhead]

Frank learned a lot in Vietnam, but probably not too much about crooked accounting methods.

[Alan2099]

Something take priority and it's a lot easier and more satisfying to take down gun runners, drug dealers, and mob bossees than it it to go after corrupt buisnesses.

[StoneGold]

He goes after anyone who makes someone else's life hell, I mean if someone told him that a CEO of a company was running drugs and arms he would go after him with pretty much everything he has.
That wouldn't be white collar crime though. That would be a guy who might have a white collar day job, but is leading a fairly standard criminal empire at night. A white collar criminal would be somone raiding pension plans, or illegally cashing in on stock options, or comitting some kind of fraud. And a lot of figuring out who is doing that is a bit beyond Castle's means. Maybe if he hadn't of blown Micro's head off...

[moebius]

The Punisher's a "fight the effects, not the cause" kind of guy. He might kill a bunch of crack dealers on the corner, but he's not going to pull a Deadshot and try and make sure drug money gets re-distributed in way that builds up a neighborhood and prevents future crack dealers from seeing the area as attractive ("broken windows" theory).

The Punisher doesn't care too much about white collar crime. It's a "deep" social problem and not a problem he can solve through shooting.

It's a bad way to do things, but revenge stories require less thinking (and sell better...see: Wildcats 3.0) than progressive social tracts, so I can see why Marvel sticks with it.

[Angel of Death]

The Punisher fights "visible" crime because when there is no "visible" crime you feel safe at home.

White collar crime (raiding pensions, insider trading, ect ect) isn't "visible" crime. You would feel the same in your house at night with or without it.

Fighting white collar crime would do nothing to make you feel safer on the streets or in your home.

I guess that Criminal Justice degree (or at least most of it) finally paid off .... on an internet forum. HahahaHAHAHAH

Money well spent!

[geordiesteve]

Wow, it really did! :)

I think you're right though, and I agree with what was said before. Frank does what he does, call it his mission or quest, whichever, but he doesn't really care about the type of crime that wasn't in some way connected to what happened to him. Now if his entire family had been old people and they were robbed by a pension company and all the old people then killed themselves, it might be a different story! :)

[Angel of Death]

Wow, it really did! :)

I think you're right though, and I agree with what was said before. Frank does what he does, call it his mission or quest, whichever, but he doesn't really care about the type of crime that wasn't in some way connected to what happened to him. Now if his entire family had been old people and they were robbed by a pension company and all the old people then killed themselves, it might be a different story! :)

Or.................. Frank would start a politcal crusade to ban suicide! :D

[ednemo]

In the original series, Frank went after quite a few white collar criminals. One I remember was a group that calls old ladies and asks for money using a phony "crying ethiopian babies" tape. The little old ladies are reduced to eating catfood and some corporate bigwig gets some more dough. The Punisher faces him, the guy loses his hand and the Punisher gets the cash. He gives the cash to the old lady and has a delicious catfood caserole to celebrate...now you see why the writers don't often write about his white collar exploits much anymore.

[Crash-Man]

You're kidding...what year was that story written in?

[ednemo]

You're kidding...what year was that story written in?

Mid to early 90's.

[StoneGold]

In the original series, Frank went after quite a few white collar criminals. One I remember was a group that calls old ladies and asks for money using a phony "crying ethiopian babies" tape. The little old ladies are reduced to eating catfood and some corporate bigwig gets some more dough. The Punisher faces him, the guy loses his hand and the Punisher gets the cash. He gives the cash to the old lady and has a delicious catfood caserole to celebrate...now you see why the writers don't often write about his white collar exploits much anymore.
Are you sure that was a Punisher story? I could have sworn that was a Microchip story in an annual.

[ednemo]

Perhaps you are right on that being a Microchip story as I seem to remember the gun blowing up on the guy shooting as opposed to the Punisher blowing him up.

However, when Punisher went to Riverdale to fight Jughead and his crew, will always stay with me.

[Economist]

The Holy was clearly a psychotic fuelled by religious rage

Really? Weren't gangmembers visiting him in a confessional and admitting all the crimes they committed for absolution. Wouldn't that merely be rage aginst injustice? This people weren't confessing failure to go to church, or running a stop sign. Unless my memory is fautly, he didn't kill any one who was innocent like Payback or kill some one for the crime of operating a hotodg stand like Elite.

Also when Mike Baron wrote the Punisher, he did go after more white collar criminals, but they weren't only white collar criminals. Example, Punisher V2 8-9 dealt with stock market manipulation, ninjas, cocaine, and murdering homeless bums. Because you need something to challenge Frank and someone raiding a pension fund likely isn't much of a challenge.

[StoneGold]

Perhaps you are right on that being a Microchip story as I seem to remember the gun blowing up on the guy shooting as opposed to the Punisher blowing him up.

However, when Punisher went to Riverdale to fight Jughead and his crew, will always stay with me.
If that was the case, it was definitely a Microchip story. He filled the gun barrel with superglue.

[StoneGold]

The Holy was clearly a psychotic fuelled by religious rage

Really? Weren't gangmembers visiting him in a confessional and admitting all the crimes they committed for absolution. Wouldn't that merely be rage aginst injustice? This people weren't confessing failure to go to church, or running a stop sign. Unless my memory is fautly, he didn't kill any one who was innocent like Payback or kill some one for the crime of operating a hotodg stand like Elite.
.
That doesn't not make him a psychotic fueled by religious rage, though. Just that he was better at it than Mr. Payback or Elite.

[Crash-Man]

He was definitely fuelled by religious rage. He constantly spoke to God and asked for divine guidance (and/or justification) for his actions.

[Masta of Dasasta]

They probably don’t write about white collars to much, it would be very boring to the reader. Something tells me that every office worker doesn’t carry a 9mm or Tech 9 to shoot at The Punisher just in case if he comes to the office looking for their boss. It would just be way to easy the comic would be like 10 pages. If they do write about these crimes they usually link it to something more interesting like the money goes to the Mafia or something so the hero The Punisher on this case would go "#*#$ the white collar, i want to take out this mafia *#^%"