Byrd Man

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

It was bad and you should feel bad too!

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part II

La Araña Discoteca
El Paso, Texas
1995

"The fuck are you supposed to be?"

The bouncer outside the nightclub didn't have time to get his answer. A powerful fist struck him in the face and drove him to the ground. The man looked up, his sunglasses astray, and right into the blade of a butterfly knife. The clubgoers standing outside watched on in shock.

"Carlos Fring," Frank Castle said, placing the blade of the knife under the bouncer's eye.

"Fuck off!" The large man yelled.

"Wrong answer," Frank said as he quickly raked the blade up the bouncer's face. The bystanders recoiled and horror and began to scatter.

"Ahhh!" The bouncer screamed. He held his bloody face with both hands. "He's in the back office!"

Frank flicked the blade back into its handles and slid the knife back into the holster strapped to his thigh. He stepped over the bleeding bouncer and into the club, a sawed-off shotgun hidden under his coat.

Strobe lights flashed and heavy, techo music blasted out the club's speakers. Frank navigated through the jumping and bumping throng of people towards the club's back offices. He saw plenty of club kids high on coke. Even after its 80's heyday, the shit was still a plague across the country. The new stuff coming across the border from Juarez was courtesy of the Mexican cartel and their leader.

A few hundred feet away from Frank, Carlos Fring sat at the desk in the club's backroom. He had his pants around his ankles and a woman's face buried into his crotch. While Carlos "relaxed", twin brothers Rob and Roy James were busy at a folding table in front of the desk. They were counting and weighing the half dozen bricks of cocaine and marijuana that were stacked on the table.

"This all?" Roy asked. "This ain't shit."

"Times are tough," Carlos said as he titled his head back and closed his eyes. "In a few more weeks we will have a full shipment. Relax. For now, get your people to...," Carlos lost his train of thought as the woman between his legs rolled her tongue. "... Just, business as usual. Smaller supply, cut it more."

On the main dance floor, Frank started to climb up a flight of stairs when a pair of powerful hands grabbed him by the shoulders. He was spun around and brought face to face with a large, Latino man in a dark suit. He tried to shout over the music, but couldn't be heard. While he was shouting, Frank leveled his shotgun at the man's stomach. The gun kicked in his hands and knocked the man back, but the sound of the music masked the sound of the blast. The dying man tumbled down the stairs and came to a stop on the bottom step. One gyrating young girl saw the dead body and screamed before running towards the exit.

Frank turned around and quickly climbed the steps. Another guard was waiting at the top of the stairwell. Before the man could react, Frank brought the butt of the shotgun up into his face. He drove the cartilage from the man's nose into his brain. The guard collapsed to the ground, spasming from the brain injury as he died.

Frank calmly walked down the hall leading towards the backroom. He was almost there when a black man jumped out at Frank and knocked his shotgun from his hands. The man drove Frank into the corridor's wall and slammed up against him. The guard pummeled Frank with blows to the face. Frank shook off the blows and headbutted the man in the face. The man stumbled backwards and Frank whipped out his knife, flicking it open as the guard charged. Frank took a glancing blow to the shoulder, but managed to drive the blade of his knife into the side of the man's neck. He cried out and fell to his side. Frank loomed over him, his face bloody and bruised, and kicked the hilt of the knife further into the man's neck. He went to scream, but blood bubbled out of his mouth and ran out on the floor.

Frank picked up his shotgun and kicked in the office door. Rob and Roy James looked up just in time to be hit with a shotgun blast. The twin brothers fell to the ground, their heads and chests covered in blood and buckshot. Carlos cried out in pain from behind the desk. The sudden shock of the gun had caused the woman between his legs to bite down.

"Crazy bitch!" Carlos yelled. He rolled back and the woman underneath the desk popped up, blood and chunks of flesh coated her mouth. "You bit it off! ¡Oh, Dios. Me voy a morir! Maldita perra."

"Go," Frank growled, looking at the woman. She scurried off and Frank walked over to Carlos. The Cartel member was holding on to his bloody crotch and moaning. Frank looked down at the bloody member laying on the floor. "I guess it's true what they say about men with little feet... I had planned to shoot you, but I think this is worse."

Frank kneed Fring in his crotch. "¡Dios mío," the man howled in pain and sobbed. Frank grabbed him by his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"Now that I have your attention, you're going to deliver a message to Don Eladio..."

Boston
Now

Frank came to at a bus stop. It was the middle of the night and he was alone, thankfully. His clothing -- no tactical gear with white skulls on it anymore -- was adequate to battle the cold, though the cold hadn't been a problem for him since his return. He didn't really need things like shelter or food, he just stuck with them mostly out of habit. Habit made him felt human. It was an odd thing, trying to be human. Frank had always thought he willfully gave his humanity up thirty years ago when his family died. But now that he was something other than human he saw how wrong he had been and how much he clung to things like simple ritual.

He rose off the bench and started down towards an all night diner. He had been dreaming of a past life, but the Spectre was fully awake. He'd spent the past night roaming the streets of Boston in search for the Bunker Hill Butcher. Five women had died at the man's hands. Frank knew it was a man, a short balding man with thick glasses, and that he had a kill pad in Charlestown. But that was all he knew.

After a cup of coffee -- the ritual continued -- Frank walked through the streets and let the Spectre guide him. They passed through downtown and he got on the T train to the outer parts of the city. It was late enough that he was just one of a few people riding the T. There was a woman at the other end of the car from him. Frank flashed on her life and saw she was a prostitute -- formerly a high class call girl but now sunken low and hooked on drugs -- he also knew something she didn't.

His stop was coming up so he stood up and walked to the end of the car to where the woman was. She started to get nervous. Frank saw the fear in her eyes. He was an old man, but he didn't look like a harmless old man. He held his hands up palm out so he could see he wasn't a threat.

"Go to the doctor," he said as the doors opened. "You've got HIV. The next customer you sleep with will get the virus. You don't want that on your conscience." Frank's eyes glowed green. "And if you don't stop hooking, I'll find you and make you stop."

She was out the door in a hurry, cursing in Spanish. Frank followed behind slowly, following the whispers and suggestions from the Spectre. It led him ten blocks into Dorchester. He came to a stop in front of a townhouse with a fenced in yard. Frank passed through the fence and up the stairs and through the front door. It was a family home, Frank saw that the second he stepped in and saw the toys in the living room. Photos of kids and parents were tacked on the walls. The dad of the family was the man he'd seen in his vision.

Frank levitated and floated up through the ceiling to the house's second floor. There he was, sleeping soundly in bed next to a woman. More scenes flashed through his head: The man kidnapping a woman on the street, her fighting back, a gun, rope, a hammer and knives. He wondered if the woman beside him knew exactly what it was her husband did for fun. If she knew, how could she stand to sleep beside him?

Chis O'Keefe.

That was the name the Spectre fed him. It would be easy to kill him now. Jerk him from the bed and strangle the life out of him. But no. He needed to watch and wait. The world had to know what Chris O'Keefe was, what type of monster lurked under his skin. After he told the world what he was, Frank would kill him.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part II:
Economic Darwinism

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
-- Ayn Rand

Gotham City

Parker drove through Gotham City while Handy McKay rode shotgun. The car was a rental, checked out at the airport under one of the many false aliases Parker used. He used a different name to check into the hotel down the block from the rental car place. Parker used the room safe to store the five grand he'd flown in with. The money would be used to buy a quick getaway if the job went sour.

They cruised through downtown Gotham until traffic came to a stop. Handy lit up a cigarette and cracked the window to let the smoke filter out. Parker looked around at the tall buildings. It was just like he remembered from all those years ago. He and three other guys tried to pull a night time raid on a downtown bank not far from the spot they currently sitting at. They had just blown the safe and were heading out the skylight when he showed up.

The Batman hadn't turned out to be the great big monster a lot of crooks said he was, but he was sure as hell something more than a guy wearing a cape. He broke Parker's left hand in two places and permanently scarred it with some razor sharp knife thing he had thrown at Parker. Parker had been the only one of the four to get away, but he had to make his escape empty-handed. Short on cash, he had had to do some quick muggings on the street to get enough dough to pay for fixing his hand and getting out of town. Parker had left town with his tail between his legs and hadn't been back since.

"Traffic's moving," Handy said with a nod towards the moving cars.

They headed north and hit the expressway out of town towards the wealthier side of town. Parker and Handy cruised slowly through the posh suburbs. Hunter's Creek was just a scant fifty blocks away from Narrows, but it may as well have been on another planet. There was no trace of the old junkies on the corner, doing the dope fiend lean as they shot up and fried what little brains they had left. No sign of the hookers who walked the streets, selling their bodies to feed themselves and their children. No dilapidated buildings with its copper piping and electrical wiring ripped out by money hungry fiends looking for a quick payday.

Parker always felt uneasy surrounded by these big lawns and big houses shining in the early morning light. He wore fancy clothes and stayed at five-star hotels, but in his heart he was just plain old white trash from the city, something that would never change. The people out here were tantamount to American royalty with their fleets of cars, jets, and boats. His destination, the mansion decked out in the Spanish colonial style, loomed on the hill above it all. Guys like Parker and Handy were called criminals for no other reason than the types of crime they committed. Parker stole money and jewels, the guys who owned the houses out here stole elections and peddled Democracy to any third world country with finite natural resources to exploit. They robbed pension plans and left retiring employees penniless. Society condemned guys like Parker, saying they were the problem with America, all the while the people out here overthrew governments to avoid paying fifty cents on the dollar for exports. The only difference between what Parker and Handy did and what the businessmen out here did was that their work had been deemed too big to fail by the government.

Parker and Handy were stopped outside the big manor by an armed guard. The rental car idled outside a big iron gate while the man gave him the stinkeye and double checked their identification. They were led inside the gate before being led into the big house by another guard. Parker wasn't too impressed by the large courtyard and expansive corridors. The place was small by House of Windsor standards. The guard showed them into an office somewhere on the third floor and left him alone.

Handy took a seat while Parker walked up to a wall that looked as if it were a shrine to the home's owner. Three different photos of Thomas Segel shaking hands with the last three US Presidents, one of him in New York ringing the stock exchange bell, a cover of a financial magazine with a younger looking Segel on the cover. Photos of family accompanied the ones of achievement, but Segel was always in the middle of whatever was going on. That didn't surprise Parker. A man like that had to be center of attention in everything he did. For guys like Thomas Segel, if you weren't first you might as well have been last.

"Gentlemen."

Thomas Segel came through the door with a large smile and a soft hand out and raised for a handshake. "I have to say you gentlemen come highly recommended. Parker, especially. Have a seat."

Parker took a seat next to Handy and looked at Segel from behind his desk. It was dark, made of some wood that probably cost one hundred bucks a square inch.

"Mr. McKay told you the details, Parker?"

"He did."

"Good," Segel said with a grin. "But I'm afraid there's been a slight change."

Segel filled them in. After the Bat's arrival, the criminal order in Gotham had been thrown out of whack. The mob guys running the show got their asses handed to them by the Bat and their entire organization blew away like a house of cards on a windy day. The whole scene was like the wild west now, independent operators working shoulder to shoulder with the freaks in costumes and makeup.

Jefferson Skeevers was one of those independent operators. Overnight, Skeevers had set up a drug-dealing empire that included almost the entire city and over half the surrounding county. Based out of the Finger Housing Projects, Skeevers operation cleared at least twenty million dollars a year.

"And I want it," Segel said with a humorless smile. "See, I work in the import-export business--"

"Drug dealer," said Parker. "You're a drug dealer."

"I supply many things, Mr. Parker. I have contacts in the Middle East and South America who can provide the finest product, but I don't own any of the market share. Skeevers has the market cornered with an inferior product. What I need is an aggressive takeover of the market."

"You sound like you're in the boardroom," said Handy. "All due respect, cut the shit and get to it."

"Skeevers keeps his stash -- both drugs and money -- inside the Finger Homes. I'm going to pay you gentlemen to steal them from him along with something else. Skeevers himself."

"Kidnapping?" Parker asked. "I don't do kidnapping."

"It's basically another theft -- stealing someone from their everyday life. And, Ffr what I'm paying you most certainly will," Segel said with his arms spread. "Money's not an issue. I need to have all three taken to send a message. Money, product, and the man with the connections. That's when I step in and fill the void with my own product."

"Why us?" Handy asked. "You got an army of muscle at your disposal."

"I need it to look like an outside job. If one of my guys gets caught then it ends up coming back to me."

"You know I like to rob banks," Parker said. "Because when you rob a bank, the president of Wells Fargo doesn't put a bounty on your head. You rob from criminals they take it personal and don't stop taking it personal until your dead."

"Like the syndicate in New York?" Segel asked with an arched eyebrow. "I've done my homework on you, Parker. "

"Outfit," Parker said tightly. "They call themselves the Outfit."

"Whatever they call themselves, there are still people who would like to know what your pretty little face looks like."

The plastic surgery scars had long ago healed, but Parker was on his second face after pissing off a lot of made men from New York City. that was a long time ago now, but guys in the Outfit always had long memories. Parker squeezed his fist so hard the knuckles were turning white. Handy looked at Parker before looking at Segel.

"You're an asshole," Handy said without blinking.

Segel let out a laugh at that.

"I'm a businessman, Mr. McKay. And a damn good one. Find a weakness and exploit it. It's the law of the jungle as well as the boardroom. You will be paid well, rest assured, but also know that the price of failure -- for you especially, Parker -- is going to be high. So what do you say?"

Parker had a violent fantasy of reaching over the desk and snapping Segel's neck with his barehands. He was unarmed, as was Handy. In twenty seconds guards would be kicking in the door. They'd never get out the mansion alive.

"We'll start on it tonight," Parker said through gritted teeth.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

All hail the king, baby.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part I:
A Day at the Races

Tampa, Florida

Parker leaned against the railing and watched the horses race from their starting gate. The bleachers at the racetrack were half filled. It was a weekday afternoon, those at the track were either among the professional idlers or the professional gamblers. Parker found himself somewhere in between.

Over a year had passed since the job in Tennessee and he was beginning to run low on spending money. Parker always took a percentage of each job and put it away as part of his ever growing nest egg. What he didn't put away he spent like there was no tomorrow on hotels, clothes, booze, and women. During jobs Parker was a monk when it came to pleasure. Between jobs he lived like a hedonist. And hedonism wasn't cheap.

The lush life was beginning to wear on him. He was a tool, a machine, something built to strongarm and rob. He was wasted in a life of sun and sand. He was worried if he spent too much more time living like this he'd lose his edge. He needed to be out there in the streets, on the hunt and looking for the next score. In Parker's line of work, there was always some right that needed to be wronged.

The nag with the six on its side finished the race first to a mixed reception to the crowd. Parker looked at his ticket and flashed a slight grin. He'd just won eight hundred bucks. Not bad for a race during the middle of the day. He got his payout and decided to call it a day there. The win at the end help stop a losing streak on the earlier races and made Parker come out two hundred dollars ahead on the day.

He took his car across the bay into St. Petersburg where he was staying. There were a lot of good targets in the area. The racetrack could be hit for a good take, along with at least a dozen other banks and check cashing places. But Parker would never act on the impulse. He pulled jobs across the country but never in Florida. Florida was where he went to play and not work. For Parker, there could be no overlap between the two. Overlap led to sloppiness.

It seemed the universe was out to make a fool out of Parker because as soon as he got to his hotel, Handy McKay was waiting for him in the lobby. He hadn't laid eyes on McKay in a few years, but he looked the same. He was tall, though not as tall as Parker, and with a smoothed shaved head. His dark brown skin was offset by a white bowling shirt and khaki slacks.

"Mr. Anson?" Handy asked with raised eyebrows.

"How can I help you?"

"I wonder if you'd like to grab lunch so we can discuss an exciting new business opportunity."

--

They had lunch at a diner in Ybor City. Parker had a pulled pork Cuban sandwich while Handy went with rice and beans with chicken. They spent most of the meal catching up, talking about scuttlebutt they heard among those in the Life -- always Life with a captital L -- and what Parker had been doing in his time off from the Life.

"Heard about the mess in Tennessee," Handy said as he chewed on a toothpick.

"It was a mess, alright, but it's in the past. Let's talk about the future, Handy."

McKay's eyes flashed and he suppressed a grin. He took the toothpick out and put it on his empty plate.

"Always ready to get to business?"

"It's been long enough," said Parker. "I'm ready to get back to it."

"We'll see how anxious you are when we you hear what I have."

Parker arched his eyebrow at the comment. Handy knew that Parker was peculiar about the jobs he took. He knew above all, Parker never took a job he judged to be a loser. In his book, a loser was either a job that high chance or failure or one that didn't pay enough. The less complications and the bigger payday the better for him.

"What's wrong with it?"

"The location," McKay said with a smirk. "It's in Gotham."

On instinct, Parker looked down at the long, winding scar on the back of his left hand. A memento from one of his last trip's to Gotham, given to him by the city's favorite flying rodent. After that, Parker added another rule to his list: Never do a job in Gotham, especially at night.

"No."

"I knew you'd say that," said McKay. "But let me at least explain the job to you, and how much you stand to make."

Parker shrugged and McKay started talking. When he was finished, Parker asked questions and laid out ground rules. By the time they were through, Parker was convinced. He kicked the blonde he was sleeping with out of his bed, checked out of his hotel, and booked a flight to Gotham that night.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Me, last night: 'Ghost Rider is basically one step down from The Spectre so he's pretty damn tough.'

Byrd Man: 'Yep.'

@Roman

Vengeance Bros?

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

The Spectre

^{"You have been judged and found wanting."}

^{Frank Castle ♦ 11/12/1950 (67) ♦ Male ♦ Neutral Good}

C O N C E P T A B S T R A C T:

I want to tell a multi-decade story of the Punisher, Vietnam, and the present that explores themes of evil, the cost of doing the right thing, and what happens when someone like Frank Castle has the powers of the Spectre.

N O T E S:

Timeline

Timeline:

November 12th, 1950: Francis Castle is born in Queens

August 10th, 1964: Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing president Lyndon Johnson to use conventional military force to stop the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam.

July 28th, 1965: Johnson pledges to send nearly four hundred thousand troops to Vietnam, tripling the US commitment to fight Communist insurgents.

January 30th, 1968: Anti-Communist forces launch the Tet Offensive, pouring men and resources into the area and sending the conflict in Vietnam from police action to full-on war.

November 12th, 1968: Frank Castle enlists in the US Marine Corps

September 2nd, 1969: Sergeant Frank Castle ships out to join the 1st Marine Division as a platoon sergeant

December 25th, 1969: The Christmas Day Massacre near Đắk Glei wipes out half of Castle's platoon. He kills close to two dozen attacking VC with a M60 machine gun. Castle is awarded medals for bravery and recruited for Special Forces work.

January 1st, 1970 - April 30th, 1974: HISTORY REDACTED AT THE REQUEST OF USMC FORCE RECONNAISSANCE

May 1st, 1974: Granted a battlefield commission to 1st Lieutenant, Frank Castle is honorably discharged from the USMC and sent home.

June 2nd, 1975: Frank Castle marries Maria Castle.

March 24th, 1976: Lisa Castle is born.

August 17th, 1978: Francis Castle Jr. is born.

July 26th, 1980: Maria, Lisa, and Frank Castle Jr. are all murdered, caught in a cross-fire at Central Park between mobsters. Severely wounded, Frank survives.

December 18th, 1981: After two mistrials and numerous accusations of jury tampering, Jimmy Rizzo and Carlo Andolini, the two Scargetti Crime Family hitmen who killed Castle's family, are found not guilty by a jury of their peers. The same day Frank Castle leaves his family home for the last time.

December 20th, 1981: Jimmy Rizzo and Carolo Andolini are found dead, their bodies tortured and mutilated.

December 22nd, 1981 - March 17th, 1982: Fifty-two made men and associates of the Scargetti Family are brutally murdered by an unknown assailant.

March 18th, 1982: Fearing for his life and safety, Dominic Scargetti turns himself over to members of the FBI and confess to numerous racketeering and conspiracy charges. He receives life in prison.

March 28th, 1982: Frank Castle mails a letter to the Daily Bugle with explicit photos of Scargetti Family members shortly before their murders. In the letter, Castle claims that the men killed were the first casualties in a new war on crime he is waging. Not as Frank Castle, but as The Punisher.

1982-2002: Using his military background and money from murdered criminals, Frank Castle wages his one man war with the criminal syndicates in America. Over a twenty year span, he kills at least a thousand men in thirty states in addition to another two hundred speculated murders around the US and abroad. Until September 11th, he is first on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

2005: After three years in hiding, a cancer-ridden Frank Castle surrenders to two NYPD detectives. While awaiting trial, Castle is sent to the federal penitentiary in Fishkill, NY. The very same prison Dominic Scargetti has ruled like a king for thirty years. In a prison riot, Scargetti is stabbed to death by Castle before he is pounced on by an angry mob. Frank Castle is beaten to death by the angry prisoners, but not before the elderly and dying man kills seven of them with his bare hands.

2005-2012: In limbo, Frank Castle's soul lingers, unable to go to heaven or hell. The Archangel Michael, recognizing Castle's hatred and rage binds Castle's soul to the spirit of God's Vengeance, an entity known as The Spectre.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part 1

"It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice."
-- Joseph Conrad

Then
Cambodia

The four men waded through the thick brush towards their destination. Five past three in the morning and it was still humid enough that the sweat stuck to their bodies. They were dressed in jungle camo with a stripped down field kit that consisted of an M16, a .45 sidearm, a radio, one day's worth of C-rations, anti-venom and malaria pills.

The leader of the soldiers stopped the group short just before they emerged from the brush. He activated his radio and held it close to his mouth.

"Big Duke to Eagle Eye," whispered Sergeant Frank Castle.

"Roger Big Duke,"the radio operator droned in the earwig stuffed into Castle's ear.

"Fire Team Delta has reached the boundaries of our orders. Ready and awaiting further orders"

The line buzzed with static. Castle knew what was going on on the other side of that line. A captain was running an order up to a colonel, who ran it up to a general in Saigon, sitting in a plush office with a CIA man whispering in his ear. They weren't supposed to be in Cambodia. The official line stateside was that the United States would never go into a neutral country during this war; but everybody in 'Nam knew what was really going on. The parameters of the mission had changed, the communists were running men and guns through Cambodia. Covert special forces action and overt carpet bombing from the Air Force had threatened to turn what started out as a "police action" into a two-country war. The more the United States struggled, the more it got stuck in the quicksand that was Southeast Asia.

"Big Duke, you are approved to move forward with mission as ordered. Eagle Eye out."

Castle cut off his radio and looked at the three men in the dark. Even though at twenty-one he was the youngest member of the fire team, he was their unquestionable leader who led them through many questionable missions.

"Let's move."

*****

Boston
Now

Castle came to on the third floor landing of an apartment stairwell. He looked around and tried to clear the cobwebs from his head. The side effect of his "condition" was that time had a bad habit of running together. One moment he was in 1985, drowning a mobster in a toilet in a memory so real and vibrant he could smell the piss in the bathroom and feel the water splashing on his wrist, the next moment he was thirty years in the future and back in the present. It was the thing inside him's fault. He could feel it stir every time he relived a violent memory, especially one that was painful to Frank. It lived to torture him. A prisoner forced to witness his worst memories with crystal clarity for the rest of eternity. Punishment for the Punisher.

Frank continued up the stairs to the apartment's fifth floor. The thing inside him became restless the closer he got to the door at the end of the hall. The trail that led him to the city was leading here. Castle was unsure of why he had been called to Boston, but it made sense the day he arrived and saw the newspaper headline screaming murder, the fifth victim of the brutal serial killer the papers dubbed Bunker Hill Butcher. The nickname because he dumped his victims near the war monument after hacking them to bits.

The entity inside Frank champed at the bit and actively sought to get out when Frank stepped forward and phased through the door. Now that he was a dead man, things like locks and doors weren't a problem. The moment he set foot inside the apartment he knew this is where the Butcher was killing his victims. Images flashed through his mind, screaming mouths and severed limbs and blood spatter.

The apartment was perfectly empty and pristine, no trace of the carnage that had taken place inside its walls. What was inside of him had the power to knew exactly who did this, but neglected to let Frank in on it. He felt a pull towards a bureau resting against the far wall. He opened the top drawer and found a series of utility bills made out to a Mr. Tom O'Malley. He saw a vision of a fat man with thick glasses paying cash to someone somewhere to get the electric bill put in a name that wasn't his.

"Kill pad," Castle said softly to himself.

Whoever Tom O'Malley was, that wasn't his real name this wasn't where he lived. This was how it worked. The thing in him thrashed and pointed him in the right direction to find the person responsible for the deaths of five people. While the Spectre like to torture him, they had a lot in common. Together they would make sure this serial killer faced the punishment he so sorely deserved.

*****

Then
Camboia

"Chó chết tiệt American," groaned the tiny Vietnamese man.

He lay flat on his back, desperately trying to keep his intestines from spilling out of the gaping wound on his abdomen. Smoke and screams filled the air. The burning huts illuminated the night.

Fuck you too, Papa San," Frank said as he stood above the dying man. "How far into Cambodia does the supply line run? Understand me, fucker? Làm thế nào đến nay vào Cambodia hiện nó đi?"

"Fuck you," the man said in heavily accented English. "Understand word, motherfucker?"

Scowling, Frank put two more shots into the man's stomach. He groaned loudly and spat up blood. Not dead yet, but in immense pain. Frank kicked dirt on him before turning around to check the progress of his team.

They were working their way through the huts, killing anyone they found before gathering the guns and ordinance they found inside. So far they were coming up empty and Frank was getting antsy.

"No joy, Sarge," one of the men reported. "We can't find a goddamn thing. No guns outside of the one that fucker with the belly wound had. No ordinance and not even traces that they were smuggling Horse or any of that other shit they like to run in from Cambodia."

"Found a buncha farm equipment," one of the other men said from across the small encampment. "Hoes, rakes, soil. Looks like this may have been one of them work camps. We're just a half klick from a rice paddy."

Frank looked down at the Vietnamese man. He was still now, color draining from his face while his blood ran into the dirt. There was nothing for them to find here. The men that had died were innocent and now all that they owned and worked for was being destroyed by the hated Americans. Those were the perfect conditions that made more VC.

Frank looked over at his radio man. "Carlton, call it in to Eagle Eye. Radio the coordinates to the camp and give them the green light to go ahead with the airstrike."

"Sir? I thought this was--"

"An enemy encampment?" Frank said, cutting him off. "You bet your ass it was, and once they drop those bombs, there'll be nothing left of this place but a crater. Nobody will be able to say otherwise. Understood?"

The men nodded. Frank stepped away and walked out towards the edge of the camp while the bombing was called in. In the dark, he dropped his facade and let his teeth chatter and let the smile slip on his face. Thousands of miles away from home, surrounded by death and madness and destruction. This horrible place that was destined to be the rock upon which American exceptionalism would break...

He was in heaven.

And he wished that it would never end.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

The Spectre

^{"You have been judged and found wanting."}

^{Frank Castle ♦ 11/12/1950 (67) ♦ Male ♦ Neutral Good}

C O N C E P T A B S T R A C T:

I want to tell a multi-decade story of the Punisher, Vietnam, and the present that explores themes of evil, the cost of doing the right thing, and what happens when someone like Frank Castle has the powers of the Spectre.

N O T E S:

Timeline:

November 12th, 1950: Francis Castle is born in Queens

August 10th, 1964: Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing president Lyndon Johnson to use conventional military force to stop the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam.

July 28th, 1965: Johnson pledges to send nearly four hundred thousand troops to Vietnam, tripling the US commitment to fight Communist insurgents.

January 30th, 1968: Anti-Communist forces launch the Tet Offensive, pouring men and resources into the area and sending the conflict in Vietnam from police action to full-on war.

November 12th, 1968: Frank Castle enlists in the US Marine Corps

September 2nd, 1969: Sergeant Frank Castle ships out to join the 1st Marine Division as a platoon sergeant

December 25th, 1969: The Christmas Day Massacre near Đắk Glei wipes out half of Castle's platoon. He kills close to two dozen attacking VC with a M60 machine gun. Castle is awarded medals for bravery and recruited for Special Forces work.

January 1st, 1970 - April 30th, 1974: HISTORY REDACTED AT THE REQUEST OF USMC FORCE RECONNAISSANCE

May 1st, 1974: Granted a battlefield commission to 1st Lieutenant, Frank Castle is honorably discharged from the USMC and sent home.

June 2nd, 1975: Frank Castle marries Maria Castle.

March 24th, 1976: Lisa Castle is born.

August 17th, 1978: Francis Castle Jr. is born.

July 26th, 1980: Maria, Lisa, and Frank Castle Jr. are all murdered, caught in a cross-fire at Central Park between mobsters. Severely wounded, Frank survives.

December 18th, 1981: After two mistrials and numerous accusations of jury tampering, Jimmy Rizzo and Carlo Andolini, the two Scargetti Crime Family hitmen who killed Castle's family, are found not guilty by a jury of their peers. The same day Frank Castle leaves his family home for the last time.

December 20th, 1981: Jimmy Rizzo and Carolo Andolini are found dead, their bodies tortured and mutilated.

December 22nd, 1981 - March 17th, 1982: Fifty-two made men and associates of the Scargetti Family are brutally murdered by an unknown assailant.

March 18th, 1982: Fearing for his life and safety, Dominic Scargetti turns himself over to members of the FBI and confess to numerous racketeering and conspiracy charges. He receives life in prison.

March 28th, 1982: Frank Castle mails a letter to the Daily Bugle with explicit photos of Scargetti Family members shortly before their murders. In the letter, Castle claims that the men killed were the first casualties in a new war on crime he is waging. Not as Frank Castle, but as The Punisher.

1982-2002: Using his military background and money from murdered criminals, Frank Castle wages his one man war with the criminal syndicates in America. Over a twenty year span, he kills at least a thousand men in thirty states in addition to another two hundred speculated murders around the US and abroad. Until September 11th, he is first on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

2005: After three years in hiding, a cancer-ridden Frank Castle surrenders to two NYPD detectives. While awaiting trial, Castle is sent to the federal penitentiary in Fishkill, NY. The very same prison Dominic Scargetti has ruled like a king for thirty years. In a prison riot, Scargetti is stabbed to death by Castle before he is pounced on by an angry mob. Frank Castle is beaten to death by the angry prisoners, but not before the elderly and dying man kills seven of them with his bare hands.

2005-2012: In limbo, Frank Castle's soul lingers, unable to go to heaven or hell. The Archangel Michael, recognizing Castle's hatred and rage binds Castle's soul to the spirit of God's Vengeance, an entity known as The Spectre.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

@Byrd Man So is The Hunter a part of Parker's backstory in this continuity? I started reading Darwyn Cooke's adaptation and it's great.

@GreenGrenade

Yeah, this Parker is at least post The Hunter and The Outfit.