066--Punisher

Okay, so he's not *really* a Spider-man character in the traditional sense, but he's pretty heavily associated with him and he did technically first appear in a Spider-man comic.  So I'll make an exception here--just don't expect anything further beyond the Spider-man web than this (no Daredevil or Human Torch for instance).  At least, not in this project.

Backstory!  He's Frank Castle as you'd normally envision him, war veteran who has his family killed by members of organized crime who swears vengeance etc.  Big difference in my interpretation anyway is that Castle had been the Punisher for a good amount of time before Peter ever became Spider-man.  To specify, he was instrumental in the downfall of Silvermane, the previous New York crime boss before the Kingpin.  In fact, Fisk had directly influenced his actions, deliberately leaking targets to Castle through various third parties (without Castle ever finding out Fisk was behind it).  Castle weakened Silvermane's criminal empire severely to the point that Silvermane got desperate and accidentally got caught, landing him in prison for the rest of his life.  At this point, Fisk took over as the Kingpin, and decided to get rid of Castle as well.  He had info leaked to Castle about a fake target and had the police ambush him, landing Castle in the slammer.

Well, fast forward to when Peter has become Spider-man now.  In prison, Castle found out about the Kingpin's role in his previous excursions and in his own incarceration.  After many years, Castle finally broke out.  This was around the time of the Molten Man incident (read up in that entry to see what built up there).  After Kingpin was saved from the Molten Man by Spider-man, Fisk realized his top subordinate, Hammerhead, was almost certainly behind him.  When Molten Man failed, however, Hammerhead fled the country.  Thanks to both the Molten Man incident and the Hobgoblin's continued attacks on his empire (never mind Spider-man), the Kingpin realized he was quite vulnerable to various superhuman threats and that he couldn't really trust those closest to him.  He started looking for allies elsewhere, and found one in Frank Oliver, an illegal arms dealer from Australia.

What's all this got to do with the Punisher?  Well, Frank Castle catches wind of all this, and when Oliver's men led by one Frederick Myers are moving their first shipment of illegal weapons in, the Punisher launches his first attack in his new war on crime.  This is the site of Spider-man and the Punisher's first encounter with one another.

So yep, this is the Punisher.  Nothing too different here.  I wanted him to look really, really battle hardened and very well prepared, so his whole get up is supposed to be thick and tough.  And I think his shaved head sells that look.  I also wanted him to look older and gritty in a way that makes him look like someone Peter would never get along with--I never really bought Spider-man allying himself with Punisher.  So in my concept they're enemies, albeit enemies with somewhat similar goal.