The Punisher: The End
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
| The Punisher: The End | |
|---|---|
 Cover to "The Punisher: The End". Art by Richard Corben | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | MAX Comics imprint of Marvel Comics |
| Format | one-shot |
| Publication date | June 2004 |
| Main character(s) | Punisher |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Garth Ennis |
| Artist(s) | Richard Corben |
| Colorist(s) | Lee Loughridge |
The Punisher: The End is a one-shot title published by Marvel Comics under the MAX imprint. The story focuses on the Punisher's final days in a post-apocalyptic future.
Synopsis
In a Post-Global-Holocaust world, the third and last world war has ended. A war that went from Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, and then to China. The human race has vanished from the face of the Earth due to dozens of hydrogen bombs going off across the world. Frank Castle, the Punisher, is still alive. When he tries to rise up from the ashes of New York City, not a rat or a bug has survived. Castle is now an old man, possibly somewhere in his mid or late 70's.
After some 40 years of fighting crime, he was caught and put into the maximum-security prison in Sing-Sing. Even in his old age, Castle's war on crime continued where he killed dozens of inmates. Because he had killed so many inmates at the end of his first year, a judge says to a prisoner that "sending a man to Sing-Sing is like feeding a tiger meat." Castle ends up in the prison's bomb shelter, deep beneath Cell Block D, where the worst of the worst are kept. Several police officers come down to check on Frank, while performing a grisly mission as the bombs approach the U.S. This saves their lives, as the bombs hit while they are in the shelter.
A year after the war, Castle and another prisoner, Paris Peters, are the only survivors. They emerge into a wasteland. Background radiation is in the air. It would take a thousand years for it to drop down to safe levels. Paris, seemingly in prison on simple monetary crimes, had followed the cops down to the shelter out of curiosity. Some of the cops had died at Frank's hands, for various crimes. It is hinted other atrocities happened, as Frank remembers another prisoner, dead from stab wounds, who tells him about another bomb shelter, hidden deep beneath the former site of the World Trade Center. Frank and Peters, dying of radiation poisoning, eventually reach the site.
They call themselves the Coven. A group made up of Generals, senators, oil magnates, and computer billionaires. According to the wounded prisoner, they ran the world and are responsible for the nuclear holocaust. The knowledge the man gave Frank allows him and Peters to enter the base. They kill their way towards the group. It is learned other members of the Coven, hiding in similar bases across the world, have self-destructed due to outbreaks of insanity.
The survivors attempt to convince Frank that with the resources they control in the bomb shelter, they can repopulate the world, but Frank won't have these people running the world again. Frank kills them all. When Paris asked why he killed them Castle says, "The human race. You've seen what that leads to." Then he turns on Paris. A simple prisoner being on D-Block had not fooled Frank. It turns out that an arson attempt by Peters had unintended victims, several children from a nearby elementary school. Despite the fact both men would be dead in a matter of hours, possibly minutes, due to radiation poisoning, Frank strangles Peters to death.
Later on, Castle is seen trying to make it to New York's Central Park to spend the last moments of his life at the place where his wife and children were killed. Fire consumes him, we do not see Frank die or see if he even made it to Central Park, but his death is assured.