I think “The Punisher” culture is less about vigilante justice and more about renegade acts. It’s always been my issue with the character, the character is never a hero. Marvel makes that clear. A man with PTSD, trauma, and obsessive compulsive behaviors wars on crime because he can not cope with society. He was introduced as a villain in Spider-Man and has tried to kill him multiple times for being a masked freak and vigilante. The Punisher is drawn to this largely by false news narratives like J. Jonah Jameson who attacks Spider-Man and his SJW ways. Sounds oddly familiar right? Talking heads like Ben Shapiro and Fox have these people believe they are the heroes of their own self-inflicted persecutions. They want to be renegades to the “political correctness” not vigilantes out to police injustice. In many ways those that are tied to this “Punisher” are not vigilantes, they are worse, enforcers of societal oppression, that which they don’t agree with is wrong, and evil, so they will stand up for what they think is right. Therefore they think they are “outside of the law” in that the law is oppressing their old ways. An example is the Blue Lives Matter Punisher- it’s not that they want to work outside the law, they think the law is absolute and without error and those that interact with cops are always evil. They support police without waver because they think those that confront the injustices are the bad guys.

It’s why I’ve always been a Batman/Green Arrow type they see good cops, bad cops, and the multiple shades of gray in and around them that confront society and want to see change in people and systems. I’ve always been a fan of a hero that takes the brunt of hate and still stands for a better tomorrow. The Punisher culture wants to enforce a status quo through fear.

I too have encountered these same types of people in NC that think they are heroes by oppression, yet this story, like many others confronts them with the fact they aren’t Castle, they are the problem as well.