The Punisher vs Gotham City

[Kyberwulf]

lol.I love how some of these villains are being turned into some godly killing machines, that are neigh indefeatable.

First of, Joker isn't nearly as good as people make him out to be. He survives mostly due to plot armor. Meaning, that DC won't kill him off because he is popular. To be honest, if Joker ever came up against someone that wouldn't play his games, or give into his mind games. He would be dead, many times over. There are always moments people have to kill him, but don't because that would be to easy. Or to prove some kind of morality, or they have some "Need" of him. Against someone like the Punisher. He wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

I mean most of Batman's villains are fallible. They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them. By nobody, I mean comic book protagonists. I love how the popularity of characters is giving them some huge immunities.

There are some of them that frank wont be able to kill outright. In my mind though, that doesn't make them apart of Gotham. People like Ras Al, Deathstroke, Bane. They really aren't a part of Gotham. Sure they are involved a lot. They don't live there though.

[comicshorse]

I mean most of Batman's villains are fallible. They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them. By nobody, I mean comic book protagonists. I love how the popularity of characters is giving them some huge immunities.

No, they're part of the Gotham underworld. Other criminals and the police try to kill them all the time. The fact that they're still around is that they're tough and cunning and they make their preparations for these events ( and they have plot armour). Or, in other words, pretty much the same reason Frank is still around

[Alabenson]

First of, Joker isn't nearly as good as people make him out to be. He survives mostly due to plot armor. Meaning, that DC won't kill him off because he is popular. To be honest, if Joker ever came up against someone that wouldn't play his games, or give into his mind games. He would be dead, many times over. There are always moments people have to kill him, but don't because that would be to easy. Or to prove some kind of morality, or they have some "Need" of him. Against someone like the Punisher. He wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

You very clearly are underestimating how dangerous the Joker is. Even just in terms of one-on-one combat ability the Joker possesses sufficient hand to hand combat skill to hold his own against Batman and his the rest of the Bat-family, is exceptionally agile, and has an inhuman level of pain tolerance. He has access to an incredibly wide variety of weapons, including Joker Venom, a poison that is equally lethal inhaled or absorbed through the skin and can be modified to incapacitate Superman. For what it's worth, the closest approximation in the Marvel Universe would be the Red Skull's Dust of Death. On top of that, the Joker is a master tactician himself, able to routinely beat Ra's al Ghul at chess and drive people insane just by talking to them.

As for your assertion that the Joker would be dead if he ever went up against someone willing to kill him, yeah, no. There have been plenty of opponents that have actively tried to kill the Joker, some of which (such as Jason Todd or the aforementioned Red Skull) were better equipped to go about it than the Punisher. None of them have succeeded.

So yeah, the Punisher is in way, WAY out of his depth against the Joker.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

[Sapphire Guard]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

There's so much good debate here, I keep wanting to say something and being beaten to it.

Basically, you're both right. Joker does have tons of plot armour, but he's also a dangerous person, who can and has survived many assassination attempts across several continuities. He is not usually a physical threat to the Batman unless he has set things up in his favour in advance, so no, he's not some unstoppable force, but he is very very dangerous to people that aren't a Batman tier combatant. In general, though, his most dangerous attribute isn't direct combat ability, it's tricks and unpredictability. It won't be a one on one cage match, he'll have traps, tricks, explosives, and will never be where he's expected to be.

Frank would beat the Joker in a straight fight easily, but he will not voluntarily get into a straight fight. He acts a certain way towards Batman, but nobody else gets the free shots.
Joker does have plot armour, but so does Frank. So if we're doing a versus thread disregarding plot armour, it's only fair to drop all of it, from Frank as well as the Bat villains.

One thing about the Bat rogues is that the majority are very good at hiding, very often the first, biggest problem in any Batman story is to find the relevant villain.

Whoever Frank goes after first is probably dead (unless it's Ra's). He'd also be able to clean up a lot of solo threats like Tzasz or the Mad Hatter. But once the other players hear about him, they go to ground and speed-dial people like Deadshot. And Gotham is full of that kind of person, there's one scene in NML where Jean Paul Valley looks up people that can make impossibly long sniper shots and the computer comes back instantly with like 90 names.

Penguin, if he's gone after first, will be easy prey, it's just a matter of breaking in to the Iceberg Lounge. But he's also the guy that hears everything in Gotham first, so if he's not the first victim, he will hear about whoever was and go into hiding, and then put a price on his head for other people to deal with. And many of the other mobsters will react the same way.

They mostly survive, because nobody really has tried to kill them.

Not true. Batman hasn't tried to kill them, but plenty of other people have.

[Anteros]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

If you take away plot armor then Castle would be dead 1000X over as well.

I never understand this argument. "They shouldn't be as effective as they are!" It doesn't matter if you think it makes sense. The story says they are that effective, so that's how it is. If we don't presume the way they are depicted in their story is accurate, there's no reason to talk about the characters at all.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, people are clearly underestimating how dangerous Punisher is. I don't get this hero worship of Joker. And the reason the Joker doesn't die, isn't because he is good. It's because he is the most popular badguy. Plot armor says he should survive, just to show how "amazing" he is. I think the reason Joker is so crazy, and willing to die. Is because he has tried so many times to die, but the universe just won't let him.

The exact same thing can be said for Punisher. He wins because of plot armor. He should have been shot in the head years ago.

But the Joker regularly screws around with Superman. His main opponent is the goddamn Batman. Punisher's is some mobster with a messed up face.

The only real discussion here is, in the canon of comic stories. Who has gotten away with the most ridiculous disturbing and powerful shenanigans.

And there's no comparison there. The Joker's plans are bigger, his murders are more outlandish, and more insane than anything that Frank deals with.

Hell, when he's not trying to get Batman's attention he has killed people with their own cat while he was miles away. He's had the Batman chasing his tale while he tries to drown all of Gotham only stopped because Bruce is a detective, and Frank is not.

[Drascin]

lol.I love how some of these villains are being turned into some godly killing machines, that are neigh indefeatable. .

Soooo... much like Frank is in Punisher wank comics?

Frank is just a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex. He already gets to kill a hell of a lot of people that he very much should not be able to, in Marvel comics, because he gets turned into a "godly killing machine" when he should not be.

The only reason this versus is actually kind of entertaining is because the Bat comics are about the only ones that are about as disproprtionately wanked as Punisher ones, making it sort of poetically fair .

[Anteros]

I think he could realistically take down about one enemy. Bat villains like to monologue and wouldn't expect to just get sniped while standing in the open. After this, his M.O. would be exposed and any one of them would destroy him. Especially since Gotham is their home turf.

If they know he's coming he can probably take most of the B listers but loses hard to every single A lister.

[ben-zayb]

I mean, Gotham already has a trigger-happy antivillain who doesn't mind the blood. And this dude has even been trained by the bats himself ever since the former was but a kid.

That said, he sure as hell wasn't the one who got the cowl and replaced the bats when all is said and done.

[Clertar]

Soooo... much like Frank is in Punisher wank comics?

Frank is just a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex.

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

Like I said, the canonic Frank Castle is not the one in the Spider-man animated series or the one in the Daredevil tv series. He's a one-man army tactical genius, with decades or army, guerrilla and hand-to-hand combat experience, he always thinks outside the box and does his homework when it comes to researching his target's most hidden secrets. For most of his classic run he was also backed up by Microchip, his own Oracle.

I've never been a fan of the Punisher in comics, but it's just ridiculous to dismiss him like "a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex". He would be in the real world, but in a world where "a fit dude with a colourful shield" is Captain America, the Punisher is no joke.

[Anteros]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

Like I said, the canonic Frank Castle is not the one in the Spider-man animated series or the one in the Daredevil tv series. He's a one-man army tactical genius, with decades or army, guerrilla and hand-to-hand combat experience, he always thinks outside the box and does his homework when it comes to researching his target's most hidden secrets. For most of his classic run he was also backed up by Microchip, his own Oracle.

I've never been a fan of the Punisher in comics, but it's just ridiculous to dismiss him like "a dude with guns and a self-destruction complex". He would be in the real world, but in a world where "a fit dude with a colourful shield" is Captain America, the Punisher is no joke.

He's not on a tier with those guys though. Either Bats or Cap could and have plant him on his butt without breaking a sweat. He might be better than any normal human, but he's still not good enough to go against Batman's top tier enemies and live.

[Rynjin]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

I've NEVER seen any evidence of this. Frank is about the equivalent of a special ops soldier gone rogue. I can buy him, somewhat, as a Jason Bourne or Sam Fisher equivalent, sure. Which means he's reasonably good at outsmarting and outperforming normal guys with guns.

He's no Batman. He's not even Green Arrow. His only edge is he's willing to kill and maim whereas those two are not. This in some ways makes his job easier so he doesn't NEED their level of expertise (it's a hell of a lot easier to gun down 4 guys with an assault rifle than take them out nonlethally) and in other ways gimps him because he's just "Dude with gun #9018973: This time with a custom t-shirt!" and people that DO require Batman's level of skill and training to take down could take Frank apart piece by piece.

Punisher is exceptional by human standards. He is NOT exceptional by super-human standards in the way other super power-less heroes like Batman are. His rogue's gallery almost entirely consists of different flavors of unpowered gangster with various schticks in one category and "People who have kicked his ass or killed him" as the other.

[Alabenson]

There we go again. He's not: he's the Marvel universe's John Wick or Jason Bourne. He's the Marvel universe's Batman.

To be blunt, no, the Punisher isn't nearly the Marvel universe's Batman. I will certainly concede that Frank Castle is an exceptionally skilled non-powered individual with substantial combat and tactical experience. This has allowed him to combat a vast number of conventional criminal organizations, and at times he has gone up against some of the Marvel's superpowered threats and come out alive. This is why I assumed in my analysis that the Punisher would have a substantial amount of early success against the more conventional members of Batman's Rogues Gallery. The Punisher does not, however, possess anything remotely approaching Batman's level of intellect or resources, nor does he take on the same caliber of opponents on a routine basis. The Punisher is ultimately not one of the Marvel universes' heavy hitters, whereas Batman is considered to be in the same league as Superman.

[Clertar]

Note that I specifically said "the Marvel universe's Batman." I'm perfectly aware that transitioning the Punisher to the DC universe depowers him significantly, just like placing Batman in the Marvel universe would instantly make him a very OP character.

The two universes work differently, we could say that in Marvel's universe there's less ham, especially after the Ultimate universe started bleeding into the main continuity. Thor is the Marvel universe's superman, Quicksilver is the Marvel universe's Flash,... and as Marvel's Batman, the Punisher is a toned-down, less overpowered, willing to kill version of the same concept (a non-superpowered middle-aged man who uses super preparation and the best equipment he can get to fight crime in order to avenge his murdered family). Still, if the Punisher operates in the DC universe, for the sake of fairness he should be treated with DC logic.

[Anteros]

Note that I specifically said "the Marvel universe's Batman." I'm perfectly aware that transitioning the Punisher to the DC universe depowers him significantly, just like placing Batman in the Marvel universe would instantly make him a very OP character.

The two universes work differently, we could say that in Marvel's universe there's less ham, especially after the Ultimate universe started bleeding into the main continuity. Thor is the Marvel universe's superman, Quicksilver is the Marvel universe's Flash,... and as Marvel's Batman, the Punisher is a toned-down, less overpowered, willing to kill version of the same concept (a non-superpowered middle-aged man who uses super preparation and the best equipment he can get to fight crime in order to avenge his murdered family). Still, if the Punisher operates in the DC universe, for the sake of fairness he should be treated with DC logic.

I would say Marvel's Batman is Cap though. They fill a very similar role on their respective teams and are also very physically similar in the "peak human" sense.

For what it's worth I wouldn't give Punisher good odds against Cap's enemies either.

[Sapphire Guard]

Marvel's Batman is Stark. A billionaire using expensive toys and philanthropy to try to improve the world while privately constantly battling his own demons.

[Kyberwulf]

The fanboying is real.

lol

By your logic, BATMAN isn't even a threat to Joker. Thus Batman being used as a measuring stick is pointless. I mean, Joker can pretty much Kill Batman at will. Instead he chooses not to kill him. But to play with him. Guess that makes Batman a loser.

I don't get how you guys can't admit one of your heroes is human. They have faults, flaws. They can be killed. Its like you guys are afraid to admit Joker can be defeated because it would make him less cool... or something.

fine, Joker is godking and can never be defeated. It makes him a pretty boring character though. Just like superman, or Goku.

Nothing can kill any of batmans villains... why? not because they are skilled or anything. It's because people can't admit the character they like are human. .. or humanish.


DO I think Punisher can kill ALL of Gotham? no. lol. Do I think he has a chance to kill some of the inhabitants. Yeah, fore the most part, because Batman's villains are human. or .. mortal I should say. That means they have flaws, and can be hurt. If you take off the onus of storyarchs and real-world-money-based-continuity factors. I think Punisher could punish a lot of criminals, yes even godkings before he gets taken out. Which I do think would happen. So yeah, one man vs a city? Of course he loses. But He would do a lot of damage before he goes out. IN the end though. The city would win, new criminals would step up. It would be game over.


As for Marvel's Batman? Would have to be Black Panther. Tony doesn't have the same mentality as Batman. He is what you would have if "Bruce" put on the Mantel. Batman is't a playboy. Especially after RDJ donned the armor.

[Keltest]

The fanboying is real.

lol

By your logic, BATMAN isn't even a threat to Joker. Thus Batman being used as a measuring stick is pointless. I mean, Joker can pretty much Kill Batman at will. Instead he chooses not to kill him. But to play with him. Guess that makes Batman a loser.

No, it means the Joker has a weakness for Batman, specifically. Youre absolutely right, the Joker could quite probably kill Batman if he set out to do that in the most effective way he can think of. But its part of his shtick that he doesn't want to just kill batman. He wants to prove Batman is like him. He wants to show Batman his reflection, and watch Batman cringe. And most of all, he wants to make Batman laugh. To see him feel. Because a batman who laughs, who feels... why, that's almost not Batman at all anymore, and to take down Batman in that way would be the Joker's ultimate victory.

Punisher on the other hand, doesn't have that going for him. He's just a problem to be dealt with. Theres no game to be played there, no joke to be had, just... a problem.

[Anteros]

The fanboying is real.

lol

Why are you just pointlessly insulting people who disagree with you?

[Kyberwulf]

Lol. You don't think joker can just be shot one night? People have found him before. People have got the drop. He was only saved due to plot contrivance. I am not saying it's an auto win for punisher. Like you guys seem to be saying for the joker. I think it's a toss up.

[BWR]

Since we are admitting that all characters have plot armor and benefit from writer fiat, I can only see that it comes down to this: is the Punisher allowed to kill any characters of note in Marvel? And I don't mean in stuff like "Kills the Marvel Universe" but in any form of canon? Is he allowed to kill anyone who isn't a mook or a recently introduced baddie whose entire purpose is to be killed?
If not, then he won't do **** against any players in Gotham because they all enjoy the protection of plot armor and Frank doesn't have plot-armor piercing bullets. He'll kill off a few low-level henchmen but that's it. Oh, he may hurt or appear to kill one of the big names, but that lasts only a little while before they come back looking for revenge.
Likewise, Frank will stay alive and keep on killing mooks regardless of whatever is thrown his way because that's the way the comics work.

[Drascin]

The fanboying is real.

lol

As I have said, the entire reason this vs is kind of amusing is because both sides in this contest are wanked to hell. I mean, notice how you yourself are fanboying Frank pretty hard.

The difference is that the people like Joker benefit from the nerd love of "unpredictable" characters, while Frank benefits from the Cult of the Gun.

Joker is just an unpredictable crazy with cool gadgets. Frank is just a spec ops dude with debilitating psychological issues. Simple fact is, neither of them should be a thing that is a real player on a comic world central stage. Joker should not be able to present a threat to Lex Luthor or Cheetah. Frank should never be able to so much as breathe on, say, Spidey. Yet, they're presented as genuine threats because, respectively, "chaos is impossible to counteract!" and "guns beat stupid comic stuff!", both of which are kind of silly.

So yeah, I'm entirely calling Joker vs Punisher as "whoever gets into gear and enacts their plan to kill the other guy first wins", because whoever gets into action first will kill the other guy because neither can really survive an attack without massive amounts of plot armor. And Joker has shown more proactivity in terms of his mayhem. So I think it's more probable that Joker will take it purely because he's more likely to "go first", as it were, but it still could easily go the other way.

A quick classification of Batman villains that I'm reasonably familiar with:

Frank almost certainly wins:
Penguin, Szasz, Scarecrow (at least classic version. Some versions of Scarecrow are a hell of a thing), Mad Hatter. Hugo Strange could be here depending on whether he would underestimate Frank or not (which he probably would and die from. If he takes Frank seriously it's a case of "you're never going to get him in sights", but Strange tends to underestimate people).

Frank absolutely can win if he gets the drop (I imagine he can take a couple of these down before the rest catch on and wise up to him and take him down)
Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr Freeze, Two-Face.

Frank could win under highly specific circumstances or with access to very heavy-duty military equipment way beyond his usual assault rifles and personal explosives (ie, literally bring in tanks or attack helicopters or the like), but chances are he loses:
Killer Croc (classic), Solomon Grundy (shambly dumb version)

Frank never even has a chance
Bane, Lady Shiva, Clayface, Solomon Grundy (real immortal version), Deathstroke, Ra's. Also, to be honest, probably Riddler, because Riddler's entire schtick is never showing up where he could be shot unless you can decipher his riddles, and Frank is not super good at riddling.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, I am not fanboying. I repeatedly say Frank would lose. I am merely saying he has a chance against joker. I also am merely stating everyone here is selling Punisher short. Frank does pretty well against non superpowers opponents. Which for the most part, most of Batman villains are non superpowers. Superplot powered ... yeah.

[comicshorse]

Lol. You don't think joker can just be shot one night? People have found him before. People have got the drop. He was only saved due to plot contrivance. I am not saying it's an auto win for punisher. Like you guys seem to be saying for the joker. I think it's a toss up.

And people are disagreeing. They think, me too, that the Joker is too weird, unpredictable and smart ( possibly supernatural but that's a different argument). That Frank's chances against the Joker really aren't that good. Which somehow become 'fanboyism'

[khadgar567]

Lets say frank made big body count in gotham and they dont pop a cap in his ass quick enough. Gues who enters the scene? Amanda waller and forcefully recruits him to suicide squad. Since frank gonna kill his team mate pop goes the weasel amanda blows his brain the moument frank kills one of the team member due them being bad guys. So frank cant survive in dc universe

[comicshorse]

Hey lets not forget Frank once ran a MAFIA FAMILY !
(Yeah comics do some stupid stuff and that still wasn't as bad as him being an Angel)

[khadgar567]

Hey lets not forget Frank once ran a MAFIA FAMILY !
(Yeah comics do some stupid stuff and that still wasn't as bad as him being an Angel)

Lol by the way frank is more like jason then bats. They have same methods, same trigger happy angstfull streak only diffrent between them is jason frequently sleeps with his adoptive brothers true love.

[Friv]

Why are you just pointlessly insulting people who disagree with you?

Forget it, Anteros, it's Kyberwulf.

[comicshorse]

Where's Roman Polanski with a switch blade when you need him