The Punisher: Born

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Born is a four-issue comic book limited series featuring the Marvel Comics character Frank Castle a.k.a. the Punisher. The series was released in 2003 written by Garth Ennis and penciled by Darick Robertson.

[edit] Synopsis

The Punisher: Born documents Frank Castle's time in Vietnam as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps during his final tour in Vietnam in 1971. The story is told primarily through the eyes of Stevie Goodwin, a marine counting down the days of his service and Frank Castle, a tough Captain with a finely honed killer instinct and survivalist skills. The story chronicles a crucial 4-day period of the platoon stationed at Firebase Valley Forge, a strategic yet remote outpost on the Vietnam-Cambodian border.

Goodwin's primary motives are surviving his tour of duty and returning home to a peaceful future, and he observes his best chance of achieving those goals are sticking close to Captain Castle. Castle however, despite at home in the jungle and seemingly, the conflict, maintains an internal dialogue with a voice that continually questions and debates and goads Castle into justifying his endless thirst for combat and some of his more questionable duties. The volume and persuasiveness of the voice increase throughout the four-day period, where the commanding officer and half the marines are addicted to heroin and during which time Castle receives news that Valley Forge will be abandoned, amidst increasing opposition to the War on the home front.

Despite the news, Castle continues leading a squad on routine patrols, though his men are thinned by sporadic ambushes by the Vietcong. By the fourth day, the platoon's numbers have dropped staggeringly, leaving the encampment severely undermanned and outgunned. When night falls, bringing a hellish downpour, the Viet Cong and elements of the North Vietnamese Army attack the fortification, this opportunity to attack, as the storm has kept Air Support entirely out of the realm of possibility. A unit of no less than one hundred VC swarm Firebase Valley Forge, overtaking the base rapidly, despite heavy losses.

One by one, Castle's unit drops, and he finds himself surrounded and hemorrhaging ammunition. The voice in his head becomes louder and louder until it can be heard over the scream of the storm and roar of the gunshots. It offers Castle the strength and stamina needed to survive, to maintain an eternal state of vigilance, and to wage the permanent war. Faced with no alternative, Castle gives in to this voice within him, and the massacre turns in his favor. By the next morning, the air support has returned with an EVAC helicopter to inspect the assumed destruction of the mutually unloved encampment, but are stunned (horrified may be a better word) to find Castle standing in a field of mutilated and broken VC carcasses, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and apparently having suffered severe physical trauma, but remaining unaffected by it, eyes still red with fury.

In the next scene, Frank Castle returns home, a decorated officer on a crutch, to his waiting wife, Maria and children, and in the midst of the smiling return, the internal voice speaks again of the price of Castle's choice. We find now exactly what Castle's eternal war will cost him, as a picture details Castle's family in a Punisher Skullesque targeting reticule. Castle embraces his smiling wife and eager children, as the voice instructs him to "Hold on to it," implying that it will not last.