Jigsaw (Marvel Comics)
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- This article is about the Marvel Comics character. For other uses, see Jigsaw (disambiguation).
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Jigsaw is a fictional Marvel Comics villain and archenemy of The Punisher. Created by Len Wein and Ross Andru, he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #162 (Nov. 1976).
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Billy Russo was a brutal assassin for the Maggia crime family, nicknamed "the Beaut" because of his good looks. He was also a favorite assassin for the Costa crime family. After the execution-style killings that inadvertenty led to the deaths of Frank Castle's family, Russo was hired by Bruno Costa to assassinate another assassin who had failed to kill Frank Castle as well. Russo killed all of his targets but Castle, who narrowly avoided death in an explosion. Hours later, Castle returned and tracked down Russo to one of the Maggia's nightclubs. Several criminals were killed, and Russo was thrown through a glass pane head-first. He survived with his face torn to shreds; surgeons stitched it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Taking advantage of his now hideous visage, the formerly handsome gangster took on the identity of Jigsaw, and initially attempted to frame the Punisher for murder. However, the plan failed due to the intervention of Spider-Man and Nightcrawler; Spider-Man witnessed one of Jigsaw's murders and one of his victims was an old friend of Nightcrawler's.
In the first Punisher miniseries, Jigsaw is revealed to have been behind a plan to drug the Punisher, causing his enemy to behave erratically and attack ANY criminals, even for things as minor as littering. The Punisher confronts him and beats him, and later, stops Jigsaw from escaping in a prison riot. Later on in the series, Jigsaw is shown to be one of the criminals brainwashed by the Trust into serving as a member of a Punisher-styled assassination squad. He manages to remember who he was after encountering Castle once again, and attacks the Punisher, but is once again beaten.
Jigsaw has been a persistent foe of the Punisher's for years. While he still works as an assassin for criminal organizations, his pursuit of the Punisher is relentless, as Jigsaw sees Castle's assassination as an unfinished job. The deranged gangster's vendetta once took a bizarre turn when the Punisher faked his death by appearing to be executed in prison. Furious with rage, Jigsaw briefly became a new Punisher, getting revenge on Castle's apparent killers for denying him the kill he believes to be rightfully his.
In Jigsaw's mid-2000s appearances, he was one of many villains trying to break out of the Raft, a floating prison for supervillains and other high-risk criminals. Jigsaw was among those who were stopped by the New Avengers and presumably returned to confinement.
Jigsaw is unique in that he is one of the Punisher's few recurring foes, as the Punisher tends to use lethal force on his adversaries. Why Jigsaw is continually spared and imprisoned is unknown; this seems to be due to the fact that Jigsaw is the most notable Punisher villain who is more of a traditional comic book character, instead of the more naturalistically portrayed villains the Punisher usually faces.
[edit] Elseworlds
Jigsaw appeared in both Elseworlds Batman/Punisher crossover books. In the first, Jigsaw allies with the Joker and they both fight Punisher and 'Batman' (Really Azrael during the KnightFall saga). In the second crossover, Jigsaw returns to Gotham City and allies with Joker once again, undergoing facial reconstruction surgery. His facial restoration is relatively short, however, as Punisher disfigures him once more with a fragmentation grenade (notable is that Jigsaw's character is closer to that of Two-Face, though likely paired with Joker instead to avoid such comparisons).
[edit] Other media
A character based upon Jigsaw also appeared in the 2005 Punisher video game, but with an origin that ties directly into the 2004 Punisher film.
In this version, Jigsaw is John Saint, the son of Howard Saint, the film's primary antagonist and the man responsible for the death of Frank Castle's family. The explosion at the end of the film does not kill him, but, similarly to Marvel Comics' Jigsaw, sends him through a window, disfiguring his face. Using the name Jigsaw, he takes up his father's old business, vowing revenge on the Punisher. He is the final boss of the game.
In 2005, Marvel CEO Avi Arad confirmed that Jigsaw will be the primary villain in the upcoming sequel to the 2004 Punisher movie[1].
In 2006, Jigsaw was announced as one of the figures in the second wave of the Marvel Legends Face Off series. He is paired with the Punisher, and come in two versions, a business suit and a Punisher costume. The two-pack was released in December, 2006. [2]
