10 Times Marvel Went Too Far

10. Turned Frank Castle Into Frankenstein'a Monster - Franken-Castle

Superhero secret identities are notoriously punny - this is nothing new. And while Frank Castle isn't really a play on anything like his earlier contemporaries, there came a time when they decided to capitalize on a pun that could be made out of his name. Thus, Franken-Castle was born. Dignity died shortly thereafter.

There have been many attempts to put The Punisher into a more fantastic setting so that they can keep writing him without having to, y'know, address the various problematic undertones of his entire character. Only one time has this actually worked - Cosmic Ghost Rider - while the other two times most certainly didn't. Franken-Castle was one of them.

This was Matt Fraction's attempt to reinvent The Punisher, having him be killed and then put back together again by a society of Moloids, turning him into a Frankenstein's monster. A "Franken-Castle" if you will.

Yeah... it lasted about one volume and was swiftly undone. Kinda shocked it even lasted that long, but Fraction's writing was juuuust good enough to hold up such an outlandish idea.

Cosmic Ghost Rider worked because of a lot of the caveats that came with the premise before broaching the same concept this comic does (CGR is an alternate Frank Castle, for one, and him being Ghost Rider works a lot better as a premise than this given his MANY sins), while this - though entertaining in a fun popcorn way - was just a dumb idea that fans, inevitably, did not warm to.