10 Times Marvel Went Too Far
4. The Punisher's Skull Is A Demon Sigil - Punisher: Purgatory
While Franken-Castle was a dumb idea, but good for some simple fun, Punisher: Purgatory - the attempted relaunch of the character before Garth Ennis came along to show Marvel how to ACTUALLY relaunch a character - was just flat out bad from top to bottom. And one of the dumbest parts of all of it was what they decided to change about Frank's origin.
Originally, Frank had made enemies of the wrong people, and they killed his family in retaliation. A horrific, tragic, and hauntingly grounded origin for this character and his dark corner of the Marvel universe.
And then Punisher Purgatory peeked its head out from behind a corner and said "okay but what if Satan?" So the story proceeded to reveal that it was actually the forces of Hell that killed his family as a long game ploy to get Frank to kill in their name, resulting in a tug-of-war match over his soul between Heaven and Hell.
Yeah, it was dumb. Really dumb. The Punisher's grounded nature when compared to the wackiness of the world he lives in is one of the biggest reasons people like this character. Take that away, all the way down to his origin, and the whole thing just falls apart.