We couldn't really put together a list like this and not mention Frank Castle. The cold blooded killer and one-man war on crime has had any number of badass panels over his career - we were very, very tempted by the scene where he gleefully gets his hands on an assault rifle which fires knives - but in the end, we had to settle for his confrontation with another of the Marvel Universe's greatest assassins. Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, but what the Punisher does isn't particularly nice either, so it stands to reason the pair's paths would cross at some point. That point came during Garth Ennis's tenure as Punisher writer, which also featured issues where Frank "teamed up" with the likes of Spider-Man (read: he used the wall crawler as a human shield during a fight against the hugely strong - and well endowed - Russian), as the pair find themselves in pursuit of a common enemy. Rather than let the X-Man have all the fun, however, Frank decides to dispatch the pretty much indestructable Logan. Which he does by shooting his face off, shooting him in the crotch, and then running him over with a steamroller. Like a Looney Tunes cartoon, only with a lot more physical pain and less goofy music. The scenes of Frank blasting a shotgun shell at point blank range, tearing away Wolverine's skin to reveal his adamantium skull, are pretty badass. But nothing is cooler than the Punisher standing over a bulldozer, an iconic hero trapped underneath, and dusting off his hands. A job well done.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
