The Punisher: 7 Essential Stories You Must Read

2. Punisher Noir

One of Marvel's more recent 'throw s**t at a wall and see what sticks' experiments, these 'Noir' spin-offs of some of your favourite characters had a few hits and a lot of misses. Luckily for us, Punisher Noir was definitely one of the hits.

Set in 1935 Manhattan, the majority of the story is told in flashback as we follow Frank Casteione Sr, a World War I veteran and widower trying to raise his son and run his own business. Refusing to bow to the pressure of a local crime boss to pay protection money, Sr is killed and it falls to Frank Jr to avenge his father's death.

It's fun seeing nods to several important Punisher characters such as Detective Soap, Jigsaw, Barracuda and The Russian and subverting the story in the way that it does is a bit of a shock. With this in mind we get a somewhat different Punisher to the one we're used to, for example he is not as restrained as the mainstream Punisher - accidentally killing a prostitute when trying to get to Barracuda, and contemplating murdering Detective Soap because he might get in the way.

The artwork is gritty and it's a pretty unforgiving story, showing a different kind of Punisher to the one we're used to, so for this reason it reads like a breath of fresh air.