'Punisher': Through the years

Building an arsenal

The Crime: With superhero comic books still aimed largely at kids, the Punisher was set loose in Marvel Preview #2, a magazine for older readers that revealed the tragic deaths of his wife and children at the hands of the mob as the motivation for his war on crime.

The Punishment: The magazines never quite gelled for Marvel, but the Punisher returned to the comics with a little more edge. His next appearances revealed his first and greatest villain, Jigsaw, as a mobster whose face was reconstructed after the Punisher threw him through a plate-glass window.