Is the Punisher a more effective crime fighter than Batman?

The punisher is mad dog with an axe to grind who only does it for his own satisfaction. If he really wanted to make the world a better place by erasing crime he should go after the big fish, not waste time killing minnows.

It depends on the setting, but Batman definitely gets points for organisation. His point isn't just to wipe out criminals, otherwise he's basically a messier Kira, but to provide a deterrent to crime. (and as Bruce Wayne, puts some effort towards dealing with the causes of crime, though with equally varying success)

Frank just leaves a power vacuum in his wake, Batman tries to dismantle criminal organisations completely.

He is and he isn't. Batman has been known to try and help those that break the law even to the point that it becomes a great hindrance to himself. Batman sees things in a manner that is very black and white, which is similar to Punisher. However, Punisher takes it to an extreme degree. The Punisher is far more rigid than Batman and will even kill those that are also fighting crime. He tried to kill Spiderman back in the 90s. The Punisher is better at fighting crime, but he's also a far greater danger to society than Batman.

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OK, show the comics where Frank hurts all these bystanders. I think you're sperging over your own headcanon.

True. Batman does have the resources and contacts to put an end to crime that Frank can't match. Frank can only really get away with taking out mooks, outcasts and those that aren't in the upper echelons of power without some backup.

In the Punisher movies, Frank only really went after the crime family that killed his family and he was careful not to piss off all of the others. In comparison, Batman went after every crime family in his movies and did it in a way that was able to make it permanent. That was the only reason they brought in the Joker.

Batman is also a master of disguise and Frank is not. Frank is really dependent on someone else for technical and financial work, while Batman can do it himself.

Something off about that gun. It looks like the artists can't decide if they wanted to draw a glock or M&P. So it's a weird hybrid pistol Leon uses in Resident evil 4. imfdb.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_4

Garth Ennius should just stick to edgy action comics and ditch too deep for you shit like Preacher and what Crossed later became. He best when writing one liners and villains you want to see die.

Ennis stopped writing Punisher MAX long before the Kingpin showed up in it. That was Jason Aaron's doing

Form what I hear Punisher max started to get shit under Ennis because he couldn't help but to do another Irish people are evil storyline.

Surprise Marvel didn't make kingpin black or a racist yet.

Well he was black in the Daredevil movie. Though thats one of the few times where the casting is good in spite of race change.

Reality wise, both would be very effective.

Criminals would fear the very idea of Batman, as a man who can't be killed (He's been shot, burned, caught in plane crashes, etc.). Legends would arise around the fact that no one could kill him. Even the mighty Bane failed. Small time criminals wouldn't fear him, but organized crime would almost cease to exist either from having their bones broken enough times to send a message, or out of outright fear.

Punisher is effective because he outright rids the world of the criminal element. Now this has some side affects, as a thief may not be stealing strictly to make money. Some are stealing to make money. So he's killing, largely, innocent men who are caught in rough patches or are trying to keep their family afloat.

In these regards, I think Batman would be largely welcomed by civil society, whereas the Punisher would be hunted, and eventually, killed.

If X is written to be better than Y, then yes. If not, then no.

Stop looking at it in such a meta view.

Punisher creates power vacuum
Batman keep the status quo

I think punisher is better since he discourage the petty criminals to go big. Losing limbs and die in an alley isn't something why you start to rob shit…

Kingpin has been black a lot of times. In the original Old Man Logan comic run Kingpin took over a large section and had people fight to death in a sports stadium. Daredevil and Punisher are feed to raptors to open the show.

But Irish people ARE evil I know, I am one.

Also a reminder Punisher would of taken care of the Joker a long time ago but Batman has to let the mass murdering terrorist run free…because?

His killed the fucking Kingpin himself. It gets no bigger than that in comic book crime world.

Haha.
Maybe when the joker gets his composure he can go on another massacre or something.

This sort of morality really annoys me. Remember Massacre from spiderman?

How that make Batman look closer than the Punisher? Batman not even giving a counter argument.

When it's a known fact that the Joker is going to escape for the nth time and murder everyone again and Batman doesn't kill him, he is putting his morals, or ego, above human lives.

That's why the Punisher is more effective, regardless of motivation.

Either way, these are comics, and Batman can't make the logical and righteous decision to kill the Joker because, you know, it's a comic book. The same way the Punisher will never actually "solve" the crime problem.

He killed MAX Kingpin. The one who's just a fat bastard. He never killed the real Kingpin, the 616 Kingpin who is improbably strong

That's pretty naive way to think about it. Organized crime would just organize more. They would get better at hiding their activities and operate from outside of Gotham, only sending just enough low level members to maintain operation but remain unnoticed.

That's sort of the point of Batman. To clean up Gotham. If the mob are so scared of Batman that they're moving out of Gotham, Batman's done his job.

Stilled killed A kingpin. Your argument is moot.

Not really. As I recall MAX Kingpin was much lower level

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Yes. He actually kills people.

Batman has a constant revolving door of villains with maybe 3 memorable new ones every 5 years.

That looks like max Payne gun

Well, let's put it this way, people like Punisher exist in real life and crime still exists. Batman doesn't exist in real life, so can't be evaluated.
Therefore, Punisher is realistically ineffective, but with very few superheroes and supervillains, Batman isn't effective nor is he ineffective.

Batman doesn't even really fight crime so much as he plays roundup for the local lunatic bin.

Please stop reading comics. You obviously aren't bright enough to understand basic story telling.

[citation needed]

This is a Kingpin that was cocky/dumb enough to leave the protection of his lair to personally oversee the killing of a mortally wounded Frank, but got locked out by his ex-wife when that went tits up. Granted, Frank still died, but that was after he put two in Fisk's dome.

Just looks like a Glock to me.

The sights look off too me.

Y'know, when Joker was literally just a crime clown, someone who pulled off wacky, clown-themed crimes.. Yeah. Whatever. Lock him up, let him escape, lock him up again.

As the years went on, he stopped being a clown and started being a painted up psychopath. No one in the DC universe is better off for having Joker around.

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Joker killed like five people in his first appearance alone. He was always, to some extent, a painted up psychopath

Earlier Joker killed, but he didn't slaughter people. He used to kill when it would be a funny joke, but now they act as if the act of killing itself is hilarious to him.

it wasn't always like that? isn't that the irony of the title "the killing joke"?

616 Kingpin was powerful enough to be able to send in fucking government agents to try and off Daredevil. This MAX Kingpin ran New York and got stabbed in the back by his fucking wife and her lesbian lover, and was scared to leave his house. The two aren't in the same league.

Plus he got assraped. 616 Kingpin would never get assraped

He even threw people from helicopters.

That's kinda where the whole 'World's Greatest Detective' deal comes in; Batman's got a while CSI lab in his basement, and lacks the red tape and corruption that hold back the police. And small time crooks do fear him; you never know if he's gonna be hunting mobsters, superpowered freaks, or purse snatchers any given night. (Very much on purpose)

Batman's whole deal specifically in the Nolan movies (where otherwise he's not really as competent as nearly another other depiction) is becoming more of a symbol for criminals to fear, something they can't hunt down, intimidate, bribe or hide from. They don't know how to deal with him; hence they're willing to turn to people like the Joker who do. (and there's a reason most Batman narratives tend to start with the costumed freaks gradually edging out traditional mob bosses)

The Punisher's approach varies about as much, though; I like the interpretations where he's more special forces, operating carefully and picking his targets, letting them turn on each other if possible, and essentially performing urban guerrilla warfare against them. Batman is similar on that note, but non-lethal.

(and the whole point of arresting criminals instead of killing them at least in theory makes they'll rat out other criminals and destabilise organised crime. Hell, that's why drug and RICO laws exist; used to be that mobsters would clam up while in custody so they'd end up spending a couple years in prison and go right back to the mob when paroled, but facing 10-20 years at least makes them far more likely to cooperate with authorities, and also the mob to try to eliminate arrested members, which makes them even less loyal… you get the idea)

Probably also should keep in mind that the Punisher does what he does usually because he's pretty much given up on the system and the law to punish criminals, while Batman actively works with non-crooked cops and drops off criminals to restore people's faith and trust in justice and the law.

You know I had this idea that takes place in the Spider girl universe of Mayday Parker where the original Punisher is dead so this group of war vets, people pissed off with crime take up the mantle and call themselves the Punishers. There are many Punisher cells across the nation killing criminals and corrupt cops. One story I had in mind took place in Chicago.

I blame Alan Moore.
Hell, even Alan Moore blames himself for the edgefest that Batman became

At least he admits it.

That really doesn't come across in Batman #1

Joker killed lots of people before Alan Moore came along. Just not people that Batman cared about

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Government officials who command military and paramilitary forces are completely different from individual vigilantes, user.

So if you give Punisher an official rank, subordinates and licence to kill to his heart's content… I can see how it would be different.

Mack Bolan, the guy Frank is ripped off from, eventually joined an organisation called Stony Man, and basically did the same thing he always did, just with a team and a paycheque.

Vigilanty justice eventually gives way to French Revolution-style systems, where if you are even suspected of being a criminal you lose your head. Could back fire way too quickly.

Batman works with the law (to a degree), where as the Punisher works well outside of it.

Not that version of him. The Thomas Jane movie was trash. So is this short. The real Punisher would have iced those bastards in less than 2 minutes. Dolph Lundgren will always be the definitive movie Punisher.

DDDaaaaaaaammmmmnnnn

Dolph Lundgren was shit. They should have got Stallone. Stallone in his prime, even now, would be a perfect movie Punisher.

Yeah cause those hundred year old comics from the days before anyone gave a shit about characterization and story and were just rags to sell to kids for a dime are so vital.

Of course The Joker would kill people, he's a crazy criminal, they ALL kill people. The difference is that today's Joker is like a slasher movie villain, hacking up people left and right and being a general psychotic sadist giggling Hannibal Lecter, instead of the kooky and gimmicky criminal genius who would steal shit in creative/asinine ways for the fun of it or just do general weird-ass bullshit like hijack every TV broadcast in Gotham to make them watch an awful talk show he set up, things like that.

There's simply a difference between the "Clown Prince of Crime" and "baby-eater."

It is when you're arguing what his early characterisation was you daft twat

did he ever expressed interest in a marvel movie?

I think he's going to be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Yep, he's playing a member of the Nova Corps.

Wasn't he going to play Dick Rider himself or was that Kurt Russell?

Either way, both are too old

Last I heard it just said he's an unspecified member of the Nova Corps, but I haven't read enough Nova to know if there's anyone relevant besides Rider.

Kurt Russell is playing Ego, though it looks to be in name only, since he's not a planet.

I heard that definitely one of them is going to be Rider. I remember because I said at the time that Rider's supposed to be a fucking teenager and they've got one or the other of these 70+ year old men to play him.

Hey, while we're on the topic of Joker-centric stories, has there ever been a stroy arc or one-off where the Joker becomes depressed, perhaps even suicidally so? Only thing I can think of is that one TAS episode where Joker thinks that Batman is dead.
I was thinking it might be an interesting idea, giving us some insight into a side of him we don't normally see, and also Batman's reaction to this.

There was 'The Demon Laughs' arc of Legends of the Dark Knight. Basically, Joker teams up with Ra's Al Ghul. Can't remember why but at some point he gets dunked in the Lazarus Pit and instead of making him temporarily insane, because he's already insane, it makes him temporarily sane and in that brief moment of sanity he has a break down over all the people he's killed.

Not quite what you're looking for, but Bizarro made a Joker clone who, since he's on Bizarro world, is instead the only sane person there, which makes him incredibly depressed and is constantly sad.

If you want something like that there's Going Sane, the Legends of the Dark Knight arc written by JM DeMatteis.
The Joker thinks he's killed Batman and comes to the realisation that he's achieved his ultimate goal and therefore the only thing to do would be to go sane. So he gets plastic surgery on his face and lives under the assumed name of Joseph Kerr. Meets a woman, falls in love with her but is still haunted by memories of being the Joker

That's pretty cool, but I was thinking more along the lines of him getting so down he can't even motivate himself to commit crime, maybe because he's tired of the whole charade, maybe he's just trading one form of mental illness for another. Maybe Harley Quinn is there and gets upset by this. Then Batman either just lets him be depressed because he's safer that way or rehabilitates him.

Those sound really good. I'll have to check those out after reading the flashpoint Batman stuff.

The Demon Laughs is still worth reading.
Maybe you want Joker by Brian Azzarello? It's not quite like that but what you said sort of reminded me of it.

Looked it up and it definitely sounds like it's worth a read.
To be honest, I was somewhat hoping what I was talking about didn't exist, because I'd quite like to write it someday. I'm not expecting to, mind you, I'm quite amateurish. Though, I'd love to see something like this done the way I think it should be done.

You know what they say, for every idea had, 7 other people are thinking about it.

I had the idea for a Joker story where Joker sets up a "Christmas With The Joker" type of long night of traps and situations that, at the end, would end up with Batman getting a pie to the face or something. Except Batman fails at saving a group of people from a death trap, and the Joker ends up becoming incredibly depressed and saddened over the fact that his joke got ruined.
This will never happen because modern writers think the Joker is only psychotic and laughing all the time Or angry

Noel was pretty good

Shit, that image reminds me the circus is closing down

Will look into

I just hope the new series is decent

Same

Punisher doesnt fight muggers
Batman does

not him but that's retarded
we're talking hypotheticals about who is better at dealing with crime and you're asking for proof in comic form of explosives huring people with collateral

This

I'm asking for where, in 40-odd years of Punisher fucking mobsters up, has it ever been shown that Frank is a fucking mad bomber who uses explosives indiscriminately, or even opens fire without regard for who is in the line of fire, or has ever knowingly endangered innocents in his vigilantism.
It's like saying Batman fucks Robin, or Peter Parker has a micropenis, or the Loud House is nonstop fucking incest, it's all in your fucking head unless you can show me in print.

woah there buddy calm down

It's canon that Frank never kills innocents, just like it's canon that Batman can do all the things he does. If you want to bring realism into this, no vigilante as prolific as either of them could operate for more than a year before either the criminals or the cops found him and shut him down.

If Bin Laden could kill as many people as he did for as long as he did, I don't think a 'real' Batman or Punisher would have too much difficulty evading criminals or the cops

If they had the backing of the CIA like OBL did, sure.

The CIA only trained him. And possibly gave him Stinger missiles, as was the style at the time.

Isn't it canon that he tried to kill Spider-man though?

He only did that because he was tricked into believing Spider-Man was a bad guy.

Right, he was evading the intelligence and military forces of the Western World throughout the 90s and the 00s all by himself.

You say this knowing he was being sheltered by the Pakistanis, right? I mean, his fucking compound was only a few miles away from Pakistan's equivalent of West Point and he was there for over ten years

Punisher is a 'boring' superhero. It's for people who no imagination who like Hollywood action films

There's only one I can think of where in one story he gets the number of a mobster and fucks with them and convinces the mobsters to fuck each other up but innocents get caught in the crossfire so he stops it and goes back to his normal way of killing criminals.

And we say Batman villains are unrealistic.

Bats confirmed democrat

That's what tipped you off? Not the fact he doesn't like guns?

He has no issues with legal weapons. He has issues with crime in Gotham.

DC has made a very overt effort to not make Batman political, because he could go either way.

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You know, when you use quotation marks like that, it means you're taking the word out of its usual context, so you're saying it's not actually boring. But then your next line reinforces the literal meaning. So I guess you're just misusing quotation marks, thinking they emphasise a word like bold, capitals, italics, or underlining do.
And anyway, boring is a purely subjective term, it would be correct to state that YOU personally, find the Punisher boring, but I suppose you want to add some sense of importance to your words beyond the opinion of one user, so you try to pass it off as an empirical statement.
So do you mean the character is boring, the stories he's in over the five decades and so many writers are boring, over many media, the games, cartoon appearances, movies, TV, everything?
It's not much of a review and a pretty meaningless statement taken by itself.
The misuse of quotation marks and the missing word "have" make me suspect that either English isn't your first language, relative youth or a learning disorder. The last two of which bring the qualification of your opinion into question.