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The character is depicted as an Italian-American vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence, and torture in his campaign against crime. Driven by the deaths of his wife and two children, who were killed by the mob for witnessing a killing in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on crime using various weapons. His family's killers were the first to be slain. A war veteran and a U. S. Marine Corps Scout/Sniper in Force Recon, Castle is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, guerrilla warfare, and marksmanship. He is well known by his skull motif on his chest, originally envisioned by his creators as a skull-and-crossbones symbol on his right breast.

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