Am I understanding Jason Aaron's Punisher?
Call me functionally illiterate or unable to read, but I am struggling to understand Frank Castle in Jason Aaron's Punisher MAX.
From what I've read online, what I went in assuming, and what I initially thought about this version of the punisher, was that he was someone who didn't care about his family and who just loved killing, his family's death just provided a justification. From that description Frank is fairly one note and psychopathic.
While I definitely agree Frank is absolutely deranged and cold as ever in this book, issue 16 and issue 21 don't seem to fit in with this completely psychopathic version of Frank. While Frank clearly wants to leave his family and wants an endless war to wage and kill, he still cared about his family to an extent.
If he was just a pure psychopath, then why wish to die alongside his family? He got what he wanted, no family to hold him back, so why wish to die when you have the chance for everything you've always wanted? The answer seems more complex to this to me.
I gather that he did actually care about his family. That love made him try to be normal, but it ultimately wasn't enough, so he decided to leave them. He ended up getting what he wanted, but not the way he wanted it. I do think he enjoys his war to an extent, but its tainted. From the panels posted, it seems more like he realized what he had too late and regrets his desire. He can't get the full enjoyment out of it because of guilt, self hatred, and regret. I mean, the last panel pictured above seems to indicate pretty explicitly state that this is a form of punishment for himself (which might seem like it contradicts the fact that he enjoys it, but humans are complex and contradictory emotions are normal),
Definitely a monster, but still a human monster, and not a psychopath.
But like I said though, I'm not entirely sure if I'm reading it the right way. I think there's evidence in the rest of the run to suggest otherwise, and I could just be trying to force a more sympathetic light on him, so I want to see what everyone else thinks.