In this review of Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3, undercover agent Everett Ross takes a big gamble in rescuing and deprogramming the zombified Frank Castle from the clutches of a powerful drug kingpin, but the danger only increases because Ross doesn’t know who he can trust, including Castle.
MARVEL KNIGHTS: PUNISHER #3
Writer: JIMMY PALMIOTTI
Art and Main Cover: DAN PANOSIAN
Variant Covers: Rod Reis, Yasmine Putri
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: December 10, 2025
This review contains spoilers
Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3 begins with a flashback to five years before “The World To Come”, where crime lord Armando Molerro takes his pet zombie Frank Castle out for a stroll (and to blow up a group of activists protesting Molerro’s takeover of their city). Molerro takes cruel pleasure in executing one of the survivors himself while allowing the sole surviving (and defiant) activist to live to tell the story of what happened there.
Cut to the present where FBI agent Everett K. Ross stands face-to-face with a grizzled individual who he realizes is the (still) zombified Frank Castle, and finally understands why the notorious Punisher had suddenly dropped off the grid years ago. Ross is confronted by Maria the cook (who turns out to be a Mexican undercover agent). The pair grudgingly agree to trust each other and extract Castle.
Soon after, Maria and Ross get Castle to a waiting vehicle, but Ross regretfully must use more of the narcotic Z to get Castle to follow his commands. Later Ross and Castle arrive at a remote safe house where Ross begins the arduous task of deprogramming Castle. Meanwhile, Castle’s catatonic mind he relives the fateful event that killed his family and turned him into the Punisher, only this time the killer is the zombified Punisher.
One week later, as Castle begins to remember, he realizes all of the violence he visited on innocents at Molerro’s command. Castle tries to kill himself, but Ross intervenes. Later still, Ross convinces the hospitalized Castle that Molerro is the monster and that Frank could atone by helping to take down Molerro. Ross checks in with his handler Agent K and lets slip about Maria.
Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3 ends with the duplicitous Agent K calling Molerro to inform on Maria, while Frank Castle dons his skull shirt and arms himself, the left side of his face now visibly scarred from his gunshot wound.
Analysis
Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3 finally give Frank Castle something to do beyond mindless killing. Everett Ross shoulders the bulk of the focus (again) as one of the few sympathetic characters in this dark crime saga. Maria also comes off as likable, and a pragmatic and dedicated agent of the state, although there is some confusion as to the nature of her relationship to her husband (who was brutally assaulted by Castle last issue).
Ross comes off as earnest and eager to please, sort of a cross between a boy scout and a golden retriever puppy, and his inexperience shows when he lets slip to Agent K that he had help from Molerro’s cook. As vile and unrepentant a character as Molerro is, Agent K is even worse, betraying her oath and her operatives to her connection with Molerro.
Molerro’s savage cruelty is on full display throughout Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3, (even against his most loyal employees), while his wife Fernanda gets much less focus from the previous two issues. Frank Castle has become his own worst nightmare (and has the altered flashback to prove it), a Punisher under the influence of the worst humanity has to offer. Now that Castle is free from Molerro’s corruptive influence (thanks to Ross and Maria) his one man war on crime is back on and scarier than ever.
Writer Jimmy Palmiotti takes full advantage of the Marvel Knights line’s darker tone, going all-in on the physical and psychological damage wreaked by Molerro upon any unlucky enough to cross his path. Also, is it just a coincidence that artist Dan Panosian’s new facial scar design for Castle has more than a passing resemblance to DC’s Jonah Hex (who was previously co-written by Palmiotti? Just asking).
Dan Panosian continues utilizing his gritty art style to great effect, from the inherent graphic violence, to Castle’s amplified trauma, rage and loss, from Ross’ reckless overconfidence to that unsettlingly humorous “talk like a duck” sequence. Panosian’s art oozes raw emotional suffering and seething intensity on every page as if Molerro’s darkness has infected the entire world around him.
Final Thoughts
Marvel Knights: The Punisher #3 is a solid crime thriller with gorgeous art that moves the plot forward while bringing Frank Castle back as an actual functioning character, one even more scarred than before (both inside and out). The story is uncompromising in its cruelty, brutality and corruption, but the flawed and likable Everett Ross adds a sense of humanity and hope.
