Punisher’s Just Unlocked The Ultimate Anti-Healing Factor Weapon
Published Sep 9, 2026, 7:36 PM EDT
Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot.
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Amidst literal Armageddon in Earth-616, Frank Castle’s Punisher and Wade Wilson’s Deadpool are going toe-to-toe—or rather, the Terrifying Embodiment of the Second Amendment is executing the Regeneratin’ Degenerate, repeatedly and gruesomely. So far, Marvel Comics’ “Big Guns” crossover event between Wade Wilson: Deadpool and The Punisher hasn’t been much of a fight at all, and Punisher and Deadpool awkwardly haven’t actually said a word to each other or interacted with one another, aside from Punisher shooting Deadpool and leaving him handcuffed to a pipe.
Seemingly unable to resist, Punisher has torn Deadpool to shreds of gummy tissue and literally blown his brains out, knowing full well that it’ll spawn Badpools (a new recurring enemy in Benjamin Percy’s Wade Wilson: Deadpool, courtesy of Deadpool’s pesky healing factor). Punisher doesn’t make a meal out of killing Deadpool the second time, though, and only shoots him in the head in order to retrieve the navigational holo computer HUD and comms earpiece that Deadpool was using to talk to Blind Al. With it, Punisher locates a weapon that could be immensely overpowered.
In Wade Wilson: Deadpool #8, Deadpool and Blind Al’s first assignment in the Merc Mobile is to break into a “decommissioned S.H.I.E.L.D. vault” as “outsiders hired to test S.H.I.E.L.D.’s competence and security” to steal “a gun.” It’s unknown if Blind Al knows what kind of gun it is, or if she simply understands the magnitude of the situation, given that it is locked away in a subterranean vault, but she doesn’t have a clear answer to give Deadpool when he asks.
In The Punisher #8, Blind Al is somehow able to capture Punisher before he can annihilate Deadpool further with a fragmentation hand grenade. It’s implied that he sympathizes with Blind Al and had let her subdue him, however, when Punisher learns from her that there’s a gun stashed away in the vault, sneakily frees himself from his binds, and leaves the Merc Mobile without harming or being detected by her (she’s blind, after all).
Punisher eventually uses a Level 5 S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance card to access this gun, which is, in the words of a Nick Fury hologram, a “time gun” that is “capable of firing shots through history.” Meanwhile, a horde of tiny, naked Badpool chicharróns find Punisher’s War Machine armor.
How this gun will be used is anyone’s guess. It’s highly unlikely that Punisher will shoot Deadpool in the past, killing both Deadpool and any trace of the Badpools that would ever blight the world, as his book would cease to go on (or be a book at all, technically, assuming Punisher tries to kill Deadpool in the past in order to erase his present self from existence).
Still, it’s a formidable weapon that could hypothetically kill someone who possesses a regenerative healing factor by either shooting them before they ever had a healing factor, or shooting them across time and vanquishing any trace of them. “Big Guns” continues in the event’s penultimate chapter, Wade Wilson: Deadpool #9:
PUNISHER and DEADPOOL are hunting the same weapon as BLACK HOLE... but what good’s a gun without the greatest marksman of all time to aim it? Sounds like a job for BULLSEYE!
Then, the solicitation for the finale, The Punisher #9, reads as follows:
BLACK HOLE pulls DEADPOOL and PUNISHER into his deadly trap, as the BADPOOLS and BULLSEYE make their own plays! The chaotic climax to the wildest crossover of the year concludes with a dramatic addition to FRANK CASTLE’s plans going forward (as well as WADE’s fortunes!) A can’t-miss issue for readers of PUNISHER or WADE WILSON: DEADPOOL!
The Punisher #8 is out now.
Video Game(s) The Punisher (1990), The Punisher: The Ultimate Payback!, The Punisher (1993), The Punisher, The Punisher: No Mercy
Created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr., Ross Andru
The Punisher franchise follows Frank Castle, a former Marine turned vigilante after the murder of his family. Operating outside the law, Castle wages a one-man war on crime using lethal methods and military tactics. Known for its gritty realism and moral ambiguity, the franchise spans comics, films, television series, and video games, making The Punisher one of Marvel’s most enduring antiheroes.
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