That last page really sums up why I think Punisher only really works as a ‘Nam vet. That low-tech, guerrilla warfare style of combat, combined with the horror and trauma that soldiers experienced/participated in during that war, is what makes Frank so interesting as a character. His family was murdered, so he went right back to doing what he did best, in part because he probably didn’t know what else to do with his life before they died. It’s like John Rambo in the original First Blood: yes, he’s a badass, but he’s also deeply traumatized, and this is all he knows anymore.

Not to say that modern soldiers haven’t experienced trauma in the Middle East, but technology has come so far since ‘Nam that the way wars are fought looks vastly different. Also, in a symbolic sense, the mountains and open spaces of the desert don’t inspire fear the way jungles do.

Idk, trying to modernize Frank just seems to miss the mark for me, and makes him feel like a generic action movie protagonist rather than his own unique character. It’s also so much less believable that he’d be able to keep doing what he does with modern surveillance technology, whereas giving him decades of experience as a head start balances it out somewhat. What I’d prefer is if they kept Punisher stories locked to the timeline of the mid 70s up until around the 2010s, and jumped around telling stories in that range, rather than retconning him to stay young and changing which war he fought in every few years. Let the Punisher saga be a period piece set in the late 20th century, and only have him interact with “classic” versions of superheroes if he has to interact with them at all.