Everyone Has A Limit

Reading The Punisher #51 last week, it was interesting to see the response of the cross-eyed police Captain, Hoefker {That name sounds dirty, doesn't it?}, to Frank's request to let him go. The reaction was a violent opposition to the suggestion, punctuated with lots of profanity. Because it's Garth Ennis, that's why. And really, it's about the reaction you'd expect if a person with Frank Castle's body count asks the police to let him go.

But it seems in stark contrast to the reaction cops have usually had to Castle and his activities through the series. The refrain you hear most often is that the cops love the Punisher because he makes their lives easier. I guess there's less paperwork for "victim terminated by shotgun blast to the face" than if they were simply left webbed to a light pole, and the cops have to figure out what they did to merit that.

Of course, the cops have had a task force after Castle since the Slavers arc, but I figured that was going to be sort of a joke, like the "task force" consisting of Detective Soap in the Marvel Knights Punisher series. You know, the cops put on a show of going after him, but they aren't really all that interested in bringing Castle in. Apparently, I was wrong. Of course, we haven't heard the task force mentioned since early in the Barracuda arc, so maybe I'm not wrong.

Then again, the characters who most often talk about the cops not being interested in stopping Castle are the criminals he's pursuing, so things probably look very different from their perspective, being the hunted. I'd imagine every moment the Punisher is out there, is another moment he could show up and kill them, so that would tend to increase one's dissatisfaction with the police.