Shocker: Legit discussion

[classicdrogn]

RE Spidey having fought a loot mor ethan "the same 25 guys" - from the fact that he's Marvel's ambassador and always shows up in the first issue of any new book, and therefore should have some knowledge and a loose contact-other-goodguys-if-something's-really-big relationship with EVERYONE in the frikkin' world, or at least the US, I kind of get the impression that most of his big-league fights don't get a lot of publicity - if someone wasn't there when he was part of the scrum with Thanos or the Hulk or Galactus or whoever, then they don't know. I think Herman might have a higher opinion of the numerous times Spidey's gone against the symbiotes if his own shtick wasn't vibration-based, someone with a weakness to sonics is an even more one-sided match than a guy with a metal skeleton - and he's got to at least know about Carnage, ol' bloody-red isn't exactly concerned with a low profile. As for Felicia not calling him on the less accurate parts of his rant... I got nuthin', except that it might have to do with the whole married-someone-else thing, thoguh to be fair to him when he asked her she didn't wat him without the masks, civilian Peter Parker was too dull for her.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Norgarth]

hey ClassicDrogn, you were looking for pics of Shocker without his mask, right?
Try finding New Thunderbolts #'s 7 and 8. There are a panel or two of him in civies in #7 and a few more of him in #8 (in costume minus the mask)
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[classicdrogn]

.... WOOHOO! Thanks, Timote! As it happens, I have those in a big box o' comics I got from my nephew, who is now "too cool" for superheroes, and just hadn't gotten to looking at them in the getting-ready-to-move hurry.
I expect to be gone by the 15th, and the Adelphia acount that hosts mos tof the stuff I've ever put online is only paid to the 21st - there's no broadband access where I'm going, so it won't be kept up.
- CD
ETA: I saw the splash of Namor at the end of New TBolts 8, and 9immediately said "That's Namor? He doesn't look NEARLY as gay as he used to." I'm not sure what this reactin says about me... probably that I've been spending too much time rwading scans_daily where the slash subtext is paraded as often as the crack I seek.SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Sirrocco]

complete sidebar: where do I find this "Spying no jutsu" from you sig, and is it any good?

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Do not touch the badmojo with your soul. It will not come off with soap and water.

[classicdrogn]

It was in one of the reccomendation threds - I think the most recent - and to be fair, that line is form one of the omake. The rest of teh story is still cracky, but not quite that cracky... and yeah, I'd say it's pretty good. Just.... smile and nod at the opening premise, and let it have some time to gain momentum. It is of the sweet sweet crack.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Necratoid]

Anyway, Shocker is not thinking totally straight and he has been in prison a lot. Also, I doubt he has done more than read about the stuff in the main papers about Spiderman's fights. That and street talk about fights from random criminals and such in bars. I have a feeling that he'll end up getting a visit from Peter Parker after he heals up enough and he sees the record of his blow up in the cell. I mean Shocker is having one of those time periods where he has life threatening situations pop up in the 'and-then-and-then-and-then' format.
He probably won't be best of friends with Spiderman... but at this point Peter is probably more concerned with what the hell happened that anything else. All he seems to know is that he showed up to help out an ally in retrieving allies and got jumped then after a fight he didn't quite understand the point of. Though the eye gouge of Omega Red thing may put him off due to Peter's resent eye loss situation mentioned in the Author's notes. The bawling after doing it thing with probably get to him also.
I'm also half expecting Galactis (or his scout) to make a fly by after the summoning thing and somehow end up fighting Shocker. Somehow a planet eater standing around New York asking someone to explain why he ended up here again and what the hell is that yellow/brown guy beating up his scout, amuses me greatly.
That and at this point expecting the whole thing to be relayed from inside his cell at a loony bin for posterity. Herman has a hell of a case for stress based insanity at this point... and its really hard for someone to argue with his most recent escape as Wolverine jumped him in his cell in the middle of a conversation.
Also, I agree that having a weapon that can maul almost all major regenerators or symbiant is giving him a rather warped perspective.

[deadpan29]

O.K. Let's look at this rant in some detail. (It's going to be a long post)

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Do you know, do you know how much time I used to take to plan heists? Days! Weeks! Do you know how much effort, how much fucking WORK would go into making sure I could minimize casualties, minimize property damage, maximize profit, plan a safe escape route, make sure everyone got a fair cut so there wouldnt be any backstabbing, the organization, the fucking hours upon hours of mapping and strategizing every possible scenario? And then THWIP THWIP THWIP, JOKE JOKE JOKE, its over!

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This doesn't justify Herman breaking the law and robbing banks, but the story does point out the differences between criminal supervillans and psycho supervillains. Herman is mostly in the former category, but he has issues, as will be seen below.
And as for his attitudes, imagine that you pour your heart into your life's work, and every few months a person comes by to wreck it all and make fun of you at the same time. That Herman sees Peter as some sort of demon in human form isn't that surprising.

---

Its over and Im in prison, do you know what happens in PRISON, real PRISON Felicia? Im not a meta, I dont get my own special cell; you get BEATEN in prison, you get STABBED in prison, you get RAPED in prison, and every second of it youre hearing his fucking jokes in your head!

---

One of the big issues that Herman has is he doesn't deal well with people laughing at him. As a life-long nerd, I can relate to the scars that ridicule can leave.
This also indicates some of his blind-spots, and he has a lot of them. One spot is that he is a criminal and by society's rules he should go to jail. It's something that he knows on one level, but doesn't accept on another.

---

And how did he do it? How did he beat me? Is he smarter than me? No, no hes not fucking smarter, or more clever; he didnt fucking plan, or put forth any real effort. Hes just STRONGER. FASTER. And he KNOWS IT, and thats why he does it.

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Herman is underestimating Peter's inteligence here, but then he doesn't really know Peter. That is important, because much of this is Herman's projections onto Peter than Peter's actual motivations. This rant shows the world from Herman's P.O.V, not necessarily reality. Peter beats him up and makes fun of him. Therefore, Peter is a bully just like any other bully who beats people up while mocking them, as shown in the following:

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Do you think for a moment, for even a fucking moment that creep would take on a foe he wasnt sure that he could beat? I dont think he would; hes leave it to the Avengers, or Dare-Devil; theyre the ones who handle the REAL challenges. You know why hes always fighting the same fifteen or so guys? Because he KNOWS he can take them down, because he KNOWS hell be able to crack at least one joke at their expense. You think he ever tries to, to TALK to these people? You think he ever tried to TALK to Aleksei? No, and you know why? Because hes a fucking BULLY.

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I already covered the bully view. This is the point at which Herman shows he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. We know Peter takes on any threat and he doesn't just fight people he knows he can beat. We know his jokes are to cover his fear. We know he fights real chalenges and Herman seems to have conveniently skipped over the fact that Peter is now part of the Avengers who "handle the REAL challenges". We know that Peter fights the same bunch of guys over and over because, like Herman, those villains are obsessed wtih Peter and they come gunning for him, or they have some connection to Peter's civilian life. We also know that every established hero has a set of badguys like this.
Herman, however, is very insightful in some ways and very blind in others. This is a large part of what makes him an interesting character in all of this. He can unravel the grand conspiracies of the world and fundamental vibrational forces of the universe, but the tangled mess that is his life and the other mess that is in his head are largely beyond him.
Spiderman has become his primary nemesis in life, and Herman is projecting aspects of other enemies on to Peter as follows:

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Thats all he is, another fucking BULLY, like my father, like The Kingpin, another asshole with fucking low self esteem and an attitude problem; if you think he does this shit for anybody but himself, youre wrong, he does it out of, there must be some kind of, some kind of trigger, some kind of event that made him feel like a bad guy, or a victim, maybe he was a nerd in high school, maybe something worse, but it fucked his head up FOR LIFE.

---

Again, he's being insighful and blind at the same time. Herman has a lock on some of the reasons behind Peter's actions, but not all of them.

---

So now he feels this need to melodramatically martyr himself at the expense of others; all the tragedies in his life that he moans about on the rare occasions that we, his clowns, his victims, challenge what hes doing, that Gwen Stacey woman Norman Osborn killed, every single one of them are HIS FAULT. And he knows it, and oh, he cries about it, but he doesnt care, not really, because he keeps putting on the mask, keeps cracking jokes. You honestly think with all the Super-Heroes in New York we couldnt live without Spiderman? WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

---

Herman is missing at leas two key things here. One, that what messed up Peter's life is his own inaction, so he is now unable to stand aside. Two, no body sees themselve's as the bad guy and everyone thinks their actions are justified, so Herman keeps losing sight of the fact that he and the people he goes drinking with are THE BAD GUYS here.

---

What do you think hed do, Felicia, if he knew what we knew? That the accident was all planned, that NONE of it was fucking destiny, that it was all my father and some other jack-ass generals trying to build an army to kill Galactus with? What then? Hed fucking FALL APART, because he needs, he needs, HE NEEDS to believe hes the most important person in the world, that hes the main character, the protagonist! That hes the one who the audience loves-
The audience? Felicia says, raising her eyebrows.
IN LIFE, THERE IS ALWAYS AN AUDIENCE! I nearly scream. And at least when you fight Captain America, when you fight Dare-Devil, when you fight Iron Fist or Luke Cage or any of them, they treat you like an opponent, like a threat, and, if youre not being a fucking evil asshole, theyll even show you a little respect. They recognize the work, the fact that hey, maybe our lives arent a fucking cake-walk, that were not international celebrities with our own action figures, and that yeah, were people too. That Im a person too! Im not just that costume, that costume that took me three years to build and that he LAUGHS at, but that theres a person under there.

---

Again, all of this is from Herman's P.O.V., and again, he can handle being beaten up and sent to jail, but not being laughted at. Most of this is Herman projecting rather than Peter's motivations, but there is a grain of truth in there that Peter does sometimes become a bit cruel in his humor. Since the people he's making fun of are criminals in the act of commiting crimes, they are sort of asking for it as they are asking for a punch in the nose, but Herman can't handle the mockery as well as he handles the violence.
In my opinion, Herman's skewed P.O.V. is the most interesting aspect of the story. He sees some aspects of the world more clearly than almost anyone else, but completely misses other areas. He talks about people with amazing powers they don't use to their full advantage, but he has an intelect that impresses Reed Richards, invetions that Tony Stark drools over, and he uses them to rob banks. Herman is a very messed up person, and we are along for the ride from behind his eyes.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Ebony]

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In my opinion, Herman's skewed P.O.V. is the most interesting aspect of the story. He sees some aspects of the world more clearly than almost anyone else, but completely misses other areas. He talks about people with amazing powers they don't use to their full advantage, but he has an intelect that impresses Reed Richards, invetions that Tony Stark drools over, and he uses them to rob banks. Herman is a very messed up person, and we are along for the ride from behind his eyes.

---

This was pretty much the point I was trying to make, very briefly, in my original post over in in the fanfiction announcement topic. I will play devil's advocate for a moment and add that, despite my belief that Peter Parker's attitude is motivated more out of a sense of responsibility and compensation for fear, there are studies that show that adults who were bullied as children sometimes grow up to have bullying tendencies in their personalities. Peter's a pretty smart guy (he understands chemistry well enough to develop his own long-strong polymer and he did it in high school), and I think that he's self-aware enough to see that possibility, but it would make sense that there's a portion of his psyche that enjoys beating up guys who might have beaten him up prior to his becoming Spider-Man. However, the fact that he and Flash Thompson - the very person who bullied him in high school - have become very close friends seems indicative that he has control over that aspect. Although it might make for an interesting plot point for an encounter with the Controller or some other mind controlling villain.
Herman is, as the author has stated, a product of his upbringing. His father raised him to be "special," and I think his attitude about superbeings sort of fits into that. He holds himself apart from others. He may not look down on them, but almost every other super-crook is treated with either derision at the fact that they use their intellect to steal or fear of their psychoses, or some combination of both. There are exceptions, of course; he sees the Gibbon as a product of society's treatment of mutants and he pities the Rhino . Felicia is his feminine ideal, so she's above fault (notice how quickly he forgives her between the last two chapters). Throughout all this, he psychologically sets himself apart from everyone else as this "normal" guy, despite the clear evidence that he's not normal. It's this insistence in his "normalcy" that allows him to be "special" when surrounded by the other superbeings. I think, also, that this insistence of his being "just a thief" perpetuates his feelings of Spidey as a bully. He doesn't think of himself as being "dangerous" - after all, as he says, he's not like the other super-crooks; he's meticulous, careful, and tries not hurt innocents - but Spidey (and others; in recent comics, he was bagged by the Young Avengers) keeps arresting him, beating him up. He feels persecuted, can't see that it's his actions that are causing the "persecution," and blames Spidey for all the "bullying."
I'm still enjoying the ride. I wonder what the next confrontation between Spider-Man and the Shocker will be. I have a feeling that, given Spidey's intelligence and ability to adapt, it won't be a victory for Herman.Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Necratoid]

I could get a quote or 12 on this, but I'd like to point out that when he didn't know that Peter was Spiderman, Herman did like Peter... even if he thought he was a gay dance instructor. The second he heard this ID he berserked.... Peter Parker is Spiderman... Must destroy. RARG!!!
Considering that Rhino Berserked at the same time, I have to wonder if there was an outside influence involved here. Either conditioning or psionics for instance... I note that the two in the party that had been created by members of the global conspiracy flipped out here... the other two different. Though this may be a red herring effect. It was a calculated move to bring that up in the first place.

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Two, no body sees themselve's as the bad guy and everyone thinks their actions are justified, so Herman keeps losing sight of the fact that he and the people he goes drinking with are THE BAD GUYS here.

---

I'm not a fan of this line... its a generalization that isn't true. Some do realize it... many of those fail to care or embrace the fact they are evil. This usually makes them more dangerous. Just like people that 'know' they are 'good' can do very bad things in the name of good. Identity is a source of vast power.
Look at the Punisher... he is a soulless killing machine. Granted he targets criminals and psychos... but he is basically a villain/antihero and he is in the D&D vernacular Neutral Evil. He does evil for Evils sake. Mercilessly slaughtering people wholesale is evil by definition... A soulless killing machine is evil. He is a revenant. Revenge incarnate. As far as I know the only reason he is still alive is their is more evil to kill. The law is irrelevant. He is irrelevant except as an instrument of death. Strangely the Punisher is the same alignment as the Jiggly Butt Gang from Rave Master. Its the detail of what he does that make him interesting. The Punisher is arguably a Neutral Evil Paladin... Wrapping yor brain around that is an interesting mental exorcise.
If you remember this story started out with Shocker making his first kill... and he came full circle to the point that he could kill the one he most wanted to kill, Spiderman, he couldn't. Instead he broke down and cried.
I think one of the things I'd most like to see is Herman remembering his first thoughts about if this is being a hero... how does Spiderman put up with it?
Herman is interesting because of his faults... He only half knows what he is doing. If a different character went through the same encounters and was a different character the story may not be event close to as interesting... or more interesting. How one accomplishes something is often as or more interesting than what it was that one accomplished.

[Acyl]

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Again, all of this is from Herman's P.O.V., and again, he can handle being beaten up and sent to jail, but not being laughted at. Most of this is Herman projecting rather than Peter's motivations, but there is a grain of truth in there that Peter does sometimes become a bit cruel in his humor. Since the people he's making fun of are criminals in the act of commiting crimes, they are sort of asking for it as they are asking for a punch in the nose, but Herman can't handle the mockery as well as he handles the violence.

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I've got the TPB of a little mini-series, "The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man". Herman is the first guy we see in that comic - and I mean Herman, not the Shocker, since he spends almost the entire story out-of-costume. As it opens, he's in prison...and pretty much suffering from a nervous breakdown. Lost his edge, scared of death.
But...after that, he takes down two prison guards (with a mop, no less) and busts Boomerang out. He'd received instructions to do that from the Beetle, but he didn't have the nerve to go through with it...until those guards insulted him ("Herman Schultz, the shocking mop-jockey" ... "So I'm nothing, huh? Could a nothing pull off a caper like this?").
His final appearance in the series...is when he takes his leave from an ad-hoc villain team - after freezing up in their first real combat situation. He admits it, and quits - but he's got the misfortune to run into Spider-Man while trying to leave the city in a taxi. Spidey yanks him out, but Herman doesn't respond. ("Come on, at least threaten me or something. You're making this too easy!" He's---he's mocking me! I almost killed him any number of times...and he's mocking me...I've fallen so low...)
And then Herman completely snaps, throws off his classic-disguise trenchcoat - he's got his suit underneath...
...and yes, he kicked Spidey's ass.
-- Acyl

[Epsilon]

I guess I should post again, though my comment that started all this was more of a throw-away comment than anything else.
My problem is less with how Herman/Shocker views Spiderman and more with his relationship with Felicia. Specifically how she swallows his story whole cloth without once raising a word against him. This is despite the fact that she was around for one of the times Spidey lost his powers and STILL went out and fought villians that almost killed him repeatedly because its the right thing to do.
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Epsilon

[deadpan29]

I didn't see Felicia swallowing the story. She didn't produce counter arguments, but when someone kicks off with a rant like that, trying to argue about it logically isn't going to do any good until they calm down. She did call him crazy, which doesn't support the idea that she was convinced by his rant, but she also said she might be in love with him, which would make her less inclined to defend Peter even if she doesn't agree with Herman's assessment.
Mostly, I just think that there is too much going on around these two characters, between them, and internally for correcting Herman's misconceptions about Peter to be important at the moment.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Sirrocco]

Sidebar on the Punisher - I disagree. He is not Nuetral Evil - he does not do evil things for evil's sake, and he's not driven by selfish urges at all. He is, in his way, entirely selfless. Look at his parting words the last time he left our intrepid heroes. He does what he does because he feels like if he doesn't, the rising wave of crime will destroy everything good and precious in the world. He wants to keep the horror that happened to him from happening to others. He's rather like Batman, in his way - just without the same respect for the Law. I'd call him Nuetral Good, actually. He's a really warped form of Nuetral Good, but I think it's the closest the system has.

[VladimirTherin]

Actually, id call him lawfull good.
He has his own inflexible set of morals, they just bear only a vague similarity to society's as a whole.

[WengFook]

Lawful good? naaaaaaaaaah.
maybe chaotic good would be more in line with the Punisher_______________________________
We are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls. The fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. The horn that wakes the sleepers. The shield that guards the realms of men. -The Brothers Black
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Necratoid]

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He is not Nuetral Evil - he does not do evil things for evil's sake, and he's not driven by selfish urges at all. He is, in his way, entirely selfless.

---

So he is not doing things because that is the law (doing illegal things is what he does)... not doing things for himself. That would be the 'Neutral' part of 'Neutral Evil'. Removing the social axis (Lawful/Chaotic/Neutral) he can only be 3 alignments: Neutral good, True Neutral, or Neutral Evil.
So now for the ethical part of the axis. He has an agenda that isn't balance of all sides and he actually cares about things that don't really concern him (he makes them his concern)... so he isn't True Neutral. That only leaves Neutral Good or Neutral Evil.
The Punisher isn't out to die for his cause... he is out to make other people die for his cause... his cause is destroying evil, so it can't prey upon the general populous. That he does his evil only towards evil is irrelevant. The Punisher knows he is going to hell, he is just trying to speed up the trips of those that also deserve to go to hell. That is what makes the Punisher so scary... he has embraced his fate and his mission. He is a dead man walking in his own opinion... everyone can see his dead soulless eyes. The Punisher IS an avatar of his cause, the destruction of evil. The Punisher is a revenant with a living body and a dead soul. Revenge of the Innocent Victims incarnate.
Spiderman is Chaotic Good. He does good for society, even though he is bending a few laws like that one about vigilantism. Many super heroes are CG. Its one of the basic things that makes them Super Heroes in the first place. The Punisher is not Chaotic Good.
The only other alignment I can see is loosely Lawful Neutral (the law in this case the evil men should die for being that way) or Neutral Good.
Everyone has morals. Maybe not good morals. Maybe not understandable morals, but everyone has morals. If they match your personal morals or society's is totally irrelevant. Even the most psychotic and degenerate have a set of morals... even if its only 'What can I do for my own amusement today?' or 'Its rude to eat people you have a personal relationship with'. Having a set of morals is what having an alignment is in the first place... if your morals change too much you change alignments and suffer a personal crisis... you know like the Herman is throughout the story this thread refers to? That is why I brought alignment up... his unstableness is because his ethics and world view are changing.
The 'Shocker Legit' story starts off with Herman choosing to stop a rampaging Gamma mutant... and losing his car in the process. And killing for the first time. It spirals out from there.
I think that the reason that Herman can actually get The Punisher to laugh is he knows Herman is going through the same kind of thing that happened to him right before he was The Punisher. He works with Herman in part, because The Punisher recognizes what Herman is going through and it resonates with something inside him. This is why the Punisher is in the story... a parallel is drawn.
One thing I've found is that the 9 rank alignment system used in D&D is far more flexible that people give it credit for. For instance if your role-playing playing a character it should not be easy for others to tell your alignment from 5 minutes of play... I've known of campaigns that had a lawful good group with a chaotic evil leader... no one could really tell IC. The CE player yelled at everyone to follow orders and took first share of the treasure... which kept them in line and ended conflicts by the principle of if you can't decide its mine now... thus ending the conflict and giving the CE more stuff.

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He's a really warped form of Nuetral Good, but I think it's the closest the system has.

---

For The Punisher the choice is really between NG and NE. For me the 'soulless and dead eyes' thing is what puts the Punisher in the NE category. One of the things that games like Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2 have taught me is two characters of radically different alignments can end up doing the virtually same things as each other. Its the minor bits that change things.
Alignment is more about how things get accomplished than what gets accomplished. If the Punisher robbed the criminals and funded the poor I'd go with NG or CG... but in the end the Punisher kills people, he thinks deserve a good killing. Also evil is not a synonym for psychotic... that is a character trait thet is separate, but related to evil and good. The Punisher does things that result in good, through evil genocidal methods. He is the evil that consumes evil... as far as I know he doesn't do redemption. In the case of the story he 'interviews' Herman and decides he'd be better to leave on the trail of a great evil. That and the Shocker doesn't have a body count of random civilians.

[Vincent Ursus]

My understanding of the D&D alignment system is that a lawful alignment also represents personal discipline, and belief in an ordered approach to life. For someone like the Punisher, who see the law as failing to maintain order, a lawful alignment isn't entirely implausible.

[Sirrocco]

Hrm...
further thoughts on the alignment thing...
(Disclaimer: everything I know about the Punisher is at least second-hand)
Personally, I figure that alignment really comes down to two things - what you're willing to do to get what you want, and why you want what you want. under that, the Punisher's alignment is really dependant on subtleties in the author's take. If his real motivation is "That's not right, and I'm going to make it stop." and he makes a serious attempt to avoid hurting innocents along the way when possible, that's pretty clearly Good. If his real motivation is "You hurt me in a way that will never heal, and I'm going to make you suffer - you and everyone else like you, for as long as there is breath in my body to do it." and he thinks of innocent casualties as "Huh. That sucks. Oh, well." then that's pretty clearly Evil.

On the Shocker side (to drag this kicking and screaming back on topic) I'd say that he's a chaotic evil, suffering from alignment shock as he starts (maybe?) dragging himself up the pole to good. He's certainly never stopped being chaotic, and he does tend to backslide a fair amount, but he's been giving his few virtuous neurons a bit of a workout recently. Currently in the story, I'd call him chaotic nuetral with evil tendencies. (the remaining evil tendencies mostly being in his NO MERCY mode.)