Daredevil & Punisher's Best Team-Ups

Daredevil and the Punisher have never seen eye to eye. While Daredevil follows a strict moral code that forbids killing, the Punisher dedicated his life to waging a one-man war on crime that’s left scores of criminals dead. 

Since their first meeting, Daredevil and the Punisher have frequently clashed over their different approaches to justice. Many of their disagreements devolved into brutal brawls that turned them into bitter rivals, but Matt Murdock and Frank Castle have found common ground and worked together on several occasions, too.

Now, let’s take a closer look at some of Daredevil and the Punisher’s most memorable team-ups. While many of these encounters started or ended with a fight, these stories (available to read now on Marvel Unlimited) show how much these heroes have in common when they stop trying to beat each other up.

HOW DAREDEVIL MET THE PUNISHER

Daredevil and the Punisher met as they both investigated a drug dealer named Hogman, who used kids to do his dirty work, in DAREDEVIL (1964) #183 by Frank Miller and Frank Miller. When Daredevil tried to stop him from beating a low-level criminal to death, the Punisher fought back and immediately tried to team up with the Man Without Fear, who did not want to support a killer. 

After knocking Daredevil out with a tranquilizer, Frank Castle met the hero again as they stopped a boy from avenging his sister by killing Hogman. They fought over the dealer’s fate, with the Punisher intentionally missing Daredevil to try and call a truce, only to be shot by the hero. This encounter established the tense tone for Daredevil and Punisher’s relationship and their dramatically different approaches to justice.

THE BULLY

When poison started showing up in products distributed by the Zum Corporation, Daredevil and the Punisher clashed again in a story told across DAREDEVIL (1964) #257 by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr. and THE PUNISHER (1987) #10 by Mike Baron and Whilce Portacio. 

To get revenge for what he saw as his unjust firing, the musclebound Alfred Coppersmith laced Zum’s aspirin and mouthwash with cyanide. Just as Castle tracked the killer down and was about to throw him off a building, Daredevil stopped him, and the heroes got into a brief fight. 

Daredevil gained the upper hand, knocked out Coppersmith, and told Castle he was taking the criminal to the police. Although the Punisher remained unconvinced that the justice system would handle Coppersmith properly, he let Daredevil go without incident.

EYE FOR AN EYE

Despite their tense interactions, Daredevil saved the Punisher’s life when he was poisoned and left for dead in PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL (1988) #3 by Carl Potts and Jim Lee. As Frank Castle reminisced about his family at the park where they were killed, he met Jason Hunt, a young man whose father was killed in the same mob incident. 

As Jason tried to hunt down Hector Montoya, one of his father’s killers, the Punisher started his own investigation, which drew Daredevil’s attention. Although Castle brushed off the Man Without Fear, Daredevil found him in an alley after Hector dosed him with poison. As he lectured Castle, Daredevil hailed a cab and got him a ride home, where the Punisher slept off the poison.

THE MARVEL KNIGHTS

The heroes were not on the best terms after a particularly tense fight where the Punisher tried to force Daredevil to shoot him. But when an Asgardian villain named Ulik the Cave Troll began operating around New York’s criminal underworld, the Punisher alerted Daredevil to the threat in MARVEL KNIGHTS (2000) #1 by Chuck Dixon and Eduardo Barreto. 

Daredevil brought several street-level heroes together in a loose-knit group to deal with the Asgardian and rescue a missing Cloak. The Punisher worked alongside them at arm’s length, even as they tried to bring him in for his various killings. Once that group drifted apart, Daredevil and Black Widow teamed up with the Punisher to take down the Brothers Grace, who wanted to take over the city’s underworld, in MARVEL KNIGHTS (2002) #1 by John Figueroa and Alberto Ponticelli.

DAREDEVIL VS. PUNISHER: MEANS AND ENDS

After Wilson Fisk lost his title as the Kingpin of Crime, Daredevil and the Punisher quickly came to blows over the future of New York’s underworld in DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER (2005) #1 by David Lapham. As Hammerhead and the Jackal—two of Spider-Man’s old foes—tried to claim the Kingpin’s empire, the heroes clashed over Castle’s continuing use of lethal methods. 

However, Daredevil and the Punisher briefly worked together when Hammerhead unleashed Bushwacker, a mutant cyborg who can transform his arms into weapons like guns or flamethrowers. Daredevil saved Castle, and the Punisher rigged explosives around several of Hammerhead’s bases while the superhumans fought. Once Daredevil knocked Bushwacker out with his billy club, he and the Punisher went back to fighting each other until Castle was arrested.

DEVIL IN CELL BLOCK D 

Shortly after a newspaper revealed his secret identity, Daredevil was arrested and imprisoned. When Matt Murdock made headlines for getting in a prison fight with the Owl, Frank Castle intentionally got arrested again in DAREDEVIL (1998) #84 by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark. Castle joined Murdock in prison, where he told Daredevil he was acting too much like the Punisher and getting too aggressive. 

The heroes served their time alongside inmates like Wilson Fisk, Hammerhead, and Bullseye until a massive riot broke out. As Murdock, Fisk, and Bullseye defended themselves and the warden during the riot, Daredevil knocked his old rivals out. The Punisher helped Murdock escape incarceration and even made the lawyer look like his unwilling hostage to help clear his name.

THE OMEGA EFFECT

While the Punisher worked with a young vigilante named Rachel Cole-Alves, he teamed up with Daredevil and Spider-Man starting in AVENGING SPIDER-MAN (2011) #6 by Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, and Marco Checchetto. The heroes teamed up after the Man Without Fear stole the Omega Drive, a storage device built on unstable molecules from the scraps of a Fantastic Four uniform. The Omega Drive also contained the secrets of criminal groups like A.I.M., Hydra, and Black Spectre. 

After the Punisher and Spider-Man confronted Daredevil about the device, they used its information to locate several of the villainous groups’ bases and agreed to destroy it. Although Cloves-Alves briefly stole the drive, Daredevil ultimately got it back and returned it to Reed Richards with some help from the New Avengers. 

DAREDEVIL/PUNISHER: SEVENTH CIRCLE

As Daredevil trained a young vigilante called Blindspot, he had another tense encounter with the Punisher that turned into a team-up starting in DAREDEVIL/PUNISHER: SEVENTH CIRCLE (2016) #1 by Charles Soule, Szymon Kudranski, and Reilly Brown. After apprehending a criminal named Sergey Antonov, Murdock accompanied the mobster as he traveled to Texas for his trial. 

Although the Punisher tried to kill Antonov on the road, he and Daredevil teamed up to take on a Crimson Dynamo, who the Russian had hired to break him out. The heroes kept butting heads, but the Punisher ultimately let Daredevil take the criminal to his destination since he was sure Antonov would meet an early demise after his trial.

WORLD WAR FRANK

When Hydra and an imposter Captain America took over the United States in SECRET EMPIRE (2017), the Punisher was conscripted into working for the villainous group. Once Marvel’s heroes defeated Hydra, he wanted some serious payback. As he mowed through Hydra and its numerous agents, Daredevil and several other heroes tried to stop his murderous rampage. But after getting caught on a train together, the Punisher teamed up with Daredevil to take on multiple waves of the Hand’s ninjas in PUNISHER (2018) #3 by Matthew Rosenberg and Szymon Kudranski. 

Although Daredevil begged him to use less lethal force, the Punisher ignored him and insisted that this counted as a team-up. By manipulating his rival into surrendering to the police, Daredevil unwittingly sent Punisher directly into the hands of Hydra and the killer Jigsaw. 

DAREDEVIL: KNOW FEAR 

After Daredevil accidentally killed a man, Matt Murdock went through a serious crisis of faith. As the police arrested Daredevil, Punisher freed him in DAREDEVIL (2019) #3 by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto. The Punisher believed Daredevil had come to share his views on killing. However, Murdock insisted he had not and unsuccessfully tried to convince Castle to spare a criminal. 

When the Punisher kept pushing the point, Daredevil destroyed his underground base. Daredevil even stole his Punisher shirt and wore it to embrace his status as a killer before going on a rampage. This marked the last somewhat civil encounter between the two before the Punisher took over the Hand and Daredevil revived the Fist, the Hand’s ancient rivals.

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