There is one page of his second Punisher arc (which introduces a VERY creepy rendition of Bullseye) that is worth the price of admission alone. Friggin' great.

My first exposure to Frank was Captain America 241, so I'm not quite as old as you, but I'm not too far off. Back in the day, though, they used him sparingly and kept him to street-level heroes (DD, Cap, Spidey)moreso than in the 90s, which I think worked a lot better.

But, I have a question for ya. Does the Punisher character himself have to have fantastic elements, or do you simply want to see some stuff of that sort in the book? Hypothetically, let's say Frank gets healed by the Bloodstone to a point where he's got human or slightly above-human abilities, but assumes the old archetypical role of (Ulysses) Bloodstone and revises his role into hunting monsters, more of a 'supernatural' Punisher; the focus of the book is different, Frank's role is different, but Frank's power-set is more or less the same. Is that a direction you'd be interested in reading?

hmmm nice...steve dillon art too....i may have to go torrent this...what should i look for?

i'm a HUGE hawkeye fan and at the start of the whole dark reign thing i was (in a very sad geeky way) upset about the whole bullseye as hawkeye thing (now im more upset that the new figure is called bullseye not hawkeye :P ) but especially after reading the mini, im liking him more than ever

My question is, what the heck is Punisher doing hanging out with Spider-Man and the Heroes for Hire anyway? I assumed that Frank would be happy that Daredevil had finally killed bullseye, and they would have a bromantic moment where Matt said, "You were right, I should have done that a long time ago."
But instead, Punisher is allied with the other heroes against Daredevil. Here's the kicker; they're out to shut down Daredevil because he killed...Bullseye. That's right, he has a body count of 1. How many hundreds of people has the Punisher killed? He's the most prolific mass murderer in the marvel universe. It's like deciding to take down Saddam Hussein, so you bring in Hitler to help you do it.
And that is why I can't stand reading anything with Punisher in the Marvel universe. It does not make any sense. Every other vigilante in the Marvel universe has to be stopped by the heroes, but he gets a free pass.
Not that this is by any means the only problem I see with Shadowland, but really, wtf?

It's a moral thing.
DD shouldn't have killed anyone, so he needs to be brought in. DD was always considered to be of high moral character and wouldn't ever kill. The other heroes are shocked at his actions. Frank kills someone and it's just par for the course.

And the heroes have often tried to take Frank into custody. He always seems to get out. Same with most every villian the heroes bring in.

As for the Saddam - Hitler comparison, it's not that bad. Hitler killed innocents, Frank tries to avoid that.

But the point is that if they're trying to take Daredevil in for killing one psychopath, why would they ally with someone that's killed hundreds of people? By including the Punisher, they lose whatever moral high ground they could have claimed.

Yeah, but sometimes, it takes one to know one and what other hero would know how to take down a hero that kills then a hero who kills ???

Ok, to some people, Punny isn't a hero. But still, he's killed, DD has killed. They know each other well.

Besides, heroes, when present, almost always manage to stop Punny from killing. Except that time when he blew away a few bad guys right in front of a bunch of heroes during the Civil War event. How the heroes didn't see that one coming, I just don't know.

The civil war thing is exactly what I'm talking about here. In what conceivable way is Punisher any better than Daredevil? Frankly, all of the supposed heroes of this story come off like complete hypocrites.