Well as a Resident of Newark, NJ,

I FIND THE TEXT ON THE RUSSIAN VERY OFFENSIVE

That's strange... I grew up in Newark, Ohio. I feel fine.

But he doesn't mean Newark, Ohio.

You obviously know where he means. You've watched the sopranos, right?.

It's a shame, really, everyplace in Jersey leads to Newark, and we had to have the $10K in a town WAAAAAYYY out in western jersey.

The bad stigma is ridiculous, even though it's not totally unfounded

Check out Cobra and Hyde as well, not only do their flavour texts refer to each other, but they have the same kind of art as DD and Punisher [with Cobra being above Mr. Hyde as they both leave the bank robbery].

Not sure, but it would be cool so see Hawk and Dove or Cobra and Hyde get the Punisher/DD treatment.

A bit more about his flavour.

One thing is, he can turn anything into a weapon ... so the 'cost' could be seen as him turning that plot twist or location into his stat improvement ... or something.

Also, I believe he's never been arrested despite the number of hits he's done [not sure, I don't follow those comics, but heard that from someone] so the boost to his defence could come from that.

EDIT:

Also, he can take down Blob and La Nuit [assuming no pumps from either side] and his 7-drop can take down Kalibak. So he can take down any same costed characteer, assumping pump 'parity' [i.e. every pump to defence is counterd by an equal pump to attack or reduction of defence.]