First Blood: Rambo in film and novels

[TheWastelander]

There are parallels between John Rambo and the character of The Punisher from the comics. Both are men who have don't fully exist outside a confrontation, and both are driven to put themselves in harm's way in order to protect others, with it never being clear if it is motivated by altruism, or a death wish.

The Punisher existed before the first Rambo film, but only in outline. The trauma of Vietnam was woven into his back story in the years following First Blood, and there's no great stretch to say that they drew inspiration from the damaged heroes of that time.

I liked one scene in Marvel Civil War, which featured a meeting between Captain America and the Punisher. Somebody observed about them: same man, different war.

There was actually a What If? comic where Punisher became Captain America.

 

[hewey]

The only part of Rambo IV that remotely resembled the excesses of III was a single claymore going off like a miniature nuke and flattening a huge swathe of forest.

Somehow, watching Rambo using the mounted gun to turn wave after wave of attackers into bloody pulp was not excessive and gratuitous in the same way.

If I remember correctly, didn't Rambo place the claymore onto an old British Tallboy bomb? Those bombs weighed like 12000 pounds and were pretty devastating in WW2.