The fictional Pittsfield, Massachusetts, native Mack Bolan first appeared in Don Pendleton’s 1969 novel The Executioner #1: War Against the Mafia. A self-righteous vigilante (“I am not their judge. I am their judgment”), the by-now-lesser-known Bolan was the inspiration for the popular Marvel Comics antihero Frank Castle, also called the Punisher, who made his debut in 1974’s The Amazing Spider-Man #129 and who has been played by Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane, and Ray Stevenson in three movies and by Jon Bernthal in a recent Netflix television series. (Season one, episode one: Castle is reading Moby-Dick.)
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