A Man Named Frank

History

“I thought I could kill four men and it would end. It never ends. A lot more men have to die before I can make this right. A part of me knows it will never be right. I just have nowhere to go. And there’s nothing else for it. Nothing else but to stick to the trail I’ve cut for myself. To ride where the law doesn’t reach. And to punish all trespassers.”
–Frank

Frank served alongside Augustus and others in the 10th Cavalry under Pershing in the Spanish-American War. He was active in both Santiago and Cuba, and even met Teddy Roosevelt during one of his campaigns. After the war, he and his wife Maria and their two kids settled on a ranch in the New Mexico territory.

A quartet of criminals ransacked the ranch, assaulting and then killing Maria, killing the kids, and then attempting to force Frank to tell them where he kept his wealth. Frank remained tight-lipped as he stared at the men, memorizing their faces in case he lived. The leader of the group–his face shielded by a low hat brim and memorable only by his sweet tooth–thought to leave Frank with a painful death in the hot sun in the middle of nowhere, bound to a large wagon wheel. Kept alive by his desire for vengeance, Frank began the twenty mile trek to his nearest neighbor. He collapsed along the way, but was found by Father Domingo and a pair of nuns, who nursed him back to health. Seeing a skull-headed figure painted on a cave wall, Frank took that as his symbol. After burying his family, Frank dug out his remaining gold from his military career.

Frank stopped in Gallup and located his old ally Augustus, from whom he purchased an arsenal of weaponry. Frank learned the name of one of his family’s killers, Billy Simms, and located him in Denver. Frank killed Billy and his nine friends, and found on him a letter requesting gunhands for a cattleman’s association in Texas, signed “S.” Frank followed the lead to Angus MacCauley’s ranch and signed on as a gunhand. MacCauley instructed him not to discourage cattle rustlers, but rather to punish them.

Frank pursued this goal with vigor, but came no closer to locating the other three killers. Eventually, he learned that many of MacCauley’s cattle were being sent over to Mexico, and Frank investigated this. Among the men selling the cattle to the Mexicans, were two more of his family’s killers, along with Tuck Jurgenson, MacCauley’s right hand man. Frank sabotaged the trestle on a bridge the beef was being transported across. With the transport stopped, Frank picked up his two targets and dozens of others among those who fired back at him, but was forced to flee the large number of Mexican revolutionaries who came after him.

Frank returned to MacCauley’s ranch, where MacCauley revealed that he was allowing the Mexican sales to occur for the large profit he received. Jurgenson emerged and held Frank at gunpoint. When Tuck asked MacCauley for rock candy in his whiskey, Frank glanced over and saw his wife’s crucifix around Tuck’s neck, marking him as Frank’s final target. The sudden, violent arrival of the Mexican revolutionaries provided a distraction that allowed Frank to slip away. After weeding his way through the revolutionaries, Frank doubled back and confronted Tuck, who had had his gun hand injured in the preceding struggle. When questioned, Tuck revealed that his signed “S” stood for “Swede” a nickname from Billy Simms. Unarmed, Swede begged for mercy; Frank did not give it. Instead, Frank gave him a bullet. Though his initial mission was now over, Frank had found a new criminal to punish. He tracked MacCauley to New York and executed him. Knowing there was nothing else he could ever do again, Frank decided to stick to the trail of he’d cut for himself: to ride where the law doesn’t reach. To punish all trespassers.

Skills and Abilities

Frank was an experienced horseman and marksman. He had access to a variety of different types of guns from his era, and was skilled with each of them.

Note

According to an entry in Marvel Westerns: Outlaw Files, the story of A Man named Frank took place in the regular Marvel continuity.