Rules:
Victory by death only.
Both combatants are in-character, but fighting seriously as enemies.
Both combatants have basic knowledge on their opponent's skills, training and gear.
Both combatants armed with a combat knife and a single handgun with two spare clips. Both dressed in civilian clothes (no bulletproof vests). No preparation time.
Starting distance is 25 feet.
Location:
Margaret Carter was born in London, England in 1921. Growing up as a girl at the time, she was facing extreme criticism for her unorthodox, adventurous behavior, which often got her in trouble. In 1939, Peggy joined the British Royal Military performing office tasks. Knowing her (and having trained her) however, her brother recommended the military to take her in as a field operative, which she turned down due to believing women shouldn't fight. Peggy went back to planning her wedding, now having second thoughts about her nature and her choices regarding her life. One day, a letter came home, informing that her brother was killed fighting in WWII. Peggy was heartbroken, seeing as she had lost the one person to ever truly understand her. She joined the British Counter-Intelligence and Security Agency, moving on to the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), the most efficient agency on the planet, where she worked as an advisor. In 1943 she was assigned with overseeing the candidates for Project Rebirth. There she met Steve Rogers, who later became Captain America. She was impressed from the beginning by his heroic traits, and later assisted him personally during the war, until his death. After the War was over, she personally sentenced HYDRA's Leader, Daniel Whitehall, for life (until Alexander Pierce broke him out in 1989). During this post-War time, Peggy continued working for the SSR, and was persoanlly chosen by Howard Stark to lead SHIELD alongside him. Peggy remained been disrespected by her colleagues for her gender, but that is until she single handedly took down Leviathan, a Soviet spy agency, and moved on to protect the world from the newly discovered Zero Matter. Peggy was one of the 3 Co-Founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Successor to the SSR, and retired sometime before 2012. She quietly died in her sleep in 2016, where Rogers attended to her funeral and her niece, Sharon Carter, gave the eulogies.
"Peggy is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, having learned a range of different fighting techniques over the years."
Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary
Peggy's recieved advanced military and SSR training, being the most accomplished field agent int he organisation, and therefore one of the best fighters in the world at the time. Of course one thing to keep in mind is that at that time, martial arts weren't nearly as advanced and developed in the known world. In fact that it a plot point of how Captain America went from a mere soldier of WWII to a highily trained fighter due to the modern upgrade on the field of combat. However, that doesn't take away from Peggy, who remains a highily skilled fighter in her own right, a great unarmed fighter, knife and baton fighter and fencer - plus it's not like Frank is a kung fu grandmaster, quite the opposite.
Let me start by saying that Peggy isn't remotely as physical as Frank. He's bigger, stronger and tankier. However that doesn't mean she isn't deceptivly strong either. She's quite capable for her size;
Other physical showings from her come from her actual fight scenes though, showcasing her skill at the same time.
Peggy can take on groups of trained hired muscle and effectively beat them in a few seconds. Here, she takes down 4 members of the Isodyne Energy HQ's private security, trained killers hired by Whitney Frost, one of the richest people in the world, to protect a substance more powerful than any seen before on earth, from intruders.
Peggy cut through them like cake unarmed. She got punched twice but shrugged it off and skillsuly split them up to beat them down to the last one of them.
Peggy can beat down mercenaries in lesser groups even easier, she makes this one look effortless. What I'd like to note here is her sending the second man flying about 15 feet away with a kick. Sending a grown man flying like that, shattering the glass window behind him in condact is definitely notable for any peak human in the MCU, and I don't think Frank actually hits harder than this.
After these two, Peggy had to deal with the remaining ones. She ambushes them using a tiny bat-like weapon seemingly identical to a combat knife in the way she uses it. She lands repeated hits on both of them, disarms them and beats them down hitting vitals areas at points, both of them coming from two opposite angles.
In one of her earlier missions after WWII, working for Stark, Peggy took on a hired assassin that worked for the Leviathan, a secret agency that threatened the SSR and global security by stealing Stark's weapons. The man was hired to kil Carter, but she always proved his superior;
What's impressive here is that she's fighting completely unarmed against an assassin that had just shot her in the leg, and on top of a moving track, with all the difficulties this comes with. She repeatedly outmaneuvers him and beats him down, he draws a knife, she disarms him and casually uses his own weapon against him to stab him with it and finish him off.
Peggy's also taken on fellow SSR Agents. Her mission given to her by Howard Stark was top secret, meaning not even the SSR knew about it. Once they found out, the Chief ordered her arrest. They ambushed her on the usual diner everyone hangs out in on this show, and with Jarvis' minor assistance (I don't think he actually put any of them down for the count) she clears a room of them, at least 5 agents.
As usual, she makes it look easy. The Chief's reaction speaks for the impressiveness of the feat;
"You're telling me one woman took down an entire team of highily trained Government agents?"
Chief Dooley, Agent Carter: "Snafu"
I feel like a good way to compare her technical skill to Frank's is fodder wrecking scenes, given they don't share much in common in terms of other categories. For now I'll just say Peggy fights mildly elite groups of operatives compared to what the Punisher goes up against, and handles them a lot easier.
Probably the most dangerous opponent Peggy's gone up against is Dorothy Underwood, another assassin and one of the best fighters in the world at the time. She was trained in the Red Room and partook in the training programme that served as the precursor to the Black Widow programme. Obviously this doesn't make her as good as an Avenger of this time, esspecially since the showrunners made the distinction of her being a product of the not-as-advanced Red Room training, but her training is still legitimately better than any opponent's Frank's gone up against. Underwood basically grew up in the Hunger Games of the KGB and came out on top, brainwashed and trained how to fight and do everything else a spy and assassin does from a very young age. Peggy's fought her more than once before, and they come out looking pretty even. If anything Peggy actually appears to have an edge.
Initially, Dottie seems to have a small edge, but Peggy tanks her attempts and quickly turns the tides, outmaneuvers her and matches her blow for blow.
Dottie is eventually floored and before she can arm herself and get up, Peggy knocks her out hitting her with a sack of coins on the back of her head. Apart from her obvious elite level of martial arts skills, Underwood's physique is honed to extreme levels:
As for her ability to soak up attempts, this is what Dottie had to say for her training in the Red Room when a notorious man specialised in interrogation and torture was sent to get intel out of her;
"I've pulled out my own teeth... my own nails... my own hair. I've burned my own flesh with a blowtorch. There's nothing you have in that bag that's going to do anything other than bore me to tears. Truth serum? You can't be serious... like mother's milk."
Dorothy Underwood, Agent Carter: "Monsters"
This might as well be pain tolerance directly comparable to Frank's, and Peggy's more than capable of KOing people on this level.
As a whole, I'd say Frank's physicality is probably a bigger advantage than Peggy's technicality and fluidity in an unarmed fight, meaning I'd actually bet on Punisher winning in a cage fight. But Peggy is armed here, she has a knife that can cut clean through Frank and a gun that she can use to "pistol whip" and boost her striking; Peggy's a highily environmental fighter, and uses improvised weapons a lot to knock out large people and Dottie herself, here she has everything she needs right on her.
"Agent Carter is an accomplished markswoman, and she doesn't take a back seat on missions. Armed with her Thompson submachine gun, she leads the Howling Commandos into Hydra's headquarters in the Alpes."
Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary
On the other hand, her marksmanship still stacks up quite a bit to modern firearms specialists. Frank himself is a damn impressive shooter, but I believe Peggy more than compares to him on that aspect, at least as far as lighter arms such as Glocks go. She's made some impossible shots before.
Peggy can take highily accurate shots even under pressure;
Peggy shoots a perfect circle on a steel door to form a hole and throw a smoke grenade to clear the room inside. This is even more impressive when you consider she's walking towards it all the while. Impressive tactical shooting.
I feel like her most impressive shots were made in her first appearance in the MCU. After Rogers had transformed into Captain America, a HYDRA agent blew his cover and killed Dr. Erskine, Carter gave chase and managed to initially shoot him in the arm, while he was running away climbing the stairs.
This is important because it shows she can successfuly land shots on moving targets, even while on an unfavorable (for a shooter) position. And because that wasn't impressive enough, when the agent got into a car outside and attempted to flee, Peggy managed to shoot the driver and isolate the target.
That was a headshot on a man inside a car that had already sped over 100 feet away from her, and there's no sniper/accuracy aids. She just landed this headshot from that isnane distance with a regular light sidearm.
She then attempted to shoot the agent charging at her too, but Steve pushed her out of the way. On a sidenote, I'm pretty sure she didn't miss (that'd be wildly inconsistent with her marksmanship) trying to shoot him in the face. I always thought she either wanted to shoot him non-lethally for questioning, which is what they were aiming to do in the first place and why she didn't just headshot him instead of the driver, or throw him off to ensure a surprise killshot since he was seen dodging her aim. I guess I can debate that if necessary. Anyway, I think Peggy's every bit as accurate as Frank for this match, if not moreso.
"What do you mean she disappeared?"
Chief Dooley, Agent Carter: "Snafu"
One of the coolest things about Peggy is that she's no superhuman, she's no master mumbo jumbo martial artist and she's not some Hawkeye tier BS firefighter, and yet she always walks out of extremely difficult situations using nothing but her brains, improvisation skills and training. Stealth comes easy to an expert spy like her, as part of her widely diverse set of skills.
Peggy disappears in a few seconds and isn't visible on a good radius when the guard gets out of the room looking for her. Almost immediately afterwards, she appears right behind him and puts a gun on his head. I reckon Frank has a similar showing somewhere, but I don't think it's quite as impressive as Peggy's more comicbook-ish stealth.
Here, Peggy notices a secret door disguised as a bookcase opening on the opposite side of the room and disappears before any of them people that come in can notice her. She adjusts to the environment perefectly and hides behind the closing door, remaining unnoticed.
I think Peggy has a few solidly important advantages in this fight;
Tldr, Agent Carter is more badass so she wins...
Tldr, Agent Carter is more badass so she wins...
Okay, since I've used MCU Punisher in a debate before, I figured I'd just borrow from that opener and adapt it for the new opponent. So, without further ado...
After descending from heaven and blessing The Walking Dead with his holy presence, MCU Punisher decided to enter the world of Daredevil and would later go on to be literally the best live action character in the history of television. He is a master at prison fighting and also shoots people with guns sometimes, or something.
After casually wiping the floor with Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Punisher will now grace this battle with his transcendent multiversal+ busting presence, if Peggy's eyes do not simply melt out of their sockets the first time she gazes upon his visage that is. To begin I will talk about some of his more modest galaxy-universe level feats and we will work our way up from there...
...
...alright, alright, alright, I'll do an actual opener :P
Spoilers for Punisher season 2 (and earlier) ahead.
Frank Castle was born in New York City in the USA- Hell's Kitchen, to be precise. A troublesome kid with violent tendencies, he joined the Marines at the age of eighteen and shipped out to Iraq, where immediately proved himself an exceptional soldier with no compunctions about violence. On break from the Marines in the state, he met a woman named Maria, and the two married, going on to have two children together while Frank still served in the military. Castle served without question or hesitation, and he found himself working for people he didn't realize were compromised, namely a man called William Rawlins. Under Rawlins, Frank carried out the execution of a police officer named Ahmad Zubair as a part of an effort to cover up Rawlins's heroin smuggling ring.
Frank's dark past followed him home to his wife and children, and he was considered compromised by his former employers. Men Frank used to trust turned against him, and a shooting was orchestrated in New York to kill him as part of the cover-up. He survived, but his wife and children were killed. Everyone knows the rest of the story- the Punisher was born.
You've shown a lot of great stuff for Peggy here! This should be an interesting fight. I'm gonna go over what I consider to be Frank's advantages using the same headers as you, for the sake of comparison, but since this is just an opener, I won't focus on direct counters yet.
Frank's fighting skill all comes from the military, just like Peggy, though about 80 years later. He may not be a kung fu grandmaster, true, but I hardly think it is fair to say he's the opposite as though he relies purely on physicals without any hand-to-hand skill. In his task force, Frank was the absolute best of the best, and this is a point that is established over and over again through Frank's appearances. He was a distinguished Marine, awarded the Navy Cross for heroism on the battlefield, and he was well understood to be a one man army. Frank can take an incredible amount of punishment, fittingly, but that doesn't mean he trades technique for damage soak, and based purely on their training I certainly wouldn't go in expecting Peggy to be more skilled.
Frank can maneuver around the attacks of multiple skilled opponents at once, and outfight them.
Bodies multiple civilians at once without getting tagged at all.
Effortlessly out-maneuvers military veterans.
Easily out-fights Anvil mercs, hired by Russo specifically to give work to military veterans.
And out-fighting special elites like Carson Wolf.
...Or, as I'm sure I don't need to mention, Billy Russo, a veteran with an almost identical background and training to Frank.
Based just on the training of the fodder these two have gone up against, I think Frank has demonstrated just as much technical skill in H2H as Peggy against numerous opponents. Frank's H2H performance is definitely bolstered by his sheer physicality but that is a strength, not a weakness, and I find it misleading when I see him characterized as a brute fighter that does not employ H2H skill. In the Punisher, the vast majority of opponents Frank fights have substantial military training and Frank consistently demonstrates H2H superiority. Just because he is less skilled than Daredevil doesn't make him an unskilled brick so that's something I want to get out of the way first.
On the subject of Daredevil, though, I think this makes for a pretty solid comparison to Dottie- I would definitely argue that Matt's training should be better than Dottie's considering he was also trained from childhood by immortal an immortal ninja with literal centuries of experience. Frank showed an edge against Matt multiple times when the pair fought, including nearly KO'ing Matt purely in H2H in their first encounter:
While Daredevil undeniably lands many more hits on Frank, you need to consider that Frank is trying to punch through body armor, so you can only chalk up so much to Frank's raw strength.
But all this is really just to justify Frank holding his own in terms of skill in a fight against Peggy. IMO their training and skill level is pretty comparable and they are both capable of beating military-trained fodder. I think we both know the big challenge in a close-quarters encounter for Peggy is going to be getting through Frank's incredible damage soak, and I honestly can't see it happening on Frank's worst day.
Considering her relatively small size, I think Peggy's feats of beating men larger than her is really solid, but it is a far, far cry from being able to put a dent in the Punisher.
I'll respond to one thing you said directly:
This might as well be pain tolerance directly comparable to Frank's, and Peggy's more than capable of KOing people on this level.
It is a massive stretch to compare Dottie to Frank based on this statement. There is a big difference between being able to withstand torture...
and being able to withstand torture like the Punisher. This is a man who has been getting bled out for hours, who got a drill to the foot,
who got shot in the back, and who sewed a goddamn razor blade into his own arm, and he is still able to fight multiple mobsters at once, throwing one of them across a room and smashing through a wooden pallet.
Frank can literally tank bullets and keep fighting even while already injured (a heavy advantage in a gunfight or H2H).
Frank can tank severe blows to the face, and nothing.
Frank can stand back up with multiple tasers on him while blacking out from being drugged.
And I feel like I just need to post this scene in its entirety. Shotgun blasts to the vest and legs, a dozen knife wounds, body and face blows with bats, crowbars and fists. Frank got back up, tanked several more blows from weapons, and killed every last one of them. And again, let's not forget that all of these guys are trained military veterans.
Brass tacks: Peggy is not going to wear him down, period, full stop. She can land multiple knife blows and he can keep fighting. She can shoot him in the torso and he can keep fighting. She can pistol whip him as many times in the face as she likes, she is simply never going to outpace him in terms of damage unless she gets a bona fide lethal blow.
IMO Peggy's only possible shot here is either with a headshot or a knife to the throat, and to summarize my argument- she does not have nearly enough of an advantage in any category in order to pull this off; the best that can be argued for her is a very narrow edge. Frank, on the other hand, can beat her down, shoot her in the torso, knife her, and before long, reliably, she will go down. To my knowledge Peggy does not have anywhere near the durability or damage soak showings that Frank does, and this is a huge advantage: not nearly as much is required from Frank to win a victory as is required from Peggy.
Precision shooting with Frank Castle:
"He could have killed you. And one inch in either direction, your face would be spaghetti. I mean, look at that shot placement."
"I got lucky."
"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it was a warning shot. He could've finished you off, but didn't. Talk about getting your bell rung."
-Melvin Potter and Matt Murdock, Daredevil S2E02
I was really impressed with Peggy's gunplay showings! (Small side note:)
Scan 2: Peggy shoots an assassin's arm accurately enough to disarm him from his own pistol. This is also her immediately after almost been strangled to death, making it particularly impressive.
(This scan seems to be missing from your post, I think you posted the wrong gif by mistake.)
...With that said, I am very confident that Frank measures up in terms of accuracy, and he has her substantially beat on the draw. Combined with Frank's ability to tank bullet wounds, and his ability to weave around gunfire:
And I feel that the ball is very much in Frank's court at long and medium range as well.
In the Marines, Frank earned the rank of Scout Sniper, and he is highly skilled at precise shots from long distance. Fortunately, Frank has the advantage of being from a much more violent show than Peggy, meaning that he has the opportunity to regularly show off marksmanship against human opponents.
In the opening of Punisher's first season, we see Frank make a shot from extremely far off across many city blocks- far enough, at least, that it takes 3 seconds for the bullet to reach its target.
He pulls off casual headshots at mid-range with handguns.
As a good parallel to one of your best showings for Peggy, Frank lands a headshot on a driver of a moving car. Admittedly a shorter distance than Peggy's feat, but unlike Peggy, Frank actually lands multiple consecutive shots including as the car is pulling around to the side of him, forcing him to change his angle on a moving target.
Casually headshots a target (wielding a two-handed gun with one hand for added badassery) without even looking!
And pulls off rapid headshots against multiple targets in succession.
Admittedly, I don't think there are any showings for Frank landing a shot from the same distance as Peggy using a handgun, but in his defense, Frank uses a whole host of different firearms and usually has a better fit for long-range shooting if such a shot is necessary. I've already shown that he is capable of incredible long-distance shooting with a sniper rifle, and incredible precision, to the inch, with a handgun (consider the Daredevil example); I think it's pretty clear he has enough of a handle on wielding a handgun to land long-distance shots.
More importantly, he has a much wider breadth of examples of rapid-fire gunplay in combat settings and landing lethal shots while being shot at himself, a tactical scenario Peggy does not seem to have replicated much. I think Frank has more than enough showings to justify me saying that he could land a lethal shot if she were to poke out of cover just as easily as the reverse if not more easily.
And aside from that, everything else being equal, Frank's reaction times for drawing and lining up shots are demonstrably superior- much superior in fact- to Peggy. Meaning that Frank has a solid edge from the start, when they draw their weapons, and any time the two of them face off trying to land shots on one another.
Frank is quick enough to pull a full 180 and land a (deliberately non-lethal) shot on a soldier that already has a laser sight pointed on him and a finger on the trigger.
I'm sure you knew I was gonna pull this one out- Frank can draw his weapon and drop six men before a single one can react, even though multiple opponents already had guns drawn themselves (and one was aiming straight at him).
Even if these two are roughly similar in terms of accuracy, I feel that Frank has a significant edge in a gunfight based on this factor. He can draw and shoot before she can react and he is clearly capable of landing precise shots. This is not even mentioning the fact that, were Peggy shot in the stomach or torso, she doesn't have the damage soak to shrug it off as Frank does, only intensifying his existing advantages.
Frank can handle a direct firefight, but don't underestimate him in stealth either. He is a soldier with a soldier's training after all, and Cerberus Squad was specifically a covert ops team. Frank uses stealth all the time and in direct combat; in fact, I reckon he has much better showings in this category than Peggy does, and in the context of combat where his opponents know he is in the area, as is the case with this fight.
Frank can and has ghosted multiple opponents in the middle of a firefight, even when they were shooting at him moments earlier.
Frank took down an entire armed squad from stealth under smoke, while holding back and using non-lethal measures (he specifically complained that this made the task more challenging).
Frank uses the environment to get the drop on opponents.
Frank tracks opponents using sound and demonstrates keen environmental awareness.
Even to the point where he can drop an entire gang of armed mobsters by himself from the dark.
Frank is extremely good at tracking his opponents, and honestly I think his stealth showings are a lot more impressive and relevant when you consider how frequently he is able to ghost people that are actively engaged in a firefight with him. Peggy may be able to sneak up on security guards and hide from unaware people but I don't see her replicating this against Frank, especially when he is so good at disappearing into the environment himself. I think it's more likely that he can maneuver around cover and get a clean shot on her this way.
No doubt I think people are going to underestimate or write off Peggy, especially since Frank has more of a reputation, so first off I would strongly discourage voters from doing that and remind everyone to just focus on the arguments here.
That said-! Here's why I give the fight very definitively to Frank:
tl;dr: Jon Bernthal gives one of the best performances in the entire MCU so I don't wanna hear it bih
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