Jigsaw is a fictional character, a supervillain and archenemy of the Marvel Comics antihero the Punisher. He was created by Len Wein and Ross Andru, and first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #162 (November 1976)

Biography

Billy Russo was kicked out by his abusive father at the age of ten, and went on to become a hitman for New York's criminal underworld, where his good looks garnered him the nickname "the Beaut". He also married a woman named Susan, and would beat both her and their son, Henry, once forcing Henry to drown his pet cat's kittens by threatening to shoot Susan. After the botched gangland execution that inadvertently led to the Castle family being massacred, Russo is hired by Frank Costa to assassinate all those connected to the Castles. Russo kills all of his targets but Frank Castle, who survives the bomb that Russo had planted in Castle's home. Hours later, Castle (now the Punisher) tracks Russo down to a Maggia nightclub. The Punisher guns down all of Russo's associates, but leaves him alive to send a message to organized crime after knocking him through a glass pane, an act that reduces Russo's face to a jigsaw puzzle-like mess of scars.

Taking advantage of his now hideous visage, the formerly handsome gangster adopts the identity of Jigsaw, and attempts to frame the Punisher for murder. However, the plan fails due to the intervention of Spider-Man and Nightcrawler; Spider-Man witnesses one of Jigsaw's murders, and one of his victims is an old friend of Nightcrawler. Jigsaw later battled Spider-Man again.

It is revealed in the first Punisher miniseries that Jigsaw was behind a plan to drug the Punisher, causing his enemy to behave erratically and attack any criminals, even for things as minor as littering. Jigsaw also attempts to kill the Punisher in prison. The Punisher confronts and defeats him, and later stops Jigsaw from escaping in a prison riot. Later in the series, Jigsaw is brainwashed by the Trust into serving as a member of a Punisher-style assassination squad. He manages to remember who he is after encountering Castle once again, and attacks the Punisher. He is defeated once more.

Jigsaw is broken out of Ryker's Island by the Rev, who has him supervise the importation of a sterility-inducing Venezuelan drug that the Rev intends to test in New York City. When the drug shipment is destroyed by the Punisher, Jigsaw sics a street gang on him, and flees to Venezuela with the Rev. After Jigsaw's face is healed by the Rev's powers, he is shot by the Punisher, but resurrected by the Rev, with the assistance of Belasco. Jigsaw's restored face is destroyed, and he is left for dead in the jungle, in a later battle with the Punisher. Jigsaw recovers, and subsequently attempts to illegally reenter the United States, but is arrested and returned to Ryker's Island. When the Punisher is captured by the authorities and sent to same prison, Jigsaw disfigures and tries to kill him, but the Punisher survives, and escapes from Ryker's.

Jigsaw has been a persistent foe of the Punisher's for years. While he still works as an assassin for criminal organizations, his pursuit of the Punisher is relentless, as Jigsaw sees Castle's assassination as an unfinished job. The deranged gangster's vendetta once took a bizarre turn when the Punisher faked his death by appearing to be executed in prison. Furious with rage, Jigsaw briefly became a new Punisher, getting revenge on Castle's apparent killers for denying him the kill he believes to be rightfully his.

Jigsaw next establishes a gunrunning operation, which is broken up by Daredevil and Black Widow. When his attempt at negotiating with Daredevil (who had declared himself the new Kingpin) fails, Jigsaw seeks revenge by breaking into Daredevil's home, where he is subdued by Black Widow. Jigsaw is remanded to the Raft, an island supervillain prison, which he escapes from (breaking Spider-Man's arm in the process) when the facility is attacked by Electro. Once free, Jigsaw tries to rob a bank, but is beaten by Tigra. This humiliation leads to his forming an alliance with the self-proclaimed "super-villain Kingpin" the Hood; together, Jigsaw and the Hood film themselves threatening and torturing Tigra. Later, Jigsaw takes part in the Hood's attack on the Sanctum Sanctorum, where he attempts to snipe Jessica Jones and Danielle Cage, only to be foiled by Spider-Man.

Jigsaw has resumed his vendetta against the Punisher, in the pages of Punisher: War Journal. Now wearing a color-inverted mockup of the Punisher costume, Jigsaw arranges for the brainwashing of a young auxiliary police officer in the NYPD. Exploiting the naive cop's pathological "hero-worship" complex, Jigsaw and his new psychiatrist girlfriend turn the young man into a new version of the Punisher.

After a battle on the Brooklyn Bridge where the Punisher once again spares Jigsaw's life, Jigsaw is taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. While imprisoned he is seemingly shot dead by the man that he and his girlfriend (who was actually undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Lynn Michaels) had brainwashed. Jigsaw survived the attempt on his life, and was transferred to a "reprogramming asylum" by H.A.M.M.E.R. He returns to the Hood's Gang in Secret Invasion to assist in fending off the invading Skrulls, and rejoins again in Dark Reign to help attack the New Avengers.

Jigsaw then partners with the similarly disfigured Stuart Clarke. Together, the "Jigsaw Brothers" hire Lady Gorgon to impersonate Maria Castle while they manipulate Henry, the Punisher's ally and Jigsaw's son, into helping them capture and kill the Punisher. After betraying and murdering Clarke, Jigsaw battles the Punisher on top of his own burning headquarters, and is killed when he falls through the roof of the building and into the fire below.

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