I really don’t get it. I realize this is likely a me thing. I’ve never read any his comics. He doesn’t have any powers. He just shoots people. I think he shoots only bad guys, right? Seeing people get what they deserve is nice but you could also do that with a robot mech suit or giant green imaginary weapons or laser beams from your eyes. I could go on. He wears all black, so he’s emo, and shoots people. I just don’t get it.
Superpowers, from a literary standpoint, can get a bit derivative and boring. It’s hard to feel the stakes of a certain threat when the protagonist of a story can just superpower their way out of it.
The Punisher flips the superhero trope by portraying what a true to life superhero would probably look like. He isn’t noble. He isn’t invincible. He has no enhanced abilities beyond his ability to leverage violence and a pathological determination to pursue his own twisted vision of justice. He is a walking result of severe emotional trauma, and his coping mechanism is inflicting pain and death on others.
As a superhero archetype, he’s very bleak. That’s what makes him relatable to a lot of people.
If the author is bad at crafting a narrative, sure. Powers are just like any tool a character has. If there’s never any limitations to its use, it’s boring to read about.