[2] The series takes place over the late stages of the infamous Civil War storyline and its following arc The Death of Captain America, following Frank Castle and focuses on his relationship with Steve Rogers, (Captain America), whom he deeply admires despite their fundamental differences and his method of dealing with his death.

The series holds an average rating of 7.3 by sixty-one professional critics on the review aggregation website Comic Book Roundup.

[9] Timothy Callahan of Comic Book Resources expressed about the series that the author, Matt Fraction, has alternated between writing a clever, witty looks at the Marvel Universe and serious and severe looks at the screwed-up world in which the character of Frank Castle lives.

Fraction has written him as a strange combination of all of those things, and if he isn't heroic in a traditional sense, at least he has a code he follows.

He's a psychopath headlining a book set in the Marvel Universe, and Fraction has made him compelling and somewhat noble, while never going so far as to make Frank Castle admirable."