FRANK CASTLE: DEAD PRESIDENTS & POPES
Genre: Political Noir / Supernatural Conspiracy Thriller
Tone: The Da Vinci Code meets The Punisher meets Seven
Logline
When ex-Marine vigilante Frank Castle uncovers evidence that the assassinations of JFK, Pope John Paul I, and several other “dead presidents and popes” are linked by a shadow Vatican–CIA network, he descends into a labyrinth of global corruption, relic smuggling, and resurrection technology.
Setting
A globe-spanning investigation that moves from:
- the Vatican archives,
- the underground tunnels beneath Washington D.C.,
- a forgotten OSS bunker in Sarajevo,
- and finally, a secret island monastery off the coast of Malta where the world’s most powerful corpses are preserved in cryogenic stasis.
Plot Overview
After the Vatican reopens its cold cases from the 1970s, Frank Castle — working as a private investigator under an alias — is hired to track down a missing Jesuit whistleblower. What he uncovers is a network called “The Resurrection Committee”: an alliance of rogue cardinals, ex-presidents, and intelligence operatives experimenting with biotechnological immortality under the guise of sainthood and state funerals.
The deeper Castle digs, the more he realizes the truth:
Every “great leader” that dies in public view might not stay dead.
Key Characters
- Frank Castle — scarred, faithless, driven by guilt. His war has shifted from the streets to the soul.
- Cardinal Morandi — a Jesuit theologian who knows too much about papal poisoning and Vatican biotech.
- Agent Valerie Knox (CIA) — claims she’s investigating missing nuclear materials, but her interest in Castle is personal.
- President “Lazarus” — a resurrected commander-in-chief who shouldn’t exist, whispering to Castle through hacked emergency broadcast channels.
- The Black Pope — unseen leader of the Resurrection Committee. His face may be familiar from history books…
Themes
- Faith vs. vengeance
- The immortality of power
- The weaponization of religion
- The moral cost of resurrection
Climactic Twist
Frank discovers that his own family’s murder was orchestrated as part of a ritual experiment — testing how trauma and vengeance can “resurrect” a man’s soul for recruitment into the Committee. He must decide whether to destroy the machine that can bring back the dead… or use it once to bring back his wife and children.