At some unspecified point in the past, there was a war in Heaven against God, in which the demon Olivier sided with Lucifer and was cast out of paradise. Olivier eventually came to rule a portion of Hell but the other lords of Hell grew resentful of his ambition and they forced him into the body of a stillborn human infant. Olivier's spirit returned life to the infant, although he lost all memory of his life as a Hell-lord.
Olivier grew up as a human named Frank Costa, in the Costa crime family, an arm of the Maggia. He became a petty criminal, and one night, while working as a lookout he shot and killed a mobster from a rival family. This act of taking a human life completely restored Frank Costa's memory of his life as Olivier, and he started plotting his revenge on the other Lords of Hell that had placed him in that body.
For decades, Olivier, still in his identity as Frank Costa, worked to become the head of the Costa crime family. He used occultism and magic rituals to discover the existence of Frank Castle, an American soldier in the Vietnam War. Olivier decided to use Castle as his instrument for revenge. When Castle returned to the United States, Olivier ordered his assassins to murder a mob banker in Central Park, knowing that Castle's wife and children would be caught in the crossfire and killed; what appeared to be a random act of violence was in fact deliberately planned. Their murders were the motivations for Castle to become the Punisher, whose victims would be forced into becoming undead servants of Olivier.
The Punisher then set about killing the assassins who had murdered his family, one of whom was Bruno Costa, the brother of Olivier's host body and alter ego, Frank Costa. Castle later discovered Frank Costa dead of an icepick wound to the head, ostensibly administered by a prostitute named Audrey whom the Punisher later killed. Unbeknownst to the Punisher, Audrey killing Frank Costa released the soul of Olivier, which returned to his realm of Hell in its true form. Olivier claimed he had allowed Audrey to kill him, as he hadn't wanted to wait to die of natural causes to return to Hell, and could not have committed suicide, as that would have alerted the other Hell-lords to his return.
Olivier felt that through the Punisher he had gathered enough souls to launch an attack on the rest of Hell, and he caused Frank Castle to despair over the lives he had taken as the Punisher. Castle was driven to suicide by Olivier's demonic servants, and he shot himself. Castle was then immediately resurrected by Gadriel, the guardian angel who had failed in Castle's defense.[8] From his base in New York's Flatiron Building, Olivier sent his minions against Heaven's angels and the dominions of the other Lords of Hell, including Daimon Hellstrom, but was thwarted in his assassination attempt on Hellstrom by the Punisher and Gadriel. Olivier revealed to the Punisher that he was responsible for the deaths of the Punisher's family.[3] The Punisher fought a reanimated Bruno Costa and the contact of the weapons of Heaven (the Punisher) and Hell (Bruno Costa) caused a dimensional portal to open through which the tentacles of Hell began to reach. The Punisher shot Olivier into the tentacles' embrace, and they immediately tore Olivier to pieces. The portal was sealed by Gadriel sacrificing his life.
