One of the good things about getting snowed in for most of the weekend was that it gave me the opportunity to sit on my ass and do nothing but watch television that I’d started to fall behind on. But who am I really kidding, snow or no snow, sitting on my ass and doing nothing but watching television was already kind of on my agenda regardless of the weather outside, but it does sound like the snow was a convenient excuse to do such.
Anyway, I took the opportunity to start and finish the entire Punisher series on Netflix. And much like several of the Marvel properties that preceded it, I have to say that Netflix has once again managed to take a fairly one-dimensional character, and make a watchable and fairly compelling season of television out of it.
I’m not going to pretend like I was a huge Punisher fan, really. I always thought he was kind of an outlier in the Marvel Universe, since he wasn’t a superhero in the sense of having any powers or abilities, but instead more like an extremely well-armed vigilante with a death wish that actually killed people on a regular basis. He was loosely separated by only a few degrees from bigger players, with associations to Nick Fury, Matt Murdock and the Kingpin, which puts him in remotely the same neighborhood as Spider-Man and the Avengers, but at the same time, Frank Castle wasn’t the kind of guy we’d expect to see in any major events or crossovers.
Seriously, what would Frank Castle contribute during the Infinity Crusades? Weapons? Tony Stark among others has that covered. Micro’s hacking expertise? Reed Richards and Ant Man, as well as again Tony Stark, probably have computers way better than Micro’s cache of 486s, much less his downfall when the wifi is unplugged. I’m pretty sure Thanos with his power over, everything, wouldn’t even notice a trigger-happy psychopath with a glock when Thor and Hulk are trying to flank him.
However, the Punisher beat-em-up arcade game Capcom released in 1993, that used the same old Final Fight engine that 20 other games used was still pretty fun.
The point is, the Punisher was always a property that I thought was really out of place in the Marvel Universe, but he still existed so that storylines of New York-based superheroes could get dark and broody from time to time.
But then Netflix got their hands on the property, and integrated him into the second season of the outstanding Daredevil series, so that Matt Murdock could have a reluctant ally with a very stark contrast in problem solving philosophy. Initially thought to be a one-off storyline, Jon Bernthal impressed everyone so much with his performance as Frank Castle that it was inevitable that he’d get his own series, and I didn’t get the impression many people disagreed.
As a stand-alone series, I admittedly had less hope for it than I did for Iron Fist, which says a lot if you know me, because I hold the Iron Fist property as a whole maybe four steps up from Quasar. But not because I think Iron Fist is any better than the Punisher, it’s just that I thought that the Punisher lacked the depth to really go 13 hour-long episodes, and I wondered if the series would hit some obvious drag points or worse off, go all Jessica Jones and restart the storyline three times.
But when I finished the final episode of the Punisher, I was left with a feeling of realized satisfaction. It wasn’t the greatest show of all time, but it was most certainly nowhere even close to the worst show of all time. I found the series as a whole to be pretty entertaining; I’m reluctant to use the term ‘enjoyable,’ because there’s seldom really enjoyable about the sheer amounts of death, brutality and the surprising amount of gore for a Marvel property on Netflix.
However, it was very watchable, albeit a little predictable in plot. The storyline was compelling, and there were enough subplots going on concurrently to keep the series as a whole merrily moving along. Jon Bernthal really owns being Frank Castle, even if after the 75th time hearing him roar in combat, it becomes kind of funny and mock-worthy, he’s still really believable, and far more convincing than the pathetic attempts by guys like Thomas Jane and fucking Dolph Lungren before him.
The show is best described as gritty and brutal, which are appropriate given the nature of the Punisher property in general, but I think the most important aspect of the series as a whole is the running narrative about PTSD in veterans that’s blatantly echoing the problems in the country today. The Punisher exhibits some sensitivity by not actually using the phrase, fearing that once used, it becomes the label thrown out to justify all sorts of destructive actions, but I felt like to those who might be able to relate or might be going through it themselves, it’s a conversation happening throughout the series that I think is the most important theme of the show.
Overall, I thought the Punisher was good. It’s definitely not one that just any Marvel fan can expect to enjoy, after watching Daredevil or the Defenders, because the subject matter is most definitely darker and heavier than other titles that can almost be expected to have some camp and cleverly written humor in them. All through writing this, I pondered on where it would stand in comparison to the other titles of the Netflix Marvel Hell’s Kitchen-verse, but really, it has no place being compared to them, despite the fact that this Frank Castle’s origins entwined with Daredevil.
Personally, I’d hope that Netflix doesn’t try to stretch this out for another season, because there’s really only so much punishing evil that the Punisher can do. Unless the direction of Daredevil steers him away from the Kingpin storyline that seeds were sown and frees him up to be the antagonist to Frank Castle, I don’t think there’s much else that can really be done.
But if there’s anyone who can spin a little more gold out of raw silk, it’ll be Netflix. If they can make Iron Fist and the Punisher into full-length series, there’s little else that they can’t do.
