{"id":45556,"date":"2017-12-12T20:36:01","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T00:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45556"},"modified":"2020-08-04T20:36:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T00:36:10","slug":"in-netflix-marvel-trusts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45556","title":{"rendered":"In Netflix, Marvel trusts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019d started to fall behind on.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, I took the opportunity to start and finish the entire Punisher<\/em> series on Netflix.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to pretend like I was a huge Punisher fan, really.\u00a0 I always thought he was kind of an outlier in the Marvel Universe, since he wasn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 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\u2019t the kind of guy we\u2019d expect to see in any major events or crossovers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously, what would Frank Castle contribute during the Infinity Crusades?\u00a0 Weapons?\u00a0 Tony Stark among others has that covered.\u00a0 Micro\u2019s hacking expertise?\u00a0 Reed Richards and Ant Man, as well as again Tony Stark, probably have computers way better than Micro\u2019s cache of 486s, much less his downfall when the wifi is unplugged.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure Thanos with his power over, everything, wouldn\u2019t even notice a trigger-happy psychopath with a glock when Thor and Hulk are trying to flank him.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the Punisher beat-em-up arcade game<\/a> Capcom released in 1993, that used the same old Final Fight engine that 20 other games used was still pretty fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But then Netflix got their hands on the property, and integrated him into the second season of the outstanding Daredevil<\/em> series, so that Matt Murdock could have a reluctant ally with a very stark contrast in problem solving philosophy.\u00a0 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\u2019d get his own series, and I didn\u2019t get the impression many people disagreed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 But not because I think Iron Fist is any better than the Punisher, it\u2019s 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<\/em> and restart the storyline three times.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when I finished the final episode of the Punisher, I was left with a feeling of realized satisfaction.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the greatest show of all time, but it was most certainly nowhere even close to the worst show of all time.\u00a0 I found the series as a whole to be pretty entertaining; I\u2019m reluctant to use the term \u2018enjoyable,\u2019 because there\u2019s seldom really enjoyable about the sheer amounts of death, brutality and the surprising amount of gore for a Marvel property on Netflix.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it was very watchable, albeit a little predictable in plot.\u00a0 The storyline was compelling, and there were enough subplots going on concurrently to keep the series as a whole merrily moving along.\u00a0 Jon Bernthal really owns being Frank Castle, even if after the 75th<\/sup> time hearing him roar in combat, it becomes kind of funny and mock-worthy, he\u2019s still really believable, and far more convincing than the pathetic attempts by guys like Thomas Jane and fucking Dolph Lungren before him.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s blatantly echoing the problems in the country today.\u00a0 The Punisher exhibits some sensitivity by not actually using the phrase<\/a>, 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\u2019s a conversation happening throughout the series that I think is the most important theme of the show.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, I thought the Punisher was good.\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely not one that just any Marvel fan can expect to enjoy, after watching Daredevil or the Defenders<\/em>, 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.\u00a0 All through writing this, I pondered on where it would stand in comparison to the other titles of the Netflix Marvel Hell\u2019s Kitchen-verse, but really, it has no place being compared to them, despite the fact that this Frank Castle\u2019s origins entwined with Daredevil.<\/span><\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019d hope that Netflix doesn\u2019t try to stretch this out for another season, because there\u2019s really only so much punishing evil that the Punisher can do.\u00a0 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\u2019t think there\u2019s much else that can really be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if there\u2019s anyone who can spin a little more gold out of raw silk, it\u2019ll be Netflix.\u00a0 If they can make Iron Fist and the Punisher into full-length series, there\u2019s little else that they can\u2019t do.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019d started to fall behind on.\u00a0 But who am I really kidding, snow or no snow, sitting on my ass and doing … Continue reading In Netflix, Marvel trusts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[140,83,69],"class_list":["post-45556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comics","tag-observations","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45558,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45556\/revisions\/45558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}