The next Marvel Netflix series to hit the streaming network is The Punisher, which debuts on Nov. 17 in its entirety. This series is the continuation of the Marvel Netflix Universe, which started with Daredevil and most recently aired the team-up movie The Defenders.
The Punisher first appeared on Netflix during Daredevil Season 2, and this gives fans of the character a chance to see him in action on his own, the fourth time that a studio has attempted to bring Frank Castle to life, following three movies.
With Netflix continuing to produce fantastic Marvel entertainment focused on the ground-level superheroes, The Punisher is a perfect addition to the lineup and fans have to hope that it keeps the excellent track record that the streaming service has managed to pull off in their partnership with Marvel Comics.
With The Punisher set to finally hit the small screens, here are 25 things you need to know about Frank Castle, The Punisher, before binge-watching the latest Marvel Netflix series.
25. The Punisher First Appeared In ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #129
While it might be common knowledge to many long-time comic book readers, the entire origin of The Punisher came way back in 1974 in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. The issue was #129, and a villain called The Jackal hired The Punisher to murder Spider-Man. It was a fascinating character that writer Gerry Conway introduced in these pages because The Punisher wasn’t a typical villain.
The origin and methods of The Punisher have not changed much since his introduction way back in The Amazing Spider-Man. While he was gunning for Spider-Man, The Punisher assumed that Spidey was a common crook and he kills all criminals under the assumption that the law will fail good people – and that is even more important with a superpowered villain, which he labeled Spider-Man.
This comic book also showed the honor that The Punisher fights with as he admonished The Jackal for attacking Spider-Man from behind in their first major battle. The comic then wrapped up when The Jackal killed one of The Punisher’s chief allies and tried to frame Spider-Man but failed. This betrayal caused Punisher to vow to find and eliminate The Jackal, becoming an antihero in the process.
After this comic book, The Punisher appeared in three more Spider-Man comics (Amazing Spider-Man #134, #135 and Giant-Size Spider-Man #4) before getting how own solo stories in Marvel Premiere. The Punisher remained mostly a Spider-Man side character until 1982.
24. Frank Miller Fleshed Out Punisher In His ‘Daredevil’ Run
In February 1982, Daredevil’s life changed forever. That was the month that Daredevil #181 arrived and the villain Bullseye murdered Daredevil’s love Elektra. That was also the first time that The Punisher appeared in the pages of Daredevil. While he still had some conflicts with Spider-Man over the years after that, it was in the pages of Daredevil that writer Frank Miller fleshed out the character of The Punisher.
The entire clash comes between the two men – The Punisher who kills his enemies and Daredevil, a hero who refuses to kill and trusts the law to take care of the bad guys. The fact that they first met when Elektra died meant that Daredevil had a lot of doubts at the time and even resulted in him using one of Frank’s guns to shoot The Punisher.
Their relationship continued to strengthen over the years. There was even a point where Daredevil ended up in jail, and The Punisher allowed the police to arrest him so that he could get into the prison system to help break out Daredevil before the Hero of Hell’s Kitchen ended up breaking his own rules against killing to survive.
It is interesting that the first time that Netflix Marvel fans got a chance to see The Punisher, it was on the second season of Daredevil, the season where Elektra returned from the dead to help torment her former lover. Now, The Punisher is getting this series, similar to how his stint in the Daredevil comics led to his series as well.
23. Dolph Lundgren First Brought Punisher To The Big Screen
15 years after making his debut in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and just four years after getting his solo series (the first issue of The Punisher came in October 1985), The Punisher got his solo movie. The Punisher movie arrived the same year as Tim Burton’s Batman but was nowhere near as revered or respected.
This reaction is mostly because the movie starred B-movie icon Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle. While Lundgren’s most significant role came in Rocky IV as Ivan Drago, he spent the rest of his career starring in straight-to-video action movies and never rose even to the levels of a Steven Seagal or Jean Claude Van Damme.
In The Punisher (directed by Mark Goldblatt, whose only directing credit was Joe Piscopo’s Dead Heat), Frank Castle has killed 125 criminals in five years and is an ex-police officer instead of an ex-military man. The mob killed his family, and The Punisher lives in the sewers and kills every mobster he finds.
The film then takes The Punisher and forces him to team up with the man who killed his family to save the killer’s young son from kidnappers. It is an interesting take but a B-movie at heart with all the baggage that comes along with that label.
22. The Punisher’s Main Enemy Is A Villain Named Jigsaw
While he did not appear in the original The Punisher movie, the main antagonist over time for Frank Castle is a man known as Jigsaw. He was in one Punisher movie as well as the upcoming Netflix Marvel series. So, who is Jigsaw?
Jigsaw has been around since almost the beginning. While The Jackal appeared in the first Amazing Spider-Man issue featuring The Punisher, two years later, Jigsaw made his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #162.
Someone has been impersonating The Punisher and killing people, framing Frank for the murders. Spider-Man helps The Punisher find the man framing him, and it turns out to be a man called Jigsaw, someone that Punisher severely disfigured years before and returned for revenge.
Jigsaw is Billy Russo, an assassin known for his good looks. After the first hit on Frank Castle went awry but led to the death of his family, crime lord Frank Costa hired Billy to finish the job by killing Castle. It didn’t work, and Billy was sent through a glass pane, shredding his face and causing him to end up with the Jigsaw styled face.
Dominic West portrayed Jigsaw in Punisher: War Zone and Ben Barnes stars as Billy Russo on Netflix, although there is no word on whether he becomes Jigsaw this time around.
21. Punisher Committed Suicide Once And Returned As A Supernatural Angel
The Punisher has appeared in some dark and disturbing storylines over the last 43 years at Marvel Comics. However, he has also appeared in some of the most ludicrous. The first of two mentioned in this countdown came in the ’90s when Frank Castle committed suicide.
This comic was at a time where The Punisher’s sales dropped, and Marvel Comics canceled the character’s three different running comic books in 1995. On the verge of bankruptcy, Marvel Comics tried a lot of strange tactics to uplift their slagging sales, and they came up with this bizarre idea for The Punisher in 1988.
Christopher Golden, who has since tackled some tie-in novels for TV series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica, wrote a four-issue miniseries for Marvel Knights called The Punisher: Purgatory. The first issue showed that Frank killed himself only for an angel to help resurrect him as a supernatural agent of death.
Frank comes back with a glowing arcane sigil on his head and glowing eyes. He also has guns that respond to his thoughts and have divine powers as well. As ludicrous as it sounds, the final results were worse. This storyline killed The Punisher as a character until 2000 when Garth Ennis came along.
20. Garth Ennis (‘Preacher’) Wrote Punisher’s Most Acclaimed Comics
Garth Ennis remains one of comic book’s most acclaimed authors. He wrote Judge Dredd from 1991 to 1993, did terrific work on Hellblazer (John Constantine) from 1994 through 1999, and created Preacher in 1995. However, in between Hellblazer and Punisher, Ennis and his artist partner Steve Dillon revitalized The Punisher in 2000.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon started out with “Welcome Back Frank,” a 12-issue series that lasted from April 2000 through March 2001 and just ignored the entire avenging angel storyline to take Frank Castle back to his roots in a story grounded in reality instead of in costumed heroes and supernatural mumbo-jumbo.
“Welcome Back Frank” introduces The Punisher back into his New York City mob-hunting lifestyle. In this series, the police pretend to chase Frank but secretly let him run wild to eliminate the criminals they can’t bring in. This comic series also introduced side characters like Joan the Mouse, Mr. Bumpo and Spacker Dave – characters that also appeared in the Thomas Jane Punisher movie.
After that, Ennis drove The Punisher back to the top of the charts, with a 37-issue series from 2001 to 2004, a Punisher MAX mini-series, and another volume from 2005 to 2008, before finishing up with Punisher: War Zone in 2009, marking an impressive eight-year run on the character.
19. The Punisher Was Never A Superhero
The one thing that Garth Ennis made sure to emphasize was that Frank Castle was many things, but he was never a superhero. Of course, that was also showcased in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil, where those two heroes – both pure and virtuous – were a stark contrast to Frank Castle’s vigilante.
While the series with The Punisher as an avenging angel seemed to show that he had a higher calling, making him more heroic, he is – at the end of the day – a cold-blooded killer. The only difference is that he kills people that most consider worthy of death.
Of course, when the most virtuous heroes stand up to The Punisher – such as Daredevil or Captain America – it shines a light on how dark and demented The Punisher is. This fact even played out in a darkly ironic way in real life recently.
Earlier this year, police officers in Kentucky began driving cruisers with The Punisher’s symbol painted on cars in a “Blue Lives Matter” statement. Gerry Conway, the writer of Amazing Spider-Man that created The Punisher, said that he is a “morally compromised anti-hero” who would kill a police officer if he thought the officer killed an innocent man. The police quickly removed the symbol from their cars.
18. The Punisher Served In Vietnam, But Netflix Changed It To Afghanistan
The original Punisher movie had Frank Castle as a former cop, but that is not who he is at all. Much like John Rambo, Frank Castle was a Vietnam veteran whose war-time stories were told both in the ’80s Punisher: War Zone series as well as in the pages of Garth Ennis’ acclaimed storylines.
It is interesting because, while many comic books at Marvel updated their heroes origin stories to keep them realistically in line with their ages in the books, The Punisher remained a Vietnam War veteran even in the 2000s, making him over 50-years-old at the time.
The most prominent story was in 2003 when Garth Ennis wrote the miniseries Born, which looked at the final tour of Vietnam for Frank Castle before coming home to his family and eventually losing everything and becoming the gun-toting vigilante.
Interestingly, thanks to the Netflix Marvel series, and the younger age of actor Jon Bernthal, the new look at The Punisher finally updated his origin. Netflix removed him from the Vietnam War, where he would be in his 60s by now, and placed him in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. Special Forces.
17. Frank Castle Became The Punisher After His Family Was Murdered
Every superhero has his origin story, and most of them surround personal tragedy. Peter Parker chose to become a superhero when his Uncle Ben died due to Peter’s negligence. Bruce Wayne became Batman because he watched a thief gun down his parents. Matt Murdoch became a superhero because his father died at the hands of a mobster.
The Punisher became a cold-blooded killing machine antihero because mobsters gunned down his wife and child. While some men became heroes to protect people from the evils that lurk in the shadows, Frank Castle’s mind splintered, and he chose a different route. He decided to kill everyone who committed crimes to protect the public from these people ever hurting anyone again.
The original Marvel Comics showed that Frank was back from Vietnam and was picnicking in a park with his wife Maria and their children. The Castle family witnessed a gangland execution, and since they found themselves as witnesses to the crime, the Costa crime family killed them. Castle tried to help the police put them away, but the family remained untouchable due to corruption.
On that day, The Punisher was born.
The origin story, as it is in comics, changed somewhat over the years but the one thing that remains the same is that Frank’s family died at the hands of the mafia and The Punisher chose vengeance over a cape and mask.
16. Thomas Jane Was The Second Man To Portray Punisher In A Movie
The second Punisher movie received critical disdain when it hit theaters but still had more going for it than many fans give it credit. Thomas Jane portrayed Frank Castle, taking the role of the antihero after rejecting numerous attempts to sign on to a superhero movie before that.
According to Jane, he wasn’t interested in superheroes, but when he read the script for Punisher, he realized this was a tragic antihero who had nothing in common with the Marvel Comics characters that he associated in the comic books.
Punisher hit theaters in 2004 and this movie slightly stuck with part of the origin from the Dolph Lundgren movie. Much like that one, Frank Castle was a law enforcement officer (this time a member of the FBI), and he resigned after Bobby Saint, the son of a corrupt businessman named Howard Saint (John Travolta), died.
Saint blamed Castle for his son’s death and ordered the hit that left Castle’s family dead. This lead to Castle becoming The Punisher and seeking revenge on Saint for his family’s death. Frank Castle is a terrible person in this movie, but Jane remains the best representation of The Punisher on the big screen.
15. The Most Acclaimed Punisher Stories Had Nothing To Do With Supervillains
Interestingly, the one thing that the movies got right, despite their critical failings, was keeping The Punisher’s feet firmly placed on the ground. Yes, his killing sprees in the films remain a little hard to believe at times but everyone he killed was an ordinary man, and there was nothing supernatural or comic-bookish about his adventures.
A lot of this comes down to the Garth Ennis comic book run. One of the things that Ennis wanted to do was to remove Frank Castle from the world of superheroes. He still had to deal with The Punisher meeting up with a Daredevil or Spider-Man along the way but most of his stories – the best ones – had to do with Frank Castle battling real-life issues.
One of the best stories from Ennis’ run on The Punisher was “The Slavers” (2005-2006). This series was a five-issue run where The Punisher was staking out a drug dealer from Europe, but a woman fires upon the dealer before Frank can take him out.
When Frank leaps in and finishes the job, the woman tells him that these men forced her into prostitution and slavers kept her and women like her in New York City. SHe then said that, when she escaped, they chased her down and killed her child. This story led The Punisher to take down the forced prostitution ring by killing everyone who forced their will upon these women.
14. Thomas Jane Made A Punisher Themed Short Film Called Dirty Laundry
Yes, Thomas Jane’s Punisher movie was a failure, but it had little to do with Jane. The actor loved playing the role and wanted to continue with a better script – getting a second chance to play Frank Castle on the big screen. He wanted it so much that he financed his short film and then brought it with him to ComicCon.
Thomas Jane was smart. Everyone knew this was him playing The Punisher, but he never used the name The Punisher or the name Frank Castle in the entire short film. While it was clear what he was doing, Jane did nothing that could have warranted a cease-and-desist letter from Marvel.
The short had Jane’s character witnessing a gang trying to force a young man to sell drugs for them, and then he buys a bottle of Jack Daniels, which he uses to beat the gang bangers down. He pours the whiskey on them and then lays a lighter down and leaves. A prostitute that they beat up early on picks up the lighter and finishes the job as Jane’s character leaves.
The Dirty Laundry movie picked up a lot of press and attention. Even fans who did not like Jane’s Punisher movie came around and wondered what Jane could do with a film like his short – an R-rated movie about The Punisher that kept its feet on the ground and wasn’t trying so hard to be a Hollywood action film. One man who loved it was Jon Bernthal, and he said he decided to bring the attitude of the short film into his role in the Marvel Netflix series.
13. The Punisher Idolizes Captain America
Anyone who has followed The Punisher through the years knows that he hates most costumed superheroes. While the men in tights insist on doing the right thing and bringing criminals to justice, Frank Castle just wants to dish out punishment and take the criminals off the earth once and for all.
This difference is why The Punisher battles Spider-Man and Daredevil, as those two men want to stop Castle from killing. This trait also makes them a nuisance to him and two men who stand in his way. However, there is one superhero that Frank Castle respect above all others.
The extent of Frank Castle’s respect of Captain America was shown clearly in the Marvel Comics version of Civil War. When Captain America and his troops were on the run from the law with Iron Man and his troops in pursuit, Frank Castle wanted to join up with Cap’s side. To prove his loyalty, he killed two supervillains that had just asked to join Captain America’s team.
The murders caused Cap to flip out, as he has no tolerance for murderers. Captain America began to mercilessly beat Frank Castle, calling him”trash: and a “coward.” When he demanded that Frank fight back, The Punisher refused, simply saying “not against you.” Even Spider-Man said that Cap is why Frank joined the military and called them the “same guy, different war.”
12. At One Time Punisher Became A Frankenstein-Styled Monster
When Garth Ennis ended his run on The Punisher, he took Frank Castle out once and for all. It was the Punisher MAX series, and The Punisher set his sights on the one man that the law never could hold down – Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin. This series ended with The Punisher finally killing The Kingpin once and for all before dying himself in Punisher MAX #21. There was one issue left, and Marvel Comics buried Frank Castle.
In 2006, Matt Fraction brought back The Punisher, which was when Marvel Comics placed him inside the Civil War storyline. Then, in 2009, Marvel Comics killed The Punisher for a third time, this time dismembered by Wolverine’s son Daken. Just like the first time Frank died (the suicide/avenging angel story), Marvel decided to try something off-the-wall.
While completely different, the next Punisher story was as ludicrous as it sounds. Morbius, the Living Vampire, resurrected Frank Castle and patched him back up. This resurrection resulted in the new series FrankenCastlei where a Frankenstein’s monster styled Punisher joined the Legion of Monsters.
Thankfully, by 2010, Frank Castle was back to being a human Punisher once again.
11. Micro Is The Punisher’s Right-Hand Man
While Frank Castle is a loner, he seems always to have some losers willing to stand by his side. Remember, even back in his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129, the Jackal hired The Punisher to kill Spider-Man. In that issue, Jackal murdered a character known as The Mechanic, who supplied Punisher with his weapons.
When The Punisher Vol. 2 launched in 1987, the first issue of the comic book had a man on the cover known as Microchip. Originally, Microchip was going to be the “Q” for The Punisher (for those who don’t know the James Bond characters – that is the person who supplies the tools of his trade).
Microchip was a computer hacker who was a close ally and then, later, an enemy as well. The character also existed in the movie Punisher: War Zone with Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld) portraying the computer hacker, with a very tragic ending as well.
Now, Micro is back in a different form in the Punisher Netflix series. Portrayed by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Micro and Frank Castle once again meet and work together, and as the trailers show, it looks like both men might have an ax to grind for the death of loved ones.
10. At One Time, Punisher Killed The Entire Marvel Universe
Long-time fans of Marvel Comics know about a unique book that came out every so often called What If. These books took events that happened in Marvel Comics history and asked, “what if something changed in this story?” The issue then showed an alternate timeline of the Marvel Universe if just one thing changed.
Over the years, Marvel Comics has started doing more of these type of stories without the What If title. Examples include the Ultimate Universe and the Marvel Zombies line of comics. In 1995, Marvel published one of these alternate timeline stories featuring The Punisher.
The entire issue is a satire, written by Garth Ennis. In the book, Castle joins the NYPD SWAT team after leaving the Marines but watches as his wife and children when caught in the middle of a battle between the Avengers, X-Men and some aliens. When none of the heroes admit their part in the deaths, Castle goes nuts and starts killing the superheroes.
Castle meets other people who are deformed and injured due to superhero battles in the past, and he agrees to become The Punisher to stop the madness. By the end, The Punisher kills everyone from Spider-Man and The Avengers to The Fantastic Four, X-Men and Daredevil.
In 2010, Marvel did it again with Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher, where The Punisher is the only non-infected survivor of a post-apocalyptic world where heroes and villains have become crazed cannibals.
9. Ray Stevenson Was Third Punisher in ‘Punisher: War Zone’
The third and final (so far) version of The Punisher on the big screen came with Punisher: War Zone in 2008. The movie was the first ultra-violent movie featuring the Punisher but still left many critics disappointed.
Ray Stevenson (HBO’s Rome) starred here as Frank Castle, and while some fans thought he was too old for the role, it fits in well with the Garth Ennis idea that Frank Castle was a Vietnam veteran with years under his belt killing bad guys under the name, The Punisher.
This movie brought Jigsaw into the Punisher’s movie world and included the horrific scene where Billy found himself disfigured, this time by falling into a glass-crushing machine. With the R-rated violence, it is also interesting to note that this is one of the first superhero movies directed by a female – Lexi Alexander.
Unlike the first two Punisher movies, this one started with Frank Castle in action for years, and an NYPD Punisher Task Force team set up to catch him – although as with the comics, there are officers who have no desire to see Castle brought to justice. This film was very polarizing – receiving bad reviews upon its release but then seeing other critics start to defend the release.
8. Punisher Among Characters Marvel Licensed Out But Received Back Over Time
When Punisher: War Zone hit theaters to poor reviews, director Lexi Alexander said that she lost control of the project due to interference from Lionsgate. It sounds similar to problems that Spider-Man director Sam Raimi faced with Sony and the X-Men movies met for the short period that Bryan Singer was out of action.
However, when Iron Man proved to be a huge success, Marvel Studios started to try to bring a number of their properties home. They regained the rights to Captain America and Iron Man and only gained partial ownership of Hulk. However, there were still Marvel characters residing in other studios that Marvel couldn’t touch.
However, Marvel started to get rights to characters back when movies stalled for a specific number of years, and they also worked out deals to regain the rights of many characters as well. Of the characters that Marvel regained the rights to, Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Blade and The Punisher all returned home to Marvel.
While Marvel chose not to try to bring a fourth Punisher movie to the big screen, it was a perfect opportunity to bring him into the fold alongside Daredevil since the two characters share such a strong bond in the comics.
7. Jon Bernthal Walked With The Dead Before He Joined Punisher
The fourth actor to portray Frank Castle is Jon Bernthal and fans of hit television series The Walking Dead knows precisely who Bernthal is. For the first two seasons of the hit AMC show, Bernthal portrayed Shane – the best friend of Rick Grimes who allowed his jealousy and insecurities to turn him into a villain before he finally met his end.
Shane Walsh was one of the first characters that fans met on The Walking Dead. He and Rick were police officers and partners when Rick took a bullet and ended up in a coma. When Rick came to, the world had fallen to zombies and Shane was gone with Rick’s wife and son.
While Shane was trying to save Lori and Carl and made sure that Rick was safe when he left, over time he developed a relationship with his best friend’s family and a possessive nature. That made Rick’s return tough for Shane, who wanted to protect those he loved and felt Rick was messing everything up. Shane’s death was a significant moment on The Walking Dead.
Between The Walking Dead and The Punisher, Bernthal also starred on the TV series Mob City and in movies The Wolf of Wall Street, Fury and Sicario.
6. This Is Marvel’s Seventh Season On Netflix
The Punisher is the seventh season of the Marvel Universe since it debuted on Netflix. The streaming service has made its name as the home of the more ground-based superheroes in the universe, compared to the giant heroes in the Avengers world. Most of these characters deal with more human enemies in New York City, and it all started with Daredevil.
It seemed that Marvel wanted to see if their smaller characters could work and Netflix streaming proved to be the perfect place for them to set up shop. Once Daredevil was a considerable success, Netflix ordered a second season of that show.
On top of the two Daredevil seasons, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist all got TV shows as well. These four characters tie into each other in the comics, as well as on the big screen. In Marvel Comics, Luke Cage and Iron Fist are long-time friends and partners at Heroes for Hire. Cage married Jessica Jones, and the two have a baby together in the comics. Daredevil also hired them at one point to serve as a bodyguard for his secret identity, Matt Murdoch.
The Punisher only connects with Daredevil, but that still keeps all these characters tied together. The sixth series on Netflix was The Defenders, where the four original heroes teamed up.
5. Steve Lightfoot is The Punisher Showrunner
Out of the first six seasons of Marvel Netflix goodness, only one of the shows received backlash from critics. That was Iron Fist, and part of the problem might come from Scott Buck serving as the showrunner. Buck also ran the show for ABC’s Inhumans, which received a critical lashing and extremely poor ratings, and many fans of the Marvel Netflix world left Iron Fist disappointed.
However, the other Netflix Marvel series had some interesting names running the shows. Drew Goddard (Lost) ran Daredevil and The Defenders. Cheo Hodari Coker (Southland) ran Luke Cage. Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter) ran Jessica Jones. As for The Punisher, the showrunner is a man named Steve Lightfoot.
So, who is Steve Lightfoot? He was one of the executive producers of the fantastic series Hannibal. That right there speaks wonders, as Lightfoot worked under Bryan Fuller, a man with a tremendous track record creating television shows. Lightfoot also penned 20 episodes of Hannibal, which makes it very exciting to see him working on another hero operating on the dark side.
4. Karen Page Is Coming To Punisher’s Series
There was not going to be a real connection to the other Marvel Netflix series at first. Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple has tied most of the shows together, but she is not in The Punisher. However, while there were no characters initially set to tie the movie to the rest of the Marvel Netflix Universe, which changed when Deborah Ann Woll signed on to bring Karen Page to The Punisher.
Screen Rant reported that Steve Lightfoot asked Marvel to write Karen Page into this series after he started to plan out the show. According to Lightfoot, he wanted to add Karen to his show because of the chemistry she had with Frank in Daredevil’s second season. He said that, out of everyone that Frank knows, Karen is the only one he treats like an equal.
As the trailers show, Karen Page will still serve as the conscious for Frank Castle and might end up in mortal danger herself. Adding Karen will help lead fans of Daredevil over to The Punisher and possibly help it get the eyes needed to make sure that Frank Castle lives on when it comes to Marvel Netflix.
3. The Punisher Was Postponed After Las Vegas Shooting
Initially, The Punisher had a rumored October release on Netflix, but that never happened. The reason for the delay had nothing to do with re-shoots or problems with the show itself. Instead, Netflix and Marvel chose to hold off on bringing The Punisher to fans because of the tragic shooting in Las Vegas.
Comic-Con in New York also pulled a screening of The Punisher pilot in October as well because of the shooting. According to both Marvel and Netflix, they felt it was better to postpone the Marvel series because they didn’t consider it appropriate to show a TV series about a vigilante with a stock of guns killing bad guys after the shooting in Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, one man holed up in a hotel room and opened fire on people outside on the streets enjoying a country music concert. Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured almost 500 others using 23 different weapons he had stockpiled in his room. He then took his own life.
With The Punisher as a character that carries a massive arsenal of weapons, and as the trailers show, kills many people in the Netflix Marvel series, it is clear why Marvel thought this would negatively affect victims and families of the Las Vegas tragedy.
2. Jon Bernthal Says Punisher Is About Moral Issues And Not Guns
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lightfoot said that he agreed with the decision to postpone the release of The Punisher after the Las Vegas shootings. However, when Jon Bernthal was talking about the series, he said that he felt that The Punisher isn’t a show about assault exploitation at all.
Instead, Bernthal said that the show is instead a serious look at trauma and grief. According to Bernthal, “Frank is a guy who is in unbelievable pain, and there’s an unbelievable cost to the violence that he’s gone through in his life.”
It is an interesting outlook on the character and one that fits in well with things that Garth Ennis was trying to do with his run on the character for Marvel Comics. According to Bernthal, he didn’t want to create a figure the “lionizes” violence and said that would mean he failed if people saw that in his portrayal.
Instead, Bernthal said he wants people to walk away from The Punisher knowing that this man is not a hero but is a man torn apart by pain. He also promised that his character’s struggle is right out of the comics. The series even signed on veterans to play small roles in The Punisher to help bring a realness to the series.
1. The Punisher Netflix Information
After picking up its one-month delay, The Punisher finally airs this week on Netflix. As with all series on the streaming network, every episode of The Punisher hits at once, all debuting on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 17.
Jon Bernthal stars as Frank Castle / The Punisher and is seeking out the people who killed his family. Ben Barnes (Westworld) plays the main villain Billy Russo (who might or might not become Jigsaw).
Also appearing in The Punisher is Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Micro), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page) and Amber Rose Revah (Dinah Madani).
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The Punisher includes 13 episodes.