The Punisher is the latest MCU web series to be released. As its name states, it is centered around the titular character Frank Castle, who is played by Jon Bernthal in a reprisal of his role from Daredevil. Something that might interest those who found his performance in that series to be worth watching. Likewise, it is interesting to note that the web series was headed by Steven Lightfoot of Hannibal fame, which is something that could convince some people to give it a chance as well. Whatever the case, The Punisher has received a fair amount of praise in the critical reviews, thus providing interested individuals with even further incentive to check it out.
Why Is The Punisher Worth Watching?
For starters, The Punisher is interesting in that it is not as simple and straightforward as its basic premise would make it seem. After all, Frank Castle is a man who started killing people in revenge for his murdered family, meaning that the no-brainer choice would have been making a series focused on those killings. However, The Punisher starts with those killings having happened in the past, thus freeing it up to focus on something else even if the past continues to haunt the present.
Furthermore, it should be noted that while The Punisher features a great deal of action involving a great number of weapons, its use of violence is not depicted as being either beautiful or glorious as is common in action-oriented media but rather with a brutal ugliness that brings it that much closer to the real thing while also contributing to the web series’s overall feel. Finally, it should be mentioned that while The Punisher is set in the same setting as the other web series and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it stands at the furthest distance from the comic books, so much so that a number of reviewers have commented on the fact that Frank Castle doesn’t actually wear the iconic skull logo much at all.
With that said, The Punisher is also a lot more similar to the other web series than it would seem based on the previous paragraph. For example, Frank Castle is someone who is marginalized in much the same sense as Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Matt Murdock, which can seem a little bit strange on initial consideration. After all, he is a veteran, who tend to get lauded by the media. However, it is important to remember that support for veterans is not what it should be, with the result that they are often forced to deal with the mark that their experiences have left on them without the resources needed to make a smooth return to civilian life.
The consequences of this transition can be seen in not just Frank Castle but also a number of the supporting characters in The Punisher, thus resulting in a more nuanced consideration than what most people would expect. Still, combined with the web series’ gradual unveiling of what happened in Frank Castle’s background, it is not unreasonable to say that The Punisher is a condemnation of this phenomenon as well as a rather cynical examination of the use of force itself.
Summed up, people who want to see something new in the Marvel Cinematic Universe should check out The Punisher because of how it both meets and challenges the expectations of such viewers. This is particularly true because it has a lot more packed into it than it seems, which in turn, means that much more to digest.
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