The Punisher Netflix series

I absolutely agree with the idea that the Punisher should never, ever be shipped with anyone. The comics try to do it from time to time and it's always horrible. It flies against the very premise of the character.

If Frank Castle was emotionally and psychologically capable of putting his wife and kids behind him and moving on with his life, he wouldn't be killing people.

While Matt/Karen is a terrible ship with zero chemistry and a wealth of problems, Frank/Karen would be no better and, in many ways, significantly worse.

edited 22nd Oct '17 4:18:28 PM by TobiasDrake

I could see it being done as Frank being rather adamant he’s not a healthy human being, and that means he can’t be involved in a romance, since it would make others suffer. That’s the core of the character, the mission. Others shouldn’t have to suffer for his burden (which Welcome Back, Frank seems to rather succinctly say). He’s capable of compassion, of emotion, but he knows what comes first.

Karen can't turn away from other people in pain, we've seen it again and again: she's drawn to Frank Castle the same exact way she is to Matt Murdock. It doesn't have to be romantic, but she does see something in them that's redeeming, and redeemable. Characters like Daredevil, the Punisher, and Batman, characters who trade on having that reputation for being the monster, need people like that around them, to humanize them, and to hold them back from the edge.

So it's key to the differences between Daredevil and the Punisher that Karen ultimately fails to get through to Frank— even as she actually does get through to Matt, after and maybe because she gives up on him, that last-minute wake-up call. Still probably for the best that none of these people get together romantically. That kind of downward-spiralling feedback loop isn't good for any of them, really.

edited 22nd Oct '17 9:46:21 PM by Unsung

Frank at least tends to realize that. It’s why he almost always works alone.

Indeed. Castle has no interest in being saved, which makes his interactions with Murdock in the comics so interesting. There's a huge dynamic in play between the characters with Murdock wanting to bring Castle back from the edge and Castle respecting Murdock's dedication but asserting that he's a lost cause.

And also there's Spider-Man, who really just wants to put Castle in jail and isn't too interested in getting caught up in the philosophy of a serial killer.

edited 22nd Oct '17 7:54:45 PM by TobiasDrake

Though the Painkiller Jane crossover was pretty fun.

So there's still 3 things that bug me:

• Does this take place after Daredevil Season 2? In which case, how long after, because Frank has healed considerably well given how badly he got roughed up by the gang, by Fisk, and by Matt himself.
• So FBI/Homeland Security are after him - Frank clearly has a 4-star wanted level - sothen how the hell is he still alive? This man should be like shoot-on-sight at this point if he's mowing down SWAT team's worth of dudes.
  • Addendum: If Frank is just that badass then why didn't Stick recruit him? The guy flat-out sniped a couple of Hand ninja and obviously has fewer qualms about icing dudes. Imagine Castle teaming up with the Defenders because Stick took a minute and thought, "sh't this guy's bad enough to take Matty on in a fight and hold his own, and he's not Catholic!"
    • Frank only cares about personal vengeance and sticking it to criminals. "Hey Frank, once you're done choking out that Fisk guy, there's a band of ninjas teaching a kung fu-Scientology hybrid to at the local Y. Why don't you join MY band of ninjas so we can go teach them a lesson."
• If he's murdering his way through New York again, wouldn't Danny or Luke have something to say about it? Look I get it, New York's a big place, but an entire fight scene's worth of dead extras is worth the attention of a vigilante from another neighborhood.

edited 25th Oct '17 7:01:34 PM by Soble

I still need to see Defenders so it's possible that their motives changed during that but barring any changes since the end of their respective shows, he's not in Luke's neighborhood and he didn't murder Danny's parents so I'm not sure either of them has a reason to care who he kills.

The big thing is that most people think Frank is dead.

So if he shoots up a bunch of gang members, the news probably will read 'X dead in gangland shootout' and not 'Punisher strikes again', which won't necessarily grab anyone's attention as much.

I can't believe I didn't know until that the showrunner was heavily involved in Hannibal. That makes me twice as excited for this.

I would hope that anything over a triple homicide would catch the attention of heroes from other neighbourhoods at least enough that they ask some questions. Also, I love the metric of "an entire fight scene's worth of dead extras"

They've got their own triple homicides to deal with.

The problems of Matt/Karen are more or less your pretty general relationship problems that can be fixed. I won't argue whether or not they have chemistry as that is a very subjective thing. Frank/Karen? Yeah, that would be detrimental to Karen.

Sure they're busy with their own issues, but they can still read a newspaper, talk to people, you know, be active members of their communities and know what's going on in the city.

All these people know each other by now. They know people at newspapers. They know people in the police department. They're all invested in the city. None of them, not even Danny, is particularly stupid. Jessica probably has (poorly kept) files on each of the defenders by now. She might go on a week-long bender once in a while and miss something obvious, but on the average day she's probably the defender with the most information about what's going on in New York. Matt is also well-informed, but his focus is more singularly on organized crime, because that's where his two lives intersect. Danny is pretty clueless, but there's still Colleen to make sure Danny doesn't disappear too far up his own ass, and the people at Rand Co. who provide Danny with access to a lot of people and information. Luke would probably be the last defender to find out about anything, just because he's so devoted to Harlem and his relationships and motivations are usually very personal. Still, he's pretty close with Misty, so if it's anything that makes the police take notice, Luke would likely hear about it before long.

They don't have to get involved in each other's business, but they should at least be aware of it.

This is a city of 8.5 million people IRL (with a crime rate that far exceeds the real NYC's IRL). The Defenders might know each others' business if they tell each other, but they surely don't investigate every random murder personally, and if Frank wanted to cover his tracks, I don't doubt he could— to say nothing of Evil Government Guy's ongoing coverup.

I'll also throw out there that even if they wanted to do something about Castle, that's no guarantee that they could. Like, physically, sure, if he was attacking a place and they happened to be nearby, they could probably step in. Luke Cage in particular would be completely unmanageable for him.

But we're talking about a highly trained and heavily experienced FORECON Marine operating off grid. Good f*cking luck finding the guy. It is entirely possible that Danny and Luke would have something to say about the Punisher's ops, but most of what they have to say would consist of, "Man, he struck again? That sucks."

edited 22nd Oct '17 11:08:07 PM by TobiasDrake

I'd like to add that the only healthy relationship Frank ever had was with Kathryn O'Brien. In fact, I recently saw a post on Reddit talking about how often when it comes to Frank's flings, the women are practically forcing themselves onto him.

I liked his relationship with Rachel Cole-Alves. It was basically a female version of the Punisher and he tried very hard for her not to become like him.

Rucka's run in general was splendid.

That really only applies to Matt. Jessica only gets involved in things her clients pay her to do. Danny only came to New York to get away from K'un L'un and later stayed because of the Hand or some other stuff. Luke only really gives a damn about Harlem. Even Matt never really moves beyond Hell's Kitchen. These guys aren't the Avengers. They're not playing world police or even city police.

I wonder if the series would again review Frank's philosophy, hopefully this time without the contrived avoidance of a straight answer that happened in Daredevil (never mind the scene otherwise copying Garth Ennis verbatim).

Speaking of the Avengers in particular, it's a rather interesting discrepancy that their excuse for shunning supervision - "what if they refuse to send us where we should go" etc. - is met with far less skepticism and even outright approval, even though it's basically an international version of what the Punisher already does in the cities. You think terrorists don't go to court? That spec-ops can just be ordered on the go, without high-level approval? Or respectively, that known criminals aren't being spared the rod due to political influence? As the MCU heroes aren't exactly restricted in terms of lethality, I really have to wonder at the logic that killing bad people in foreign countries is all well and good, no authorization needed, but doing it domestically is somehow crossing the line.

Consequently, dunno about the Defenders, but the Avengers themselves would be standing on feet of clay if they ever have anything to say about the Punisher.

In general, superheroes tend to be given a pass on their activities because they don't kill people. It's generally accepted that they can break all the laws they want and it's not a problem 'cause none of them are killers and so they're doing more good than harm to the world. Whereas people like the Punisher do not receive this benefit of doubt because they kill people, which makes their activities bad.

Note that this remains true despite the fact that most superheroes have killed people.

Tony clearly would have words, wanting to bring the team under some sort of regulation. The main difference of course is Frank’s moral absolutism.

My big question is if Frank gets to punch a bear.

There's gotta be at least one action scene where Frank is fighting without weapons, using everything in the surrounding environment. A zoo would be great indeed, but just think of the potential here - malls, hotel rooms, posh restaurants... it's like a bloodier and gorier version of a Jackie Chan movie.

I reckon most superheroes get a free pass even for their occasional kills due to their ostensible function of stopping ongoing crimes and terrorist operations, rather than merely executing the perpetrators in explicit subversion of authorites. Problem is, the above issue - and the one central to the Punisher's philosophy - still applies: What happens when the authorities are not unable, but rather unwilling to act for the enforcement of justice? What's so noble about leaving criminals to the courts, when the courts themselves are often run by criminals? And if - per the greater MCU proper - the freakin' UN can be subverted in the pursuit of one's personal vision of justice, what's so different about doing the same regarding a corrupt legal system?

Honestly, are you trying to start this discussion again? We already had it, multiple times.

And this time it's essential to the character's core philosophy. For all of comic books' fetish for corrupt corporations, corrupt militaries and even corrupt governments, they rather aggressively avoid the subject of corrupt courts. Especially now that it's become customary for people to protest and even riot after high-profile trials with acquittal verdicts. Of all civil institutions, why is that one held in fiction as pristine, while others denigrated as all but inherently malicious? And respectively, if it was admitted as being otherwise, what would the alternative be to what the Punisher is peddling?

There is little correlation to the position of the Punisher and the Avengers, because The Avengers is a defensive force (as are the Defenders, btw), while the Punisher is an offensive force. He doesn't react to prevent damage and protect people in this moment, he acts in order to prevent damage which might occur in the future. And that is exactly why he isn't a hero, because nobody can really predict the future. The guy the Punisher shot today because he decided him worthless to live and might kill someone next week might next week be a bone marrow donor to a dying child.

This has been repeatedly pointed out to you, so I don't get why you keep insisting on restarting this discussion by suggestion that the position of the Avengers is in any way similar to what the Punisher does.

Edit: And reading this, this might actually be a good plot for a Punisher story. Let him shot someone and this act leads indirectly to the death of a child.

edited 25th Oct '17 3:23:53 AM by Swanpride