Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

But he is right, cap is celebrate because he is the war time hero of the good and just war,the one nobody complain about US intervention and every agree it was nice.

Having steve deal with vietnam would be more intersting.

I think Punisher works best when you put him against criminals so evil that you cheer for him, despite the natural immorality of his cause. Punisher killing working poor criminals is vile, Punisher killing slavers, serial killers and hit men, that can be cathartic.

With The Punisher it should be noted that the character actually was intended as a villain initially. He suffers a great deal from misaimed fandom, which at this point runs the asylum to some degree.

Funny thing, I like the first movie adaptation, were he is a deal more sympathy and while harsh and reckless there is a sense of pity there, it was a good revenge movie.

I think the part is this "frank enjoy killing people but they are complete monster so is okey"

Punisher's first appearance was as a one-off Spider-man villain.

Frank being a blood thirsty dude during Vietnam was a Garth Ennis thing for MAX right?

I can never forget the scenario where he more or less makes a inner deal with the devil to fight in an eternal war forever and him not truly realizing what that meant until he got back home. IIRC

So fittingly, Frank if he’s properly written imo, has to always deal with the fact that he chose to be a monster.

Frank Castle and Sandor Clegane in the same room...

I think Sandor would whack Frank over the head with the blunt truth about what they both were made to be and how they've chosen to use it.

I've more sympathy for Sandor, myself.

I prefer the Jeremy Benthal Punisher actually versus Ennis' one. The Frank Castle who actually isn't just Dexter with guns. A guy who isn't a serial killer even if he is, yes, objectively nuts.

Bernthal's Punisher is great because he's a really sympathetic, tragic character that's still presented as being ultimately wrong and deeply unhinged.

I have to wonder how much correlation there is between us now discussing the Punisher and other Anti-Heroes and Red from OSP releasing a trope talk on them a few days ago.

Not in my case

Is this version of Punisher current run?

TBH, I've always considered the Punisher to be a super problematic character when he's the protagonist. As others have stated, he was originally a villain and still works best as an antagonist.

Reminds me of what happened when the Imperium went from being a fascist parody antagonist for Rogue Trader to a playable faction in 40K.

Speaking of Steven Universe, the new She-Ra cartoon seems to take a similar tack with its villains, but does it better, with Catra and Hordak having somewhat understandable reasons for being villains, but whose actions are still treated heinous and hard to forgive, actions have consequences in this show. The big exceptions are Shadow Weaver, who is still an abusive jerk, but on is on the heroes side due to convenience and Horde Prime, who seems like he is pure evil at this point.

Horde Prime is pretty much the ultimate narcissist.

Edited by M84 on Jan 15th 2020 at 10:36:19 PM

In more serious adaptions, Hordak is written like a megalomaniacal psychopath with no redeeming qualities, he is even a Satan like figure in the recent DC comics series. I think Horde Prime, a rather undefined character in previous adaptations, is given Hordak's negative qualities and Hordak is allowed to be more sympathetic in the process.

With 40K, the basic issue still remains who the audience is meant to sympathize with (this is broadly the setting's biggest hang up for me). In Rogue Trader, to my understanding, they were the enemies to your Rogue Trader (who could be benevolent). Problem was with the translation to a wargame, where you need armies and the like. I suppose what they probably should have done was simply make a "Rogue Trader" faction or something, maybe some kind of 'rebel' faction. They did eventually add the Tau, which I like, personally.

I will give the Imperium credit for being the apotheosis of Screw You, Elves!, however, which is pretty cathartic for people who are annoyed with Humans Are Bastards-stories where humans are compared negatively to some other species. Quoting The Imperium is pretty much my go-to response to hearing people say something like "this is why aliens don't talk to us".

In the case of punisher, I said him being a protagonist kinda open a few intersting venue of writing, rather than being another big mean villian.

Specially since he kill and the chararter he kill stay dead, which is more to said than 98% of comic book antagonist

IIRC, The Punisher actually has an issue with crossovers because of their willingness to kill being something of a "story breaker".

Though I think thatdidn't stop Archie from crossover with them (IIRC. I could be mistaking him for Batman, which also did a Punisher crossover). it even got a trope page!

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 15th 2020 at 7:32:02 AM

I've always said that Punisher stands for such a virulently toxic fantasy of "gun-rights" that he really only works two ways: A) If you play him as a villain B) if you take the Punisher out of reality completely. I've said that if you take Punisher's main appeal (gun-based revenge fantasy involving crime) and inject its veins with fantasy to remove it from reality you basically get John Wick, which is far less problematic.

Although me and Ambar once spitballed in this thread (or its previous version, I don't remember) how it'd be interesting to have a "what if" version of an African-American Punisher dealing with the KKK, to explore racial politics and gun rights.

Edited by Gaon on Jan 15th 2020 at 7:32:08 AM

For what it's worth, I think the core idea of the Punisher as a villain is a pretty good idea, because it's a great Evil Counterpart to superheroics. However, the core problem with using him as a villain is that the genre convention of Joker Immunity makes him kind of right. Though it should be noted that in practice The Punisher generally is still incapable of stopping major supervillains due to the same genre conventions.

@Gaon: Hey, don't forget me . I proposed making Barracuda a KKK "White trash" Thug (hey, if we change the hero, why not the villains?)

Honestly, the only way to truly ground the Punisher would be if his played as an antagonist with a hero/heroine who actually kills, but only sparingly.

As we have discussed before, heroes tend to be either Thou Shall Not Kill or Kill Em All, there's not enough notoriety for heroes that do kill but refrain from doing so unless it is absolutely needed. Of course, writing that middle ground requires acknowledging that killing is a defeat or a lesser evil in on itself for heroes since the best scenario is the one in which nobody dies, and also requires delving into the issues of PTSD, the idea of mercy and the problem of not being able to tell which criminal is a genuine psychopath and which one was forced by circumstances.

Eh, I feel the Punisher is a very different character politically if he's not going after street criminals vs. say, terrorists or PM Cs. Mind you, I feel Arrow lost most of its edge when they had Oliver stop going after billionaires and white collar criminals as well as stopped killing.

Much more generic, much less interesting.

Re: Catra

I realized She-Ra wasn't for me when I realized I fully supported her taking over the Horde and defeating the Princesses.

:)

Re: Warhammer 40K

I feel like the game should be a place where you accept the following:

• There are no sympathetic factions
• Humanity is going to go extinct and kind of deserves to
• It'll be a wild ride until then

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 15th 2020 at 11:24:29 AM

It doesn't help that the Punisher's first appearance was him going after Spider-Man because of a misunderstanding due to him thinking Peter was a villain. It's far too easy to spin him as a flawed but well meaning antihero as opposed to a villain.