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[Punisher] Marvel Murder Machine (Spoilers)
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Sort of. Karen Page does show up a fair amount.
Also Berenthal is a damn compelling actor both in terms of acting chops and the physicality he brings to the role. He's the first character I've seen in one of these shows where I can see him actually having the presence to be on screen with the film-level characters.
I'd really like to see him have a conversation with the Hulk.
Also Brett, the cop from Daredevil. He's moving up in the world.
The most comic booky thing that happens in the entire show is that a window stops at .50 cal sniper rifle bullet cold. They never explained that, but I doubt there's any glass in the real world that could do that. The American intelligence community clearly has some SHIELD-style indestructible transparent material.
Great scene, though.
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This seemed to be the inverse of the others though in that it started slow and got better at the end.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Nah.
https://m.liveleak.com/view?i=6eb_1374180030
I thought that transparent aluminum was a science fiction thing. Like, I read that they had it in Warhammer 40K spaceships and was like, "sure, just like digi-lasers and personal forcefields."
Karen was fine. She's got the plot connection to him, but I wasn't really feeling it for most of her bits. The last scene in the elevator was damn good though.
I liked the bad guys. They weren't completely stupid evil. When Billy went off the rails in the last episode he wasn't derping it up like Diamondback.
The Lewis storyline kinda petered out there, and like others have said, really only ended up being a way to have Karen in the mix and to expose Billy as the bad guy. And Billy's exposure made little sense.
Honestly, the bad guy's plans weren't the best. Murder the crap out of anyone who could expose us can definitely drive a plot, but we're looking at three death squads (Frank's family, Kentucky, the DHS ambush) going crazy on American soil. Maybe dial that back a bit.
I was weirded out by The Expanse's UN lady being Madani's mom. She's got such a distinctive three pack a day voice.
Madani doesn't seem to be the best cop. Great acting, but the whole ambush thing and not documenting the shit out of things... she really wasn't making any progress until Frank and David dumped all the evidence ever in her lap.
The second to last episode pegged my violence-o-meter. I think I'm good for seeing blood for the next year or so. John Wick is positively G-Rated in comparison.
It had a lot of good themes of PTSD and what the military does to people. Frank was pretty broken as a person even before he lost his family, and Lewis' slow crash was good too. I think those themes got dumped at the end in order to go pure roaring rampage of revenge.
As far as the lack of the dead episodes at around the 7-8 point, I think that's because the Lewis storyline was nicely interwoven through the rest of the episodes. They could have easily had Lewis pop up in episode 7 as this guy doing things and Frank has to go after him, and that'd be the two or three episodes we'd all be scratching our heads over; but they they blended that story in nicely, so even though it was relatively pointless at the end, it didn't feel like a waste of time (Luke Cage: Road Trip, I'm looking at you).
It’s like aural bourbon.
Nick Fury talked about that in one comic, about how Frank seems to inhabit two worlds, one on the street that is a constant bloodbath against the mob, slavers, drug dealers and other real monsters, and only occasionally crossing paths with the colorful world of regular superheroes. He doesnt do it a lot because the supers tend to get pissy when he shoots their villains. Like in Civil War, Captain America lost his shit when Punisher shot two supervillains who tried to join the Anti-Reg side.
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I really liked the Punisher Civil War stuff. IIRC that's also the arc that had Castle meeting Cap while in OCS and Cap called him a coward for not wanting to fight him.
"Actual TV shows?" Like Once Upon A Time or Real Housewives of Atlanta? As good as those?
Which is ironic, because early on in the characters history, they hinted that Punisher resented Captain America for being a beloved icon of WW2 while Punisher and his contemporaries were despised just for being drafted into the unpopular Vietnam war. Obviously thats not true anymore, especially since the modern Punisher is an Iraq vet.
I think what makes the resentment for Cap even more "real" is that Castle was a Marine officer who volunteered (despite the popular image many, many people volunteered especially early on; conscription only accounts for about 1/4 of total force numbers) in what was seen as a national call to serve prior to Tet. So the identity narrative of volunteering to fight in a time of national need is challenged as public opinion turns on the war and it's being compared to the "Greatest Generation". And relative to WWII Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and even Gulf 1 become sort of minimized in our national identity narrative.
And I've personally seen it with regards to the GWOT. We have a very strong nationalist bent concerning the military and the GWOT in public that has to do with the military being one of the last trusted institutions for the citizenry. But I've been privy to discussions with individuals unaware or uncaring that they are talking to or around GWOT veterans and a similar post Vietnam narrative exists. It's not necessarily a left/dove thing, it's very strongly prevalent on the right leaning conspiracy/anti government minded subculture.
So for Frank Castle it very much can be a crisis of identity narrative.
You know what would get him working again without having to destroy his new life and Micro’s? Nick Fury bringing him on a mission against
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Meh, that issue isnt very good, there's a few Punisher What Ifs that are way better.
My favorite is "What If The Venom Symbiote Possessed The Punisher?"
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Forget it...
That was a surprisingly great crossover
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
LIke the show does a good job establishing that Frank is still a man who's not really in control of himself, he's seriously fucked up and his coping mechanism is shooting people and/or getting shot. Or just beating a wall with a sledgehammer for 12 hours a day.
It makes him an interestingly sympathetic psycho vigilante, because it's the only coping mechanism that he has.
It's too bad that no one else on the show is anywhere near as interesting - I really want to like Madani, but she desperately needs some sort of fuel driving her actions beyond just a long-dead partner that we've only seen in one scene. Madani desperately needs a Deputy Gerard give-no-fucks scene:
MCU/Star Trek crossover confirmed.
AoS
THAT'S WHERE I KNOW HIM FROM!
That has been bugging me for days but I was avoiding wiki or google searches lest a big fat spoiler show up.
The Frank we all know and love from the MAX imprint is Earth-200111, but Tony Stark has referenced his storylines (Firebase Valley Forge, inhabiting two worlds) during the Civil War in 616. This could just mean the 616 version of Frank shares those same origins, but the max books take place in 200111.
Of course, Frank's durability and skill vs heroes depends if he's appearing in his book (outsmarts / embarrasses Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Daredevil) or in that hero's book. (Soundly trounced by Wolverine) That's just true of all comics though, if your favourite hero goes up against someone else in the other person's book, you're gonna have a bad time. (Guy Gardner over in DC suffered this)
This is probably the thing I hate most about comics. I don't care who's book it is, have some goddamn consistency.
Street level guys are street level for a reason. I keep hearing calls for the Netflix crew to show up in Infinity War but like... wtf are they gonna do against Thanos.
From what I gather, Frank seems to suffer from the same "Lol prep time" fanboy arguments as Batman. Except the writers are the fanboys.
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Forget it...
The best Punisher stories are the ones by Ennis where there's no super heroes and the closest marvel reference is a version of Nick Fury.
Not that I didn't enjoy watching him shotgun Wolverine's junk and then pin him under a steam roller.
I imagine invincible super strong Luke Cage, super strong Jessica Jones, Iron Fist Iron Fist and super ninja Daredevil would be more useful in a fight against Thanos than shoots pistols Black Widow.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Well, about that....
They've done a pretty bad job of leveling up BW appropriately, but a) she's on a higher level skillwise than DD, and b) she's also the one who closed the Chitauri portal during the battle of NY. Shes used to dealing with wacky alien shit and killer robots while these guys are running around with paper ninjas.
Comics Luke would be of more use but MCU Luke is pretty nerfed.
IF looked pretty useless during Defenders. JJ doesn't have the skills to make full use of her powers. If the battle of NY happened with the Defenders instead theyd all get stomped.
Maybe in the comics they're all super awesome but MCU wise there's a reason they're street level.
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Forget it...
Because Marvels whole schtick was the "shared universe" and what better way to cap (Cap?) off the idea than have a big giant splash page style scene in Infinity War?
Maybe they don't fight Thanos, but instead we see them all in a big sweeping scene (like in A1) fighting minions and saving citizens while the heavy hitters take out the big bad.
Seeing everyone in one scene might not make sense, but i think the "OMG HELL YES!" factor far out weighs the "yea but why...." factor.
Let's not pretend that there's any reason for their power limits beyond the writers needing them that way for their stories.
If someone wanted the Defenders in the films, suddenly they would find themselves leveling up. There's no reason DD shouldn't be able to take on BW, for example. She was trained by Soviet super spies, he was trained by magical ninjas, whatever.
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