What does everyone think of punisher?

He is very faithful to the source material, although Comic Punisher takes on higher level threats. I like Punisher as a character, and the TV show version is great. He's the best part of DD S2, and hes great in his show. His shows writing isn't the best, but the performance is great consistently.

I'm also not a huge fan of the macho shoot em up style hero. The best part about good Punisher stories is when they're very aware that Frank is not a good man. He's very mentally ill, traumatized and has an incredibly stark morality. It works best when he can be compared to other heroes like Spidey/Cap etc because he's truly just a man who refuses to stop shooting bad guys no matter what.

If you don't mind spoilers, [here's](https://youtu.be/dhakGLCMGWs?si=L66nQFLCrgT36rFc) a great depiction of why I like TV show punisher

I felt exactly the same as you. Jon Bernthal made me care about and sympathise with the character regardless

I don’t normally care for a gun toting action hero that much, but Jon Bernthal’s performance is very good and the characterization of Frank Castle is pretty layered. I like him in contrast to a hero like Daredevil more than I like him alone, mainly because being juxtaposed against a character who is morally good exposes Frank’s flaws very clearly. And I think his stories so far are better when he is clearly flawed. But his solo series was very good at times and decent overall.

I love him cause I love a good murdery anti-hero. I can't stand when a hero has to defeat a villain for the umpteenth time costing lives cause they refuse to just do whats necessary

I really like the Punisher precisely because the best stories remind us that he's not a hero: he's a depressed and dead man who accepted the path to hell after Vietnam and who kills criminals to vent his anger at the world. He's a madman whose exploits I find fascinating to follow, but he isn't and shouldn't be a guy you see as a positive role model: even good writers know he'll inevitably face a self-destructive destiny.

Punisher is one of my favourite marvel heroes. I think he’s very well adapted. Jon Bernthal is an incredible actor. I think his voice might be a little too gruff but I’m just nitpicking there. I’m glad we’re getting him in Spider-Man so he can branch out from simply being a ‘I gotta kill a bunch of no-name criminals 24/7’ guy.

I'm right there with you, the character has no appeal for me but there isn't any hatred on my part and beyond the Punisher movie...I haven't seen him in anything. Whilst I consider myself a hardcore MCU fan and have watched everything damn near religiously multiple times....I have not touched any of the netflix shows or any extensions of it now that Disney has all the rights to the characters (the first time I saw Daredevil in live action (other than the affleck film) and in the MCU was "No Way home" and then She-hulk) but I am curious what Punisher fans think

I don't care for him. I love that movie with John Travolta in it but like... Not cause I'm a punisher fan. It's cause that movie is a great time.

What does "element" mean here?

Element?

He's not a superhero, he's an anti-hero #element

He’s a character made for a time and place who’s been difficult to adapt as the world has changed, or the concept of superheroes is truly unpacked.

I think he’s best served as an ex-cop and war-torn Vietnam vet in 70s era New York where crime, drugs, corruption and all were part of the same ecosystem that got his family killed. I think his Italian heritage contrasted against the fear of the Italian mob was kind of critical to grounding him in NYC as a necessary evil.

Today, there aren’t many interpretations where he doesn’t just look like a bully, or an outlaw of the time like Jesse James. An elite but tortured special soldier disillusioned with ethics and tied up in political intrigue with intimate knowledge of every weapon is trite, and it doesn’t hold up in a world where Cap and the Winter Soldier exist.

In comics he’s become difficult to follow because the writers are actively trying to decouple the skull from the right-wing blood lust and reconcile his philosophy with more empathetic viewpoints. Batman has suffered the same criticism for breaking drug dealers’ arms while ignoring the institutions that create crime.

In the MCU, he has to be a bit more contemporary. But I think Bernthal’s Punisher has had too much happen to him, and punishes as a consequence. I’m hoping his upcoming special sees him punishing.

The War Zone iteration was probably the most logically sound interpretation of the comics: fun violence, code-driven, and finds the Punisher embroiled in something deeper because he was punishing. He uncovered deeper criminal corruption while killing criminals. It was weakened by terrible performances around Ray Stevenson.

In the comics, I like Punisher well enough, but that's likely because I've not read very many of his dedicated stories. Mostly I like him when he shows up in other heroes' stories, where he's sort of an unhinged underworld boogeyman who genuinely frightens criminals, but gets manhandled or shut down either physically or intellectually by more moral superheroes. He's a net positive, but not portrayed as a hero himself - more like a wildfire that's useful to a point and then has to get extinguished to curtail the damage.

In the MCU, I also enjoy Frank Castle, but again, mostly as he appears in a side role. When they put him on his own, he's kind of boring:

Middle-aged white guy with special ops training who tried to settle down, but lost everything and now is on a one-man crusade of over-the-top gun violence against "The Bad Guys" ™️ .

Hollywood has put out three movies with that exact premise every year for two decades like clockwork. I was bored of it in 2010. Now, it sickens me.

As much as I think Bernthal is a great actor I always find The Punisher a super one note character. I am sure in the 70's a marvel character that killed people was revolutionary but now it just gets kind of repetitive.

I don't mind him showing up I just think he should be used rarely. One thing I did like about the Netflix show with Bernthal was that they made him a bad person even before he became The Punisher. In the flashbacks he was a lieutenant in the US Marines but he had no problem executing someone in custody while in Afghanistan.

Despite not being a fan of the comic version of the Punisher, I really liked Jon Bernthal as the character.

I always liked Frank as a "cool" character (while still acknowledging he's def not meant to be a role model), but Bernthal brought a layer of depth and complexity to the character that hasn't really been explored too much in other adaptations.

One thing in particular that I like is how much they really leaned into him being a vet. It's one of those things that we all know about the character, but compared to other adaptations, it's clearly a massive influence on his world view. He's actually very similar to Cap in that he feels lost without a "war" to fight, so he basically created his own war.

I don't