Our favorite Force Recon Marine turned vigilante just got his own Netflix series.  ‘Bout damn time if you ask me.  The Punisher follows up on his appearance in season two of Daredevil (who is a whiney hand wringing wimp) with his own mini-series.  Jon Bernthal plays former Marine Frank Castle, whose family is gunned down by the mafia.  Based on the long running comic book series, Castle becomes the Punisher, a vigilante who uses his knowledge of military tactics and a sizable arsenal to take down jive ass suckas from the Italian mafia to Colombian drug cartels.

Bernthal clearly put a lot of work into his portrayal of the Punisher, easily the best live action adaptation of the character.  Many of the riffs and gags in season two of Daredevil came right out of the comic books.  One particular scene where the Punisher ties up Daredevil and tapes a pistol in his hand comes out of the Garth Ennis penned Punisher comics.  As a comic book writer, Ennis (also the twisted mind behind the Preacher series) was basically a god and turned the Punisher into everything the fans wanted him to be and fully realized the series for the first time.  Since then, others like Nathan Edmondson and Kevin Maurer have also taken the helm at various times to great effect.

Let’s hope that the new Punisher series does away with all the goofy super heroes wearing spandex and takes Frank where we all want him to go, tearing it up through the dark underbelly of crime and corruption.  In the Daredevil, they stayed pretty true to Frank’s character, an unrepentant killer of assholes, which was definitely a step in the right direction.