Favorite Characters: Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher (The Punisher)

It would’ve been relatively easy to make Frank Castle the uncomplicated face of a high-octane revenge scenario, all ultraviolence style and little substance.  And to be sure, Frank’s action scenes, on both Daredevil and The Punisher, are extremely well-done, brutal but deftly crafted and executed.  Frank could’ve been a cool enough character that way, a similar sort of satisfying to watching Hit-Girl in action (although less darkly comic and more just dark.)  Marvel’s Netflix shows, however, resist that temptation, going deeper with Frank so that you never lose sight of the man behind the vendetta (premise spoilers.)

Frank has the tragic backstory of many a comic-book protagonist.  His wife and children were killed, not by his own mistakes, but by his proximity to those of others.  After witnessing something he shouldn’t have, Frank loses his family in a bloody, devastating way.  He’d already been dragging around a lot of damage from his time in the service, and this violent injustice utterly breaks him.  He divorces himself from whatever life he might otherwise have had and devotes himself to taking revenge on everyone in any way connected to the deaths of his loved ones.  In season 2 of Daredevil, he dispatches those who had a hand in the killings one by one, with ruthless efficiency, and in his own series, he moves on to those at the heart of the conspiracy.

The franchise doesn’t absolve Frank’s actions, but it doesn’t condemn him for them, either.  On Daredevil, Matt wants to draw clearly-delineated lines between the Punisher and himself, painting Frank as a dangerous murderer who’s taken the law into his own hands, while Karen gradually begins to see him more as a victim of circumstance who’s responding the only way he can.  But Frank is both of these things, and neither, and more.  He makes immoral decisions about his means of punishing immoral people, and even as he cuts a swathe of bodies through those who destroyed his life, he has certain ethical boundaries that spring up in unexpected places, pulling him just back from the brink of becoming the same as what he hates.  At this point, it’s not even clear what Frank is still doing it for.  I think he’s lost hope of it bringing him release, and he never expected salvation.  But despite the despair and futility behind his quest for vengeance, he can’t give it up.

Frank’s damage runs deep, and in The Punisher especially, that takes center stage.  He’s an imposing figure, a lethal killer who rarely thinks twice about taking a life he’s decided to take, but he’s also a man wracked by PTSD, both from his experience overseas and from the loss of his family.  Bloody memories punctuate his nightmares and waking hours alike, and sometimes, amid all his careful plans of revenge, it’s a struggle for him simply to function.  He sees other veterans try to deal with their demons in different ways, but he’s chosen his own path to address his, even if he knows it won’t bring him any peace.