The Punisher: Unstoppable Marine
Marvel TV has churned out two unequivocal duds this year. Iron Fist suffered from an outdated and over-told story – rich white guy goes to [insert Asian country here] to become better at being a mystical Asian than the myriad other actual Asians who have been training and studying ~mystical Asian arts~ for lifetimes. Arrow did it better. Doctor Strange was almost as forgettable, but with a much better budget. Instead of injecting fresh life into a character that is very much the product of its time, they rehashed the same old, same old, with predictably lame results. Inhumans is a bomb the MCU is already distancing itself from. It must really suck to work at Marvel knowing that they sold off their most successful franchise in the 90’s (the X-Men) and Fox has no intention of giving it back. The scrambling to replace the role that mutants played in the Marvel universe has had... let’s say mixed results.
What both of these products have in common (aside from abject failure) is that they are tired. Who cares about Danny Rand when Oliver Queen is kicking ass with a better stunt choreographer? Who cares about the hijinks of alien royalty when Game of Thrones is already the wildest ride on TV? That CGI dog looks TERRIBLE. They are trying to do something that other shows have been doing for longer, and much, much better. It’s like Marvel has reached so far, now we’re left with the Wal-Mart brand products after tasting Trader Joe’s.
They need to keep The Punisher fresh, and for me, most of it has to do with authenticity. The MCU has a surprising number of veterans and active duty-types alike wandering around in major roles (Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, and the soon-to-be-revealed Carol Danvers). Outside the MCU, even the X-Men series The Gifted is showcasing John Proudstar, aka Thunderbird and former Marine.
For me, that authenticity can be found by staying true to one of the things that makes Frank Castle stand out: the guy was a Marine. He comes prepackaged with a set of experiences and values that separate him from the likes of the Defenders and the entire staff of SHIELD. The only other MCU character who comes close to sharing his experience is the woefully underutilized Sam Wilson, aka Falcon. He needs to distinguish himself from the ever-growing crowd of “supers” within the MCU, and I think this is a good way to make him distinctive while also grounding him in reality
Here are a few things I think they can do to make Frank Castle’s portrayal stand out and capture the real world experiences of many veterans:
- Frank Castle has a massive traumatic brain injury. Can the writers remember that this time?
(Spoiler alert) Frank gets wrapped up with Matt Murdock et al in Daredevil when Matt sets out to defend Frank in court. With Foggy and Karen’s help, Matt decides to take up a medical defense for his client. Given that Frank is a combat veteran and was the victim of a shooting, this makes sense. Frank was shot in the head. It’s a big plot point and his x-rays provide the inspiration for his famous skull motif.
In a twist of legal negligence so profound Matt should have been immediately disbarred, Murdock & Nelson decide to present Frank’s PTSD as a contributing factor to his murder spree, instead of the massive head injury. It could have been a beautiful execution of irony in the story: Frank did have a medical explanation for his black and white thinking, explosive anger, poor impulse control, regressive morality, etc, it just wasn’t PTSD. I’m not sure anyone on the Daredevil creative team realized that PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI) are not the same thing.
At no point in the season was it ever brought up that his brain injury might be a major contributing factor to his decision making, or that maybe, just maybe, they should have consulted with a neurologist and a psychologist prior to mounting their embarrassing legal defense. This is the rough equivalent of defending an amputee in court during a trial that rests heavily on forensic evidence, like fingerprints from the hand he’s missing, without ever pointing out that he’s missing that hand. Instead, the story places the breakdown of that trial squarely on Frank’s shoulders: he didn’t like the PTSD defense (rightfully so) and he acted out. This is not to say that Frank doesn’t also exhibit symptoms of PTSD, but the brain injury is like a flashing neon sign that Netflix is belligerently ignoring.
I know I’m asking a lot from Netflix and the MCU on this, but it would be nice for them to not fall back on the crazy, out-of-control violent, PTSD-ridden veteran schtick. TBI is a major issue shared by many OIF/OEF veterans, so much so that the medical understanding of and treatment for TBI has made leaps and bounds since 2001. I would like to see them acknowledge it and maybe even explore the ways that it makes Frank’s brain work differently, much in the same way they have explored how Matt’s blindness makes him approach the world differently. It’s part of who he is and shouldn’t get buried or ignored.
2.Marines aren’t unstoppable killing machines.
I’m sorry. I’m committing sacrilege against my own people. But even Max Uriarte has joked about this: In an action movie, most Marines are the hapless guards nervously hoping they don’t get their throats slit, or that Jason Bourne doesn’t show up to deliver sound ass kickings all around. This goes for all branches. In way too many shows, movies, and books, service in the military is presented as a blanket explanation for why, say, Michelle Rodriguez’s Air Force signals intel specialist could not only successfully fire an AT4, but with accuracy in a combat situation. Honestly, I believe the alien invasion is the more realistic part of Battle: Los Angeles. My other favorite offender might be Haywire, the Gina Carano vehicle in which she plays a “black ops super soldier looking for payback” and the movie explains that she got most of her skills while serving as a motor t operator in the Marine Corps. I’m not kidding.
I would like to see Frank faltering in some way, especially if he then approaches the problem like a Marine, which is generally saying “F**k it” and barreling straight through the problem. Superhero media has the tendency to give their heroes unlimited skillsets (think Batman). This is doubled-down on Frank since he was Force Recon, and therefore he’s like a really violent James Bond to them. I’m just saying, the moment they have Frank hacking a satellite feed in order to disable a security system after he successfully runs and reads a chemical test on a mass spectrometer, I’m out.
“You’re going to need a hyper-realistic latex mask to infiltrate this secure gangster’s hideout, and then pilot his private helicopter away to make your escape.”
“I was enlisted for four years. I don’t know about all that, but I can sweep gravel and burn trash, though. Pretty good with a SAW, too.”
3.Sorry not sorry but what the hell is that uniform?
I let my hope for this series bubble and float into the stratosphere, right up until they released a number of promotional stills featuring pre-Punisher Frank in all his Marine glory, wearing a uniform that has never been issued to any Marines ever, outside of some early testing prior to 2002. I shot an e-mail out to the Headquarters Marine Corps Uniform Board to confirm. While they did field test some variations of the design the Army would eventually go on to adopt (the Operational Combat Uniform, commonly and incorrectly known as Multicam), the Marines weren’t using the uniform in the released stills. Which leads me to the only logical conclusion: Frank Castle is a time traveler from the near future.
Before you start (and I know you started): U.S. Code Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 45, S772: “While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force.” No, they don’t have to fudge the uniforms.
I’m not the person who nitpicks military-adjacent media for jacked up ribbon stacks and stupid haircuts, but this is egregious. This is CW-Valor-25 year old warrant officer-who wears her hair in a ponytail while addressing her CO-bad. This is every TV show ever that seems to believe anyone in any branch of the US armed forces wears their cammie blouse with the collar popped.
Yes, I know it’s fiction. Yes, I know there are far more incredible and unbelievable things happening in the story than the time traveling camouflage pattern. However, we all want authenticity in our stories. Whether it’s emotional authenticity or factual, or, hopefully, both. The MCU properties are supposed to take place in the “real world,” more or less. It’s today’s military, today’s politics, today’s cities, today’s medicine, food, entertainment, etc. I worked as a journalist for five years and not only is it not that hard to get basic facts right, the audience generally wants correct information. Glaring inconsistencies take the audience right out of the story. I don’t know many Marines who don’t at least cringe a little when a fictional Marine calls himself or herself a soldier. These glaring inconsistencies tell your audience that you don’t care. You couldn’t be bothered to spend five minutes on the Google machine.
Like the creative decision to conflate PTSD with traumatic brain injury, the creative decision to use a uniform that’s never been issued to Marines tells me that no one at Netflix or Marvel gives a crap about telling an authentic story. These little things are just window dressing and could be swapped out for anything. They would tell the same story by putting a US Marine in an Australian uniform and amputating a leg, because what’s the difference anyway? Uniform, uniform; injury, injury. The fact that he was a Marine doesn’t matter (it does), and the fact that he was shot in the head doesn’t matter (it does).
If no one at Netflix or Marvel cares, then why should I?
4.Being a Marine veteran doesn’t mean he’s an edgelord.
I want The Punisher to embrace the Marine part of Frank’s story, and not because it’s cool window dressing and, to them, an easy way to explain both his skillset and his bloodlust. I want to see Frank making the same twisted, gallows humor, cannot-be-said-in-mixed-company jokes that we make to each other. I want the flashbacks to show Frank as a Marine, and not just a hardened killer. We had fun together; that’s the experience many veterans had. It wasn’t all edgelord darkness and death all the time. I want to see that despite the fact that they put him in a different service’s uniform, they still incorporated some of those basic experiences we all share.
I mean, I get it, Frank is super angry. But even the angriest Marines I know still take the time to laugh at really messed up crap. This was something that set Generation Kill apart, and continues to remain separate and distinct among a sea of dark, depression-fueled existential crises we call “movies” and “miniseries.”
I feel like I’m not asking much, but at the same time these are all things that Daredevil season 2 and so many other shows and movies have dropped the ball on. At the end of the day, am I still going to watch every minute while yelling “Get wrecked!” at my TV every time Frank does something cool? Of course I am. I’m an American, after all.
It sure would be neat if Frank was a time traveler, though.
The Punisher premieres on Netflix Nov. 17.