The Punisher in all his incarnations has always been something of an accidental success. A former marine, Frank Castle turns lethal vigilante following the murder of his family by criminals, becoming judge, jury and executioner to those who would break the law. He had no powers, just his military training, a heap of weapons and a skull on his chest, and he was originally a bad guy – one of Spider-Man’s many badly becostumed adversaries in the early 70s.
But it was that almost unique willingness to kill in comics that made him such a success that he eventually got his own comic and no fewer than three (pretty bad) film appearances, where he was played first by Dolph Lundgren, then Thomas Jane and finally Ray Stevenson.
However, his success ended for a while when a 2011 attempt by Fox to produce a TV series starring the character fell through.
But let’s now flash-forward to the era of Netflix and its Marvel superhero shows. The plan from the outset was very clear: there would be four one-season superhero shows – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist – which would then lead into a team-up show The Defenders.
The first sign everything was going off-plan was when Daredevil got a second season. It’s hard to tell whether that had been planned from the outset; however, it seems likely given
Nevertheless, what definitely wasn’t part of the plan was the success of guest anti-hero/baddie The Punisher in that second season. That can be put down to the ‘lightning in a bottle’ casting of Jon Bernthal. Bernthal’s always been part of the supporting cast, never the lead.
He’s Andrew Lincoln’s best bud in The Walking Dead, not Andrew Lincoln.
He’s Ben Affleck’s brother in The Accountant, not Ben Affleck.
He’s the guy Andrea Anders rejects in The Class to go back to her husband (although he ends up with Lizzy Caplan so it’s not all bad).
But as Castle, Bernthal was the undoubted star of the second season of Daredevil, a brutal match for Charlie Cox’s gymnastic lead – a blue-collar grunt to Matt Murdock’s white-collar, morally-torn lawyer.
Bernthal so occupied the role that it’s hard to think of anyone else being able to play the character and it wasn’t long before Netflix and Marvel realised what they’d got and decided to break with the plan and commission Marvel’s The Punisher, with Bernthal as its lead.
The question was what form the show would take. Would it follow on, for example, from the comics’, the movies’ and season 2’s general theme of a man giving ‘the punishment they deserve’ to mobsters, rapists, paedophiles et al who seem to be above the law and escaping justice? Yet, how would a white man with a lethal arsenal shooting up cities go down in an age of the alt-right, MRAs and mass-shootings by white men who feel aggrieved by society? And how would it go down against the liberal backdrop of Netflix’s other shows: Daredevil stuck up for the poor and oppressed; Jessica Jones deconstructed superheroes, male power and sexual violence; Luke Cage asked what a black man can do for his community and others against both oppression and police shootings; and Iron Fist looked at the responsibilities of the rich towards the poor and the rest of the world.
The various trailers Netflix produced in the lead up to the show’s released seemed to suggest business as usual for Frank Castle – lots of gunfire against a rock soundtrack. And yet, oddly, that’s not what Marvel’s The Punisher is. For the most part, the show is instead the white, working class male’s equivalent of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. It’s a look at family, responsibility, friendship, parenting, class, class loyalty, what it is to be in the military and to have brothers-in-arms, the consequences of violence, and the role of government in helping the working class. And oddly, there’s very little punishment meted out.
Here are those moderately misleading and spoilerish trailers. Slightly less spoilerish review of all 13 episodes after the jump.
Continue reading “Boxset Monday: Marvel’s The Punisher (season 1) (Netflix)”
You have to hand it to Marvel. Having a few critical failures isn’t stopping them from marching on regardless, mining decades of comics for new TV shows. Sure, the shiny lustre has come off its Netflix shows, tarnished by the second season of Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s Iron Fist (why? It’s great) and Marvel’s The Defender’s. Its ABC shows are pretty ropey (Marvel’s Inhumans), cancelled (Marvel’s Agent Carter) or lurching along like a zombie that should have already died (Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD).
But the X-Men keep it going. Sure, that’s without actually including any X-Men, but X-Men-free X-Men shows seem to be working for it. This year, we’ve already had the truly magnificent Legion, one of 2017’s best new TV shows and so auteured by Noah Hawley you’d really have to work hard to spot it’s an X-Men show.
Now we have The Gifted, which comes from the pen of Matt Nix (Burn Notice, The Good Guys) and which doesn’t feature even one X-Man. Although it does mention them and include their ringtone.
It sees Stephen Moyer (Ultraviolet, True Blood, The Bastard Executioner) and Amy Acker (Angel, Person of Interest) playing a happily married couple in a post-X-Men universe – that is, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants appear to have disappeared somewhere after a 9/11-style event that saw lots and lots of people killed. Not all the world’s mutants have disappeared, though, and the government’s so hacked off, it’s set up all kinds of laws and agencies to police mutants, keep them under control and make sure they don’t go around killing people. Moyer is also a district attorney charged with dealing with rebel mutants, although he tries not to think too hard about what happens to them once they go through the system.
Acker and Moyer have two teenage kids: the popular Natalie Alyn Lind and the bullied loner Percy Hynes White. Wouldn’t you know it, they’re mutants! Oh noes. And when White accidentally comes into his new powers quite publicly, it’s not long before Coby Bell (Burn Notice) from Sentinel Services is at Acker and Moyer’s door, looking to bring them both in.
What’s a futuristic police state family to do, hey?
Here’s the first six minutes, followed by a trailer
Famously, infamously or “Really? Jesus. What’s wrong with you?”ly, I’ve now seen Marvel’s Iron Fist three times.
What can I say? I don’t think it’s excellent, but neither do I think it’s terrible. It’s enjoyable, does some interesting things with a B-grade Marvel character and has some good superheroics. Even watching the trailer below again makes me almost giddy with excitement. Number four viewing isn’t far off now, I reckon.
However, I’m almost certain I’m the only person on the planet to do so, outside of Gitmo and various institutions for the criminally insane – indeed, 10 years from now, repeatedly viewing of Iron Fist will almost certainly feature in some supervillain’s origin story.
Because the general critical reaction has been negative. Oh so very negative. Many critics were especially surprised by how bad it was, because Iron Fist‘s showrunner was Scott Buck, who was a producer and/or writer on Six Feet Under, Rome and Dexter. Not a shabby credits list, hey?
Yet I imagine some of them even wondered if they’d make a mistake in retrospect in liking those shows, such was the perceived awfulness of Iron Fist.
I’m having the same issue now I’ve seen the first two episodes of Marvel’s Inhumans, whose showrunner is one Scott Buck. Was I wrong to like Iron Fist? Did I make a mistake?
Because Inhumans… is pretty terrible. Based on the Marvel comics of the same name created by the dream team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it’s focused on the ‘inhumans’ – genetic mutations of humans with superpowers whom you might already have seen in the increasingly inept Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD (still watching? And you think I’ve got problems?).
A while back, a whole bunch of them left the Earth and decided to build themselves a city on the Moon.
As you do, obviously.
There they set up shop and created a new society, complete with weird genetic rituals, a monarchy, a council and a caste system. Current King: a mute, but maybe telepathic bloke called Black Bolt (Hell on Wheels‘ Anson Mount). Current Queen: a woman called Medusa, who has superpowered hair that can pick things up and hit people (Graceland/Breakout Kings‘ Serinda Swan).
Trouble is, the population is increasing but the city and resources aren’t getting any bigger. Because it’s the Moon.
This is something that irks Black Bolt’s brother (Iwan Rheon of Misfits, Game of Thrones and Riviera), who fluffed the mutant-activation test and so is pure human, which would normally get him sent down the mine and certainly stops him from becoming King.
One day, though, he senses his chance for power so decides to mount a palace coup, in the name of re-taking the Earth for the Inhumans. However, that’s not before the Royal Family and some of their loyal followers escape to Earth. And they might have been noticed by someone who has been monitoring their activities (Ellen Woglom).
Which is all the sort of politicking and intrigue that made Iron Fist so enjoyable for me. Since he’s usually quite faithful to the comics, Buck also mines Inhumans for some more bonkers and comedic opportunities. The head of the Royal Guard (Eme Ikwuakor) has giant hooves. The family owns a giant teleporting dog. Their most trusted advisor (Lost‘s Ken Leung) is so cunningly strategic and able to predict what’ll happen, it’s almost like he has a heads-up display and can rewind time to have another go at things if he cocks up. Black Bolt has another power as well that’s rather cool, but telling you would spoil things.
At the very least, Marvel’s Inhumans is occasionally exciting and also quite funny at times. There’s imagination going on, the acting’s quite fun, with Mount likeable and expressive despite never being able to say anything, and Leung’s pleasing acidic. There’s also a huge budget for CGI-ing a city on the Moon – so huge that the first two episodes were shot and shown in IMAX.
Plus you’ve got to love a giant teleporting dog.
The trouble is that we have a double-punch combo of almost knock-out blows that render the show almost unwatchable.
Continue reading “Review: Marvel’s Inhumans 1×1-1×2 (US: ABC; UK: Sky1)”
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