Marvel's The Punisher: 10 Reasons To Be Excited

7. Daredevil's Second Season Was Where The MCU Peaked

Daredevil Season 2
Netflix

Big claim now: the MCU hasn't gotten much better than Daredevil Season 2.

Granted, it had its faults (although protestations that Elektra's involvement impeded the series are, quite frankly, bizarre), but the show as a whole grasped the fundamentals of Matt Murdock by the horns and did it in a way that managed to faithfully introduce another Marvel alum to the universe: Frank Castle.

Bernthal's Punisher certainly elevated the series during its first few episodes, with a clever nod to the previously mentioned Max run garnering praise from both die hard and newer fans alike. Things haven't quite been the same since (although the first half of Luke Cage could certainly argue otherwise), and with a Punisher return on the horizon, it could be possible that we'll be approaching that same level of quality once again.

The thing with the character is that, unlike most of Marvel's library, he isn't really meant to be celebrated. He is, however, everything that a good comic book character should be, with the Punisher's strength largely drawing from the character's moral complexity and the way in which he contrasts from the other established forces of the Marvel canon.

A return to form - for Netflix at least - is most definitely on the cards.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.