Marvel's The Punisher Season 2: 10 Reasons To Be Excited

Despite the doom and gloom that seems determined to take hold as one show after another is cancelled, the last three series to premier in 2018 were all extremely good. First up, Luke Cage's second season ironed out the dip in quality which had afflicted the first midway through. His ongoing face off with Mariah Dillard recaptured some of the battle-of-wills quality of season 1's Cottonmouth storyline, while new antagonist Bushmaster proved a better nemesis than S1's Diamondback.

Next up, and even more surprisingly, Iron Fist season 2 also turned out pretty good after it's universally derided first season. Sensibly shortening the show to ten episodes, the creators also shifted some of the focus away from problematic protagonist Danny Rand and on to the exciting emerging double act of martial artist Coleen Wing and robot-armed cop Misty Night, while also improving Rand's character by making him more down to earth and having those around him soften his holier-than-thou mysticism with wry humour.

Finally, and most devastatingly given the cancellation that followed, Daredevil's third season was a triumph. Vincent D'Onofrio's hulking crime Kingpin was restored to almost omnipotent strength while Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock was at his lowest. This set the scene for one of the paciest, most exciting and visceral Marvel/Netflix seasons yet. Even if this is nearly the end for all of these shows, creatively they are clearly as good as ever, which can only be a positive sign for The Punisher's return.