★★★☆☆ A surprisingly appealing murderer

The Punisher

Steve Lightfoot, Marvel, Netflix

The Punisher, Frank Castle, first appeared as a villain in the excellent Marvel Netflix series Daredevil. Matt Murdock, the hero of Daredevil is a vigilante who beats up on bad people. But there is one line that Matt won't cross: he doesn't kill. Frank does.

The social contract we live under gives the government a monopoly on force. This is more or less what John Adams meant when he said, "We are a nation of laws, not men." The contract leaks like a sieve and is unsatisfactory in many ways, but for all its faults, this system is better than any alternative anyone has worked out.

So both Matt and Frank are criminals. Matt, who is a lawyer, is well aware that his actions are illegal, and the tension informs his character. And of course, it partly informs his determination not to kill.

Frank is no lawyer -- he's a former US Marine and has worked with special forces. He has no powers, but he is very, very good at fighting and killing, with fists, knives, and guns. He has a tortured past -- his young family was killed before him. He lives for revenge. It's a dramatic and emotional show with lots of good characters. None of them are unambiguously good.

If you kill people without state sanction, you're a murderer. It's still murder, even if you are absolutely, 100% convinced they're bad people. Still, Frank Castle has a code. It's a bad code, but it's a code.

On this Election Day in 2024, it's not hard to believe that Frank Castle could be elected President of the United States.

The Punisher on IMDB

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