Punishment Complete

I watched the last episode of season 2 of The Punisher and, with that, I've now watched every episode of all the Marvel Netflix series. Punisher turned out to be one of the strongest series, though season two was vastly inferior to the first season in terms of writing and budget.

The second to last episode, "Collision Course", which aired on January 18, 2019, was written by Dario Scardapane (who'd written three other episodes). Scardapane was recently announced as the replacement showrunner for the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again after Kevin Feige discovered the episodes that had been shot were too terrible. So people were fired and Scardapane was resurrected from the glory days of Marvel Television and put in a more traditional television role.

So I was watching "Collision Course" with extra scrutiny and I'm happy to say I think it was competently written. There were several episodes in season two that depended on people doing stupid things out of character in order for the plot to move forward but "Collision Course" wasn't one of them. I think it's entirely possible Scardapane will be a good showrunner.

The Punisher did turn out to be good, cathartic fun in between some nice character moments. I'm a little amused by the controversy around the character. I read about how U.S. armed forces and police have adopted the Punisher's skull symbol and the people at Marvel have chosen to be horrified by each and every one of them. Which is their right, even if one U.S. military sniper was honoured with a statue emblazoned with the Punisher symbol on his chest plate.

What has Marvel done in response to the widespread use of their symbol? They changed the Punisher's symbol to one resembling a Japanese Oni in 2022. Of all the empty gestures.

I enjoyed the series that aired on Netflix (and is now on Disney+--how the world has changed). It's fun fantasising about a world where you can take out your grief and rage on purely evil people. But such diversions also remind me that real life isn't like that. If Marvel writers really wanted to teach people a lesson about the Punisher, they should've tried to write more complex stories, stories where the Punisher killed people whose guilt really was more subjective. Maybe they have done that, I haven't read much of the Punisher comics, but the TV series certainly didn't do it.

Considering the upcoming Daredevil show was shaping up to be partly about cops inspired by the Punisher, maybe that was going to be the thing that did it. On the face of it, that sounds the wrong way to go about it. You don't persuade people by making strawman caricatures of them. The Amazon Prime series, The Boys, is based on a parody of The Punisher written by Garth Ennis, a former writer of Punisher comics. I don't know about the comic but, ironically, the Prime series presents an even more morally simplistic, polarised world, though it's far less enjoyable, at least for me. It is popular, though.

Anyway, now that I've seen all the Marvel Netflix shows, I may as well rank them. Instead of whole series, I think I'll go by season. That should make it a little more interesting.

1. Daredevil season one
2. Daredevil season three
3. Jessica Jones season one
4. Daredevil season two
5. Luke Cage season one
6. The Punisher season one
7. Luke Cage season two
8. The Punisher season two
9. Jessica Jones season three
10. Jessica Jones season two
11. The Defenders
12. Iron Fist season two
13. Iron Fist season one

X Sonnet #1786

Resources shrank to silly herbs and spice.
We built a dinner stack of salt and sage.
But peasants hid a sack of tasty rice.
With clouds of gin improvement comes with age.
Another ball is rolling pins through time.
A stolen car contained a cryptic note.
Where pies are baked, the dreams were sweet as rhyme.
Where sugar's sold, it's pastries win the vote.
A real McCoy was trading plums for bones.
Ferocious monsters crowd the logging road.
In darkness, riders cry in metal tones.
Another country caught the hidden code.
Siesta strikes the octopus and shrimp.
We know the inky ghost for print's a simp.