Daredevil: Born Again Has Found The Perfect Punisher Villain

Marvel has made no secret of the fact that Jon Bernthal would be reprising his role as Frank Castle in Daredevil: Born Again’s first season. Bernthal makes his long-awaited return in Episode 4, as the series follows up on a huge cliffhanger involving White Tiger (Kamar de los Reyes) being shot dead by a vigilante wearing the Punisher skull. That episode answered the burning question of whether it was actually Frank who killed White Tiger, but that’s just the beginning of the show’s dramatic new Punisher storyline.

Bernthal’s character returns in the dramatic Season 1 finale, where he teams up with Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock to take on an army of corrupt NYPD officers all proudly wearing the Punisher emblem. Frank Castle makes his stand, and he leaves no uncertainty regarding how he feels about his image being co-opted by those sworn to uphold the law.

Bernthal’s return is exciting for any number of reasons, but the biggest by far is that Marvel has found a strangely perfect antagonist for Frank Castle in Born Again. Who would have thought that crooked cops, not gangsters, would be the ideal Punisher villains? It’s a storyline with its roots in the real world, and it’s past time Marvel got around to telling it.

Daredevil: Born Again stars Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Wilson Bethel, Genneya Walton, Clark Johnson, Michael Gandolfini. Margarita Levieva, Zabryna Guevara, Nikki M. James, Arty Froushan, Ayelet Zurer, Kamar de los Reyes, Jon Bernthal, Mohan Kapur, and Tony Dalton. The series is now streaming on Disney+.