THRILLER WITHOUT THE TIGHTS

It’s nice to know that after six seasons the Marvel-Netflix universe of superheroes can still offer us something fresh.

After stealing the show in the second season of Daredevil, the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), a gun-toting, ultra-violent vigilante on a vengeance path, has now broken out into his own series. Unlike the rest of its stablemates, The

Punisher is not a comic book show. It’s not even a superhero show.

This is a straight-up conspiracy thriller with a dash of military drama and a smidgen of social and political commentary on gun rights. Who’da thunk it?

It’s a clever move on the part of Marvel and showrunner Steve Lightfoot to appeal to a wide segment of the viewing population that doesn’t want a bar of anything to do with capes and tights. Here, no one has superpowers, just really good aim and a killer right hook.

Picking up where Daredevil season two left off, Frank Castle/Punisher is presumed dead after his spree against the crims he thinks killed his wife and two children.

In reality, he’s working under an alias on a construction site, swinging that big-arse hammer at the wall, ineffectively dealing with his rage. When he’s not demolishing brickwork, he’s reading Moby Dick (yes, the white whale analogy is on the nose) and having recurring nightmare flashbacks.

Bernthal is the fourth person to play the Punisher and the only one with a tick of approval from most fans. He continues to portray this conflicted, damaged man always one twitch away from a terrifying fury. But in Bernthal’s hands, he’s also a man of grace. It’s a hard line to straddle and he mostly pulls it off.

The Punisher has a surprising amount of depth. It doesn’t always hit the perfect note but you have to give it chops for trying to do something a little different.

The Punisher is available to stream on Netflix now.