Penny and dime indeed! With the recent announcement that Jon Bernthal will be returning as Frank Castle in his own upcoming Netflix series to correspond with the other offerings from the MCU: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and eventually The Defenders. The Punisher was far and away the best part of Daredevil’s second season so the announcement that he will be getting his own series was a welcome, and somewhat expected, announcement for sure. Even with his dynamic entrance, we’ve hardly scratched the surface of the world that the Punisher brings to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we wanted to take this opportunity to delve into five things that we’re hoping to see in his upcoming series.

Barracuda

It’s somewhat difficult to have memorable villains for the Punisher because, well, they wind up dead! Frank isn’t exactly the kind of guy to tie his heroes up and leave them in the hands of a pair of appreciative beat cops. Mostly, the only way that cops are finding Frank’s enemies is by stumbling upon their corpses on a crime scene. Barracuda is a gun for hire with an origin in the military that’s quite similar to the Punisher’s, minus his family dying. While Frank had a relatively stable home life, ‘Cuda grew up in an abusive household and used the army as a method to escape. Following his tenure in the military, Barracuda fell into a life of crime and cut his way through numerous gangs and territories, ascending the ladder until he became a hitman for hire.

Barracuda is about twice the size of the Punisher and just as deadly. The fights that the two have are beyond brutal. In fact, the very first fight that Frank has with ‘Cuda involves Frank chopping off all of the fingers on Barracuda’s right hand and knocking his eye out! Shockingly enough, Barracuda takes this all in stride and hardly acknowledges either of them, continuing to pummel Frank and even managing to win their first encounter. Barracuda is thought dead in the first storyline where the two meet, but it’s later revealed that he survived and would come back to attack Frank by kidnapping the Punisher’s daughter, who Castle didn’t even know existed! Eventually, like most Punisher enemies, Barracuda is killed by Frank, but he has yet to appear in the MCU and Punisher’s upcoming Netflix series would be the perfect place for him to make his grand entrance.

Location, Location, Location

No doubt about it, Frank Castle is a New York City kind of guy. A good percentage of the Punisher’s stories take place in New York, but the city has been pretty well covered in Daredevil and Jessica Jones so far, and promises to be covered in Luke Cage as well. Certainly, the Punisher series will have Frank appearing in New York City, but it's time for Castle to spread his wings and start doing some globetrotting. After all, some great Punisher stories have seen Frank killing criminals in other parts of the world, so why not bring some of those to table to his Netflix outing?

Particularly, I think that having the Punisher leaving the U.S. entirely at some point during his series would do wonders for adding a sense of depth to the character. Seeing how Frank reacts to international threats and dispensing his brand of justice to places like the Middle East, Russia, and many others would be great. Let the Netflix MCU stretch its legs out a little bit and show our anti-hero get dark and gritty in other locales.

Microchip

This one is probably a given at this point, as the final episode of Daredevil’s second season saw Frank blowing up his former family home after grabbing a cd with the word “Micro” written on it. Microchip, for those who don’t know, was the long time “sidekick” to the Punisher, acting as his “Q” or techie who would help Frank with his hardware, both in the field and online. David Linus Lieberman went by Microchip thanks in part to his hacking skills and had Frank’s back for quite a long time during Castle’s vigilante years. Microchip’s “career” began when his nephew was killed by Wilson Fisk and he threw in his lot with the Punisher to kill as many criminals as he could as revenge.

Microchip made an appearance in live action in the movie, Punisher War Zone, wherein he was brought to the screen by Seinfeld-alum, Wayne Knight, in pitch-perfect casting. Currently in the comics, Microchip is dead, having actually been killed by Punisher himself as ‘Chip had fallen to the dark side. Much like Barracuda, though, he can be given new life in the Netflix series no problem.

hardware

Now I’m not talking about a Marvel character named Hardware, which I’m sure exists, I’m talking about upping Frank's his arsenal. Let’s be honest, one of the biggest disappointments in Frank Castle's Daredevil run was the fact that they alluded to the possibility he might use a mini-gun at some point to possibly mow down some ninjas. Alas, this wasn’t meant to be and Punisher only used a sniper rifle in dispatching members of the Hand. In Frank’s series, he should be wielding a crazy amount of weapons, as we saw he had acquired in the shack in the penultimate episode of Daredevil Season 2.

Considering the Netflix Marvel offerings tend to skew more toward the gritty and realistic, I doubt we’ll be seeing some of the Punisher’s crazier weapons making an appearance here, of which he’s had many. Frank’s had a gun that shoots swords, worn a symbiote suit similar to the Spider-Man villain Venom, and even had his own computer operated van that he drove around town to kill criminals. To see the Punisher armed to the teeth works so well for the character and I’m sure this is something we’ll see in spades come his Netflix series.

The Slavers

If you were to ask readers and fans of the Punisher what their favorite Frank Castle stories is, many times people would point to the story of the “Slavers”. You’d be hard pressed to find a darker Marvel story than this one, which goes hand in hand with the Punisher’s character, where Castle fights against an Eastern European gang that specializes in human trafficking. In order to take them down, Frank institutes some really drastic measures and has the fight of his life against enemies that don’t scare easily. Written by Garth Ennis of Preacher fame and artist Leandro Fernandez, this storyline brought the character to some really dark territory.

What makes the Slavers such great villains for Frank is that first and foremost, you absolutely despise them for what they’re doing. Ripping women from their homes and selling them into slavery is downright abhorrent and you really root for the Punisher here when he brings them his style of justice. There are some particularly gruesome ways in which Castle takes down the soldiers one by one here, that’s for sure. What also makes them a scary villain is how much like Frank they are in terms of military training, and they give Punisher a run for his money on numerous occasions in the arc.

While we don’t have a ton of details about the Punisher Netflix series yet, we’ll be anxiously waiting for whatever news we can get until the show drops.