I've got to disagree on that one Brasswire, Daredevil never stops being a defence attorney. whilst he does beat the crap out of a lot of people in the series only 2 of them actually die, and one of those is self inflicted. The rest are quietly left to be picked up my the assorted medical and legal personel.
Frank Castle on the other hand just kills people.
It is going to be interesting to see how the two characters play off against each other as whilst they have very similar goals there chosen methods are completely different and have lead to the pair of them squaring up to each other on numerous occasions.
I don't disagree, I'm not saying that Daredevil goes around killing people like the Punisher, he obviously doesn't. I just meant that when you think about Batman it's usually made very clear that he has a personal moral code against killing bad-guys, that's where he draws the line and the line is crystal clear, and it's a very big deal if he crosses it.
I don't remember Daredevil explicitly having such a clearly stated code (but I could be wrong on that), which makes him a little bit more gray as there exists the possibility that he thinks it is sometimes ok to kill bad-guys. At the very least he is certainly more brutal than Batman in that he has absolutely no problem dropping bad-guys off buildings, torturing them for information, breaking limbs, putting them in intensive care, etc.
I don't remember Daredevil explicitly having such a clearly stated code (but I could be wrong on that), which makes him a little bit more gray as there exists the possibility that he thinks it is sometimes ok to kill bad-guys.
I'm pretty sure that he makes it crystal clear that he's not into killing on at least three occasions in the series: when he meets Claire Temple, when he re-rejects Stick's philosophy, and when he's arguing with Foggy after Foggy finds out he's Daredevil.
At the very least he is certainly more brutal than Batman in that he has absolutely no problem dropping bad-guys off buildings, torturing them for information, breaking limbs, putting them in intensive care, etc.
Batman does all of these things in a single scene of The Dark Knight.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
In one of the more recent runs of Punisher, Matt is defending a mob boss who has been set up to take the rap for something by pretty much everyone including the feds and the other mob families and is fairly succesful.
Frank sets up a nest to take out the mob boss with a sniper rifle, but is 'ambushed' by Daredevil. Frank is able to incapacitate Matt and ties him up to a suitable feature and tapes a loaded handgun into Matt's hands and dares Matt to shoot him to stop him from taking out the mob boss. Matt is unable to do it resulting in one very dead mob boss that hours earlier Matt had been defending.
Whilst it might not be as explicitly laid out as with Batman, Matt certainly does have a code and limits. Something Frank does not have.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
At the very least he is certainly more brutal than Batman in that he has absolutely no problem dropping bad-guys off buildings, torturing them for information, breaking limbs, putting them in intensive care, etc.
Batman does all of these things in a single scene of The Dark Knight.
Yes I figured someone would mention this. I view the scene early in Daredevil where he throws the Russian off the building as more brutal than the scene from Dark Knight. Batman knows exactly what he's doing, that the fall will break his legs and otherwise he'll be fine. Daredevil puts the guy in a coma, and even then it's not made clear if he knew for certain the guy wouldn't die from the fall. Either way, I accept what's being said, but I still hope for to see some interesting new ground explored.
Christopher Nolan only had 3 films to build up how he wanted Bats character to be so they neccessarily have to concentrate on Bats, Alfred and the others closer to them.
With Daredevil being a series they have far greater scope to add in some background to the Second String or lower bad guys if there is a need to.
Also The Russian gets thrown off a roof in the second episode, a time when Mat is really still trying to find his place in his new world. Its only towards the later episodes where we see Matt really start to build up his version of a code, particularly in his interactions with the Priest after he visits Vanessas Gallery and the episode with Stick.
That move towards a code is most likely to be sped up a lot as soon as he encounters the Punisher as he is then going to see just how far he could fall in his quest to clean up Hells Kitchen and is going to want to prevent himself turning to the Punisher's blind clone.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Anyone else hyped as **** for the new season? I'm so looking forward to Fronk Castle. The current superhero lineup (Supergirl, Flash, Arrow) with their inherent motto that killing is bad, period, even if it would indubitably would save countless lives is getting on my tits so badly that I'm looking forward to the fresh breath of edginess that the Punnisher will bring.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Punisher and Elektra are much better than Kingpin, but season two is structurally worse. Jessica Jones remains queen of Netflix Marvel. None of this is to say it's a bad season.
What? The Punisher and Elektra arcs had nothing to do with each other? They just intersect at the end, very weakly, with a couple of bullets of fire support?
The Punisher arc was very good, the Elektra arc pretty darn underdeveloped. It felt like the Elektra arc was a distraction from the Punisher arc -- which I recognize was the point, but the end result was annoying rather than dramatically compelling. (And I say this as someone whose natural prejudices lean heavily in favor of sultry ninja women and crazy martial-arts action over angry gun-toting men who unironically wear black muscle shirts with skulls on.) Jon Bernthal gives us a really compelling Frank Castle, whipping between American hero and savage killer, and the script likewise whips us back and forth on the question of what sort of man the Punisher is. Capturing Castle early and focusing on his trial was a great idea, obvious in retrospect given Matt Murdock's profession, really. But most of the rich opportunity for a Frank Castle courtroom drama was wasted, again, by the distraction of the Elektra arc and the fact that Matt was scarcely in the courtroom. It gets good again with Castle's imprisonment and escape -- and the "fight of the season" award has to go to the bloodbath in Cell Block A. Then, unfortunately, is fizzles out as the Elektra arc picks up steam. The reveal of the Blacksmith feels like an anticlimax. Castle's execution of him does work well, juxtaposed against Daredevil's speech to Elektra about turning points. But it doesn't actually seem to be a turning point. The only substantial thing he does after that is heroically save Daredevil. (And what's with that shed? A random shed in the woods has a cache of military weapons and skull-pattern body armor? Was that supposed to be the general's secret stash or something? Very unclear there.)
Élodie Yung is a pretty good Elektra too -- positively magnetic when in "charm mode". The problem isn't her; it's the vague, unsatisfying explanations and motives for everything that goes on on her side of the story. What the heck is a Black Sky, and why is she it? How does anyone know she's a Black Sky? Why does the Hand want the Black Sky? Why does Stick want the Black Sky? Does Stick want Elektra dead or not? Does Elektra want Stick dead or not? What's with the blood and the giant vase? How can the Hand ninjas suppress their heartbeats but not their breaths? (And isn't breath easier to hear than a heartbeat anyway?) And so on. The pattern of the season seems to be: let's now cut away from some actually interesting development or twist in the Castle case to watch Daredevil and Elektra fight some ninjas... again. And I love ninja fights. I even love all the dead tropes of ninja fights being dusted off and played straight here. When was the last time you actually saw movie ninjas wearing old-school silk pajamas rather than some try-hard tactical armor getup? When was the last time you actually saw ninjas stand around and wait their turn to battle the heroes? When was the last time you actually saw ninjas run like that? Seeing it all again was refreshing. But the ninja fights have to service some narrative goal, and, especially compared to the Punisher arc, the narrative here was just so, so weak.
There's some thematic stuff going on too. I suspect a number of people are going to complain that Daredevil is suddenly all right with Elektra and Punisher killing bad guys in the finale, when for the whole series he's been trying to get them not to do that. But I don't think that's an inconsistency; I think that's deliberate, that part of Matt Murdock's personal development in this season is supposed to be him learning to remove the stick from his ass. However, one could ask the question of whether "Stop being so preachy and let your friends kill bad guys if they want to" is really a valuable or even a coherent lesson. Having a hero stand against killing only means something if, y'know, people don't get killed. You can explore the consequences of that decision, like in Arkham Asylum, or you can put it to the ultimate test, like in Man of Steel. But if the hero neither has to do it himself nor has to face the consequences for not doing it, it's just an uncomfortable cop-out.
Oh, and one final absurd nitpick that bugged me for some reason:
What the hell was Matt threatening to send to block Vanessa's visa that cost six dollars in postage? A letter would be way less than that.
Finished DD season 2 over the weekend. I quite enjoyed the season but like you I thought it was oddly structured. Though it does makes sense if you look at the big picture for Netflix Marvel, the producers and writers know they probably need more time to develop the Hand and one season might not be enough, realistically it could be achieved in one and a half to two seasons worth of build up and story. They might also need to explain the Hand now because it might be tied to Iron Fist which needs its own story to be told before the big team up.
Punisher was awesome, stellar acting but I agree the one thing that bugged me was his final appearance was such a tease. Teaming with Elektra and Daredevil full on after discovering the arsenal of weapons would've been serious nerdgasm. I believe he was even twitching at the sight of the mini gun...
As for the shed, it definitely seemed to be the General's secret stash of weapons. Not sure why he couldn't put it in his own home considering he is secluded as is but I suppose he wasn't taking any chances as the shed doesn't have an address that can be GPSed to
I agree that it was oddly structured. I felt like the Elektra stuff was poorly executed and resulted in a kind of boring aspect of the season. Like you guys said, they did a very poor job of developing the whole story with the hand and why they were after Elektra, what any of anything that they were doing in NYC had to do with anything, and so on. It just seemed like a pretty poor story compared to what they did with Punisher and Kingpin last season. It almost seemed like they should have done another smaller plot instead of Elektra and used that for season 3, giving her time to properly develop like they did with Kingpin. Hopefully in the next season they can expand on Elektra more, but with the way this one ended it seems like it might be longer until we see her back.
I feel that Jon Bernthal was a really great Punisher and I feel that they could very easily spin him off into his own Punisher series (or at least a movie) if they wanted to. I am almost glad that they didn't have him completely join Elektra and Daredevil in that last fight scene and just did the cameo at the end. It was such a tease and I was waiting for it the entire time. When it finally came, I felt that it worked better than if they would have all been fighting together.
I'm also entertained that Kahedron above mentions that angle with Punisher tying Matt up on the rooftops and taping a gun to his hand. The stairwell fight scene that came after that was a gloriously amazing display. Probably my favorite of the season.
I don't remember Daredevil explicitly having such a clearly stated code (but I could be wrong on that), which makes him a little bit more gray as there exists the possibility that he thinks it is sometimes ok to kill bad-guys. At the very least he is certainly more brutal than Batman in that he has absolutely no problem dropping bad-guys off buildings, torturing them for information, breaking limbs, putting them in intensive care, etc.
Batman does all of these things in a single scene of The Dark Knight.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
In one of the more recent runs of Punisher, Matt is defending a mob boss who has been set up to take the rap for something by pretty much everyone including the feds and the other mob families and is fairly succesful.
Frank sets up a nest to take out the mob boss with a sniper rifle, but is 'ambushed' by Daredevil. Frank is able to incapacitate Matt and ties him up to a suitable feature and tapes a loaded handgun into Matt's hands and dares Matt to shoot him to stop him from taking out the mob boss. Matt is unable to do it resulting in one very dead mob boss that hours earlier Matt had been defending.
Whilst it might not be as explicitly laid out as with Batman, Matt certainly does have a code and limits. Something Frank does not have.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
With Daredevil being a series they have far greater scope to add in some background to the Second String or lower bad guys if there is a need to.
Also The Russian gets thrown off a roof in the second episode, a time when Mat is really still trying to find his place in his new world. Its only towards the later episodes where we see Matt really start to build up his version of a code, particularly in his interactions with the Priest after he visits Vanessas Gallery and the episode with Stick.
That move towards a code is most likely to be sped up a lot as soon as he encounters the Punisher as he is then going to see just how far he could fall in his quest to clean up Hells Kitchen and is going to want to prevent himself turning to the Punisher's blind clone.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
BGW ABZAN WGB
BGR JUND RGB
Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Sign & Share Petition To Fix MTG: Arena's Economy: https://goo.gl/z8fop8
The Punisher arc was very good, the Elektra arc pretty darn underdeveloped. It felt like the Elektra arc was a distraction from the Punisher arc -- which I recognize was the point, but the end result was annoying rather than dramatically compelling. (And I say this as someone whose natural prejudices lean heavily in favor of sultry ninja women and crazy martial-arts action over angry gun-toting men who unironically wear black muscle shirts with skulls on.) Jon Bernthal gives us a really compelling Frank Castle, whipping between American hero and savage killer, and the script likewise whips us back and forth on the question of what sort of man the Punisher is. Capturing Castle early and focusing on his trial was a great idea, obvious in retrospect given Matt Murdock's profession, really. But most of the rich opportunity for a Frank Castle courtroom drama was wasted, again, by the distraction of the Elektra arc and the fact that Matt was scarcely in the courtroom. It gets good again with Castle's imprisonment and escape -- and the "fight of the season" award has to go to the bloodbath in Cell Block A. Then, unfortunately, is fizzles out as the Elektra arc picks up steam. The reveal of the Blacksmith feels like an anticlimax. Castle's execution of him does work well, juxtaposed against Daredevil's speech to Elektra about turning points. But it doesn't actually seem to be a turning point. The only substantial thing he does after that is heroically save Daredevil. (And what's with that shed? A random shed in the woods has a cache of military weapons and skull-pattern body armor? Was that supposed to be the general's secret stash or something? Very unclear there.)
Élodie Yung is a pretty good Elektra too -- positively magnetic when in "charm mode". The problem isn't her; it's the vague, unsatisfying explanations and motives for everything that goes on on her side of the story. What the heck is a Black Sky, and why is she it? How does anyone know she's a Black Sky? Why does the Hand want the Black Sky? Why does Stick want the Black Sky? Does Stick want Elektra dead or not? Does Elektra want Stick dead or not? What's with the blood and the giant vase? How can the Hand ninjas suppress their heartbeats but not their breaths? (And isn't breath easier to hear than a heartbeat anyway?) And so on. The pattern of the season seems to be: let's now cut away from some actually interesting development or twist in the Castle case to watch Daredevil and Elektra fight some ninjas... again. And I love ninja fights. I even love all the dead tropes of ninja fights being dusted off and played straight here. When was the last time you actually saw movie ninjas wearing old-school silk pajamas rather than some try-hard tactical armor getup? When was the last time you actually saw ninjas stand around and wait their turn to battle the heroes? When was the last time you actually saw ninjas run like that? Seeing it all again was refreshing. But the ninja fights have to service some narrative goal, and, especially compared to the Punisher arc, the narrative here was just so, so weak.
There's some thematic stuff going on too. I suspect a number of people are going to complain that Daredevil is suddenly all right with Elektra and Punisher killing bad guys in the finale, when for the whole series he's been trying to get them not to do that. But I don't think that's an inconsistency; I think that's deliberate, that part of Matt Murdock's personal development in this season is supposed to be him learning to remove the stick from his ass. However, one could ask the question of whether "Stop being so preachy and let your friends kill bad guys if they want to" is really a valuable or even a coherent lesson. Having a hero stand against killing only means something if, y'know, people don't get killed. You can explore the consequences of that decision, like in Arkham Asylum, or you can put it to the ultimate test, like in Man of Steel. But if the hero neither has to do it himself nor has to face the consequences for not doing it, it's just an uncomfortable cop-out.
Oh, and one final absurd nitpick that bugged me for some reason:
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Punisher was awesome, stellar acting but I agree the one thing that bugged me was his final appearance was such a tease. Teaming with Elektra and Daredevil full on after discovering the arsenal of weapons would've been serious nerdgasm. I believe he was even twitching at the sight of the mini gun...
As for the shed, it definitely seemed to be the General's secret stash of weapons. Not sure why he couldn't put it in his own home considering he is secluded as is but I suppose he wasn't taking any chances as the shed doesn't have an address that can be GPSed to
I feel that Jon Bernthal was a really great Punisher and I feel that they could very easily spin him off into his own Punisher series (or at least a movie) if they wanted to. I am almost glad that they didn't have him completely join Elektra and Daredevil in that last fight scene and just did the cameo at the end. It was such a tease and I was waiting for it the entire time. When it finally came, I felt that it worked better than if they would have all been fighting together.
I'm also entertained that Kahedron above mentions that angle with Punisher tying Matt up on the rooftops and taping a gun to his hand. The stairwell fight scene that came after that was a gloriously amazing display. Probably my favorite of the season.