Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is taking a decidedly dark turn this season, and there’s no one better to join the party than Jon Bernthal’s Punisher.
That’s what the rumor is, at least. After Bernthal’s amazingly brutal portrayal of anti-hero extraordinaire Frank Castle in Season 2 of Daredevil, fans are hungry for more. Sure, we’ve been promised a Punisher standalone series and Castle might just show up in Netflix’s upcoming eight-episode NYC superhero extravaganza, The Defenders. But that’s not nearly enough.
Agents of SHIELD just rolled in Ghost Rider for its fourth season, which has been moved to a 10 p.m. time slot to account for the show’s newly darkened themes. At a screening for SHIELD’s Season 4 premiere, Marvel’s Head of Television, Jeph Loeb, introduced Felipe Smith, the creator of the Ghost Rider model currently on the show. Loeb also took a moment to introduce someone else: Gerry Conway, the mind behind Punisher.
Punisher was first introduced in 1972 in The Amazing Spider-Man comics and had a plot that is achingly similar to that of Castle’s in Season 2 of Daredevil. A character with Castle’s background and pattern of violence would be a perfect addition to Ghost Rider’s biblical fury on SHIELD.
Bernthal is only able to attend New York Comic-Con for two days due to a “production schedule” issue, which could have something to do with filming for Iron Fist — or perhaps it has something to do with an appearance on Agents of SHIELD?
This could all be coincidence, but Loeb is reported as having said that we’ll all understand why he brought the people he did to the SHIELD premiere “later in the season.” It’s all very good ammunition for quality Punisher speculation.
