One batch, two batch, penny and dime… Frank Castle is back, and it’s Punishin’ time! Last month we learned that the finale of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 will be directly followed by the release of _The Punisher: One Last_Kill, a one-off Marvel Studios Special Presentation centred around Jon Bernthal’s skull-armoured vigilante. And now today, the first full trailer for King Richard and Top Boy director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s one-shot has been released. And while there’s no shortage of violence in store from — and for — our man Frank here, it looks like the anti-hero is searching for peace, too. Check out the trailer below;
Now there’s a trailer! And as we teased above, it looks like this isn’t just Frank Castle in pure, baddie-pulping mode. Sure, there’s Frank locked and loaded, Frank on fire, Frank running with a baseball bat, and Frank roaring like a beast unleashed over the course of this trailer. But there’s also Frank surrounded by his demons, haunted by memories of his loved ones lost, and, honestly, kind of just cracking up a little bit. The presence of an unseen character (potentially comics villain and recurring thorn in Punisher’s side, infantryman Barracuda?) goading Frank, asking if he “thinks God’s gonna forgive us for what we’ve done”, only adds to the sense that this isn’t going to be a straight-up bloodbath. The tone here is, if anything, as elegiac as the content is brutal — clearly something co-writers Green and Bernthal have hashed out and worked on together.
We still don’t know the full plot of One Last Kill just yet, but we do know the logline teases how this special presentation follows as “Frank searches for meaning beyond revenge, when an unexpected force pulls him back into the fight.” Again, ‘unexpected force’ — it’s not not giving Barracuda vibes. (And, lest we forget, Jamal Lloyd Johnson — not seen in the trailer — is playing a mystery character called Barry in this…)
With Daredevil: Born Again’s finale coming before it and Spider-Man: Brand New Day set to hit cinemas shortly after, it’ll be fascinating to see how The Punisher: One Last Kill fits into the bigger MCU picture — and where it leaves Frank Castle and his bloody calling. We’ll find out for ourselves when Marvel Studios’ latest Special Presentation hits Disney+ on 12 May. Bring. It. On!