Why the new 'Daredevil' villain is Marvel's smartest social commentary yet

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"Daredevil" fans were ecstatic when actor Jon Bernthal was announced to join the cast for season two as the antihero Frank Castle/The Punisher. Bernthal is best known to fans from AMC's hugely successful "The Walking Dead." 

"I know how important this character is to you guys and I know how important this show is to you guys," Bernthal told fans at New York Comic Con in October. "I l0ok at this as a huge honor, a huge responsibility and I give you my absolute word I'm going to give everything that I have," he said. 

With a dark storyline examining the police, guns, and the corrupt justice system, the Punisher is poised to be a very smart take on real world topics, making it potentially the most incisive take on the character yet when the show returns to Netflix March 18.

Frank Castle is haunted by memories of his family, whose deaths drive his actions.

Castle's role in the new season is made clear from a line heard early in the newly-released trailer: "I need to take care of the scum that killed my family." 

In the comics, Castle is a former marine whose wife and children are murdered by the mafia. Castle survives the attack on his family and then testifies against the mafia gangs responsible. But because of institutional corruption and the police's deep-seated ties with the gangs, the people responsible for the murders were never punished. Devastated, Castle begins using his extensive military and weapons training to "punish" members of organized crime across Hell's Kitchen. 

As Castle begins his mission, the bodies in Hell's Kitchen start piling up.

Castle doesn't want to imprison the people who killed his family. He wants them dead. In the trailer, Sergeant Mahoney explains to Daredevil that a "new player" has been tracking gangs to their bases and destroying them "with knowledge and hardwire to take out half the city." He warns Matt that "Hell's Kitchen is about to explode."  

Matt resolves to stop Castle, concerned that soon innocent people will get caught up in his "war on crime" in Hell's Kitchen. Although they both want an end to organized crime, their methods are polar opposites. As Punisher summarizes, "You hit 'em and they get back up. I hit 'em and they stay down."

The Punisher's brutality puts him at odds with Daredevil.

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Matt wasn't exactly a pacifist in the first season, but we know he almost always opposed outright to killing his opponents, including nemesis, Wilson Fisk. Castle thinks of this as a "half-measure" and aligns Matt's beliefs with the same type of injustice that didn't prosecute his family's killers. He wants to kill criminals, not imprison them. We hear him tell Daredevil, "I think you're a half measure, I think you're a man that can't finish the job. I think that you're a coward."