DAREDEVIL Casts Jon Bernthal as The Punisher

Crime in Hell's Kitchen is about to drop significantly.

Marvel has announced that the Netflix series Daredevil has cast actor Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, better known to Marvel Comics fans as The Punisher.  The announcement describes The Punisher as "a vigilante who aims to clean up New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen by any means necessary, no matter how lethal the results."

"Jon Bernthal brings an unmatched intensity to every role he takes on," said Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television, "with a potent blend of power, motivation and vulnerability that will connect with audiences.  Castle’s appearance will bring dramatic changes to the world of Matt Murdock and nothing will be the same."

Bernthal, 38, is best known as the dangerous Shane Walsh on the AMC series The Walking Dead, which earned him a Scream Award nomination for Breakout Performance Male in 2011.  In addition, Bernthal has appeared in the films Fury and The Wolf of Wall Street, and has had roles on the television series Mob City, The Pacific, Eastwick, How I Met Your Mother, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: Miami, and Boston Legal.

Created in 1974 by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and John Romita, Sr., The Punisher first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol.1) #129 as Frank Castlle, a vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence, and torture in his war on crime.  He was determined to kill Spider-Man, who was wanted for the apparent murder of Norman Osborn.  He later encountered other heroes, such as Captain America and Nightcrawler, then faced off against Daredevil, whose more liberal views of crime often put them on opposite sides.

Driven by the deaths of his wife and two children, who were killed by the mob during a shootout in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all criminals in general by using all manner of conventional war weaponry.  His family's killers were the first to be slain.  A war veteran of the U.S. military, Frank Castle is a master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerrilla warfare, and a wide variety of weapons.

Bernthal will be the fourth actor to portray The Punisher in live action, after Dolph Lundrgen in the film The Punisher (1989), Thomas Jane in The Punisher (2004), and Ray Stevenson in the 2008 sequel Punisher: War Zone.

The character has also appeared in a number of animated projects, including Spider-Man: The Animated Series (voiced by John Beck), The Super Hero Squad Show (voiced by Ray Stevenson), Iron Man: Rise of Technovore (voiced by Bernthal's Walking Dead co-star Norman Reedus), and Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher (voiced by Brian Bloom).

Daredevil is expected to return for Season 2 on Netflix sometime in April 2016.