Daredevil - 'Bang' and 'Dogs to a Gunfight'

If they are trying to love triangle Nelson, Murdock and Paige I will be very
sad.

The brutal punchbag of the MCU is back, as we return once more to Hell's Kitchen for Season 2 of Daredevil.

In the wake of Wilson Fisk's fall, the old gangs are looking to reassert themselves, but there's a new player in town. Several gangs are hit by what at first appears to be a team of military-trained shooters, but is soon revealed to be a single man, armed to the teeth and willing to pursue his quarry to the gates of hell itself; or into a busy hospital.

Our heroes are drawn into this when a wounded Irish mobster named Grotto approaches them for help negotiating witness protection. Matt and Foggy try to track the killer, while Karen gets Grotto to a hospital, but the killer attacks them there. Daredevil prevents the kill shot, but after a knock-down, drag-out fight, takes a bullet to the skull.

They call him the Punisher, but does he make puns? He does not.

The next morning, Foggy finds Matt unconscious on a rooftop, because the police suck, and manages to get him home. His helmet stopped the bullet, but not the concussion and as well as a severe headache Matt realises that the shot may have impaired his hearing, leaving him with only touch to access the world.

We get to meet the shooter a little more in 'Dogs to a Gunfight'. Known to police as the Punisher, we see him buying a police scanner from a porn shot, before taking a bat to the owner after he tries to sell him kiddie porn, so he has that in his favour. Ultimately, however, the scanner gives him away, the sound leading Matt to his hideout after following a blood trail.

That was when the LAN party got serious.

With Matt benched, Foggy and Karen negotiate with the hateful, political DA, who is only willing to recommend protection for Grotto if he wears a wire to meet a former colleague. This however turns out to be a trap for the Punisher. As the meet turns into a war zone, Karen tries to go out to help their client. Foggy won't let her, but rushes out when Daredevil appears and comes under fire alongside the Punisher. Both vigilantes fall through a roof, but Daredevil loses his hearing again, and when Foggy reaches the hole, both are gone.

Daredevil still has its brutal flare, although on the basis of the season opener we don't yet have a narrative to match the rise and fall of Wilson Fisk. Now, season 1 didn't have Fisk until several episodes in, but his presence was felt, and so far season 2 only has the Punisher, a hard man anti-hero who makes Daredevil look like a soft touch. He's a physical threat and presents the question of where a vigilante draws the line, but for all the series attempts to parallel him and Daredevil, there is a clear line: Daredevil preserves, Punisher... well, it's all in the name really. Fisk was such an effective antagonist for Daredevil because he was, in his own way, a preserver.

Also, Punisher has always presented a problem in a comic book universe, simply by existing; that of thematic dissonance. Superhero comics are predicated not just on the viability of a man in spandex punching muggers, but on the superiority of that approach over a more militant solution. If the Punisher is an effective character, every superhero who refuses to use a gun or to take lives, or even who only takes lives in extremis, becomes a little bit more of a dumbass.

For the Comedian to be right, Nite Owl has to be wrong.

Hell; if the Punisher is this good, what is Iron Man for?