daredevilkink | Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

so, spoilers: in order to prevent frank from killing a man who's certainly no innocent but *is* innocent of the crime he's been accused of (and of course he's got murdock as his attorney), frank sets it up so that matt *must* kill him before he takes his shot. he explains it as the choice he makes every day -- stay your hand and have a preventable death on your conscience, or become a killer.

matt pulls the trigger to stop him.

it doesn't go off because frank removed the firing pin, and frank tells matt to 'leave the killing to him', but holy shit, i was seething. it's one thing to make that choice for yourself but to force it on someone else, even though ultimately there was no fatal result? and given frank has no remorse for the people he guns down, whereas matt was faced with having to kill someone who he disagrees with but not to a fatal extent?

yeah. i need to know like burning what the fallout was from this issue.

Sounds like it'd be a great prompt

OP: yeah, my first instinct was to request a fill but i wanted to make sure that this wasn't actually covered in canon first. hence coming here to the discussion page. ^^;

If I'm not mistaken there was a shot of Jon Bernthal on twitter showing he was reading this exact issue, and knowing how Marvel likes to have their actors brush up on what comic canon they're highlighting on the show, it's a possibility this moment may end up in S2. Yay?

Did you ever read Roulette? I haven't read the issue you're talking about and I think Roulette came out way before but it's also a great dynamic between Matt and Frank and the decisions they make.

Which issues/year did that come out? Is it Punisher or DD?

ANON I AM SO GLAD I WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE UNBELIEVABLY UPSET BY THIS

like, i'm sorry, credit to people who can enjoy the punisher but that particular game with matt was such an unbelievable display of hypocrisy that it cemented my intense dislike for the punisher? all that really showed was that the act of killing is an incredibly hard decision to make and can permanently bloody one's hands in their own eyes (iirc matt was crying because he really did not wish to kill frank) and that frank was basically telling matt that he's just like him at the end of the day but he's really Not? like. the amount of emotional trauma and distress that situation would put matt through decidedly does not make him comparable to frank, omfg.

SORRY THIS IS GETTING AWAY FROM ME BUT BASICALLY i am with you, anon, i hate frank for doing that to matt and i doubt i'll like netflix frank castle better lmfao

OP: seriously. i've not read much of their interaction so i know i'm not working with all the evidence but that issue right now is pretty much a ship-sinker. it's like a fucked up, sadistic, judgmental morality play (note frank pretty much goading matt into taking the shot).

i did find it interesting that matt gave up his morals because he believed that strongly in the law. but goddammit, frank castle, fuck you.

ayrt: YES YES YES EXACTLY YES dude i thought i was going nuts here bc i swear for a while i was the only person who deeply disliked frank and had frank/matt as a massive notp, like, you exactly get why i could not be on board? a lot of their interactions involve frank screwing with matt in ways that are deeply distressing for matt but enjoyable for frank and it made alarm bells go off in my head because i really dislike reading that kind of dynamic in fic?

i'm interested in how they'll interact in-show, for sure, especially since they're skipping straight to the "matt kicks frank In The Face" bit so i'm sure we'll get some good stuff of daredevil beating the shit out ot the punisher.

AND i'm just gonna. leave my url here in case we're not following each other bc i would rly like to know who you are dude i'm not even joking: mattmurderdocks.tumblr.com

da and as someone who really loves the complexities of Frank Castle (and his even more complex canonical ongoing seriously twisted love-hate relationship with Matt Murdock) I'd like to just point out that Ennis is well-freaking-known for hating on 'costumes' and he loves to make Frank look good by making the costumes look like (sometimes ridiculous or mindlessly bankrupt sheeple) stooges. I think Ennis is a good writer, I like a lot of his work, but google for some of his very public rants about comic book heroes and it helps to put some of his, uh, work on certain titles into perspective. Not necessarily a good perspective, but it helps explain a little of some of his ultimate bullshit moves in the titles he works on.

NAYRT

To each their own but Devil By the Horns was pretty goddamn ridiculous and was written by another author that thinks Frank is just a mindless killing machine that hates Matt. The Punisher is a lot deeper than that but because he's insistently lethal most people (like Joss Whedon) mindlessly reduce him to...well, what we saw here.

If you know you're not working with enough evidence then you really need to go out and find more evidence. If you want it in bite sized format then I suggest checking out this tumblr: http://punisherwarjournal.tumblr.com/

It goes deep into Frank's character and discusses what makes Frank himself and not just a mindless asshole.

So chill out. Read up. People aren't obligated to love Frank, he's a very difficult character to love, but this is ridiculous and you people need to calm down.

SA

And just to clarify, I know that Ennis is seminal and that he's done great things with Frank but this macho bullshit that he keeps pushing into his comics really fucks with characters and leads to the foolishness we saw here.

YMMV on characterization but I never liked Ennis's Marvel Knight's run and the less we see of it the better. His MAX comics were much better, deeper and serious, and it wasn't subject to all this...stuff.

"you people need to calm down" jeez, anon, did it ever occur to you not everyone has to love frank? plenty of people on this kinkmeme love him, surely it isn't going to chap your ass that bad that a couple of us aren't huge fans of him or his interactions with matt.

My opinion of Frank, though generally pretty negative, is as complicated as he is. But SO MUCH THIS. There's no cause to talk to people like that here, no evidence that anyone isn't calm, and no reason they should have to be. It's not like anyone is bashing Frank's fans.

To be honest, I see 'Devil by the Horns' as very out of character for both Punisher and Daredevil. It strongly conflicts with a good chunk of their relationship in the comics, particularly the run where Matt is in prison (Frank purposely gets himself arrested when he finds out Matt is struggling with prison life so he can help him) and the Omega Effect where Frank basically lets Matt boss him around the entire time.

They beat the crap out of each other and trash talk each other sometimes for sure, but beneath that there's genuine and mutual care. "Devil by the Horns" is definitely not the comic to judge Frank Castle or his relationship with DD by.

NA another thing is that I mean I hated, hated, hated that Devil by the Horns comic but then I looked at when it was written and at or around that time Daredevil's ongoing was being written by Kevin Smith and it was a trainwreck too.

Plus. . .comics are like fanfiction. Every writer wants to be distinctive and to have a different take on the characters. So for example in Devil in Cell Block D by Brubaker, Brubaker portrays their relationship as mutually helpful and as a way to preserve Matt's integrity and keep him away from the brink. During this time, Matt was more violent than usual and that's what fit the story. During Ann Nocenti's run around ten years earlier, she had a much more pacifist take on Matt. So in her run, Matt and the Punisher really don't get on. They also don't need to at that time either so it works out well. And then in 'Devil by the Horns,' Ennis is just an awful writer so there's that.

The point being really that you CAN judge a character by a single run if you really want to, but that takes the character out of a lot of context even in cases (like Fraction's Hawkeye) that are deliberately novel takes on a character and storytelling for them.

I remember that. I didn't follow Punisher but I was obsessive about Daredevil crossovers. That was Garth Ennis' attempt to show the absolute limit that the character's moralities would push them.

It wasn't completely believable, because I think right/wrong mean slightly more to Matt than the letter of the law (otherwise he wouldn't be a violent vigilante). Punisher does not harm innocents; the offender he was trying to kill had. Frank Miller's Matt has killed to defend innocents from immediate harm--he disagrees with Punisher because it crosses the *line*, not because he feels protective of murderers. Whether he will "let a murderer die because of Matt's inaction", depends on Matt's current characterization. He has been shown doing both letting it happen, or saving them.

Ennis had done a similar "push to the limit" storyline with Spider-man and Wolverine in that run. He wrapped the stories up in 'Confederacy of Dunces', where Daredevil convinces Spider-man and Wolverine to team-up to take down Punisher, "once and for all." You can tell Matt is SUPER mad still.

Naturally, since this is Punisher's book, and Garth Ennis, Frank figures out what's going on and prepares a Batman Gambit. I'm not sure I want to state straight out what he did, because it was a big OH SHIT moment but it was meant to convince the three that taking Frank down would require the same no restraints style warfare that Frank practiced. None of the three were willing to go that far to continue the feud, and I believe that's where Ennis' run and the book itself ended.

Beyond that, I'm unaware of anything particular callback from Daredevil. Matt and Frank are ALWAYS intense with each other. I can't see them truly hating each other, no matter what. Matt might be anquished and hateful because of what Frank did to him, but a part of Matt will always feel sorry for Frank. However, the restart of the Punisher line had a *nasty* beatdown by Spider-man that seemed very personal...also a point by the new writer that Punisher is just a dude with guns, not some Batman-God.

So basically a mistitled 'What If...' that most writers don't even bother trying to fit into canon?
Cool. Thanks for the tip on 'confederacy', I'll toss up a link if I find one

I'd love to see it. :)

Matt and Frank are ALWAYS intense with each other. I can't see them truly hating each other, no matter what.

THIS. In spite of Frank dislocating both of Matt's arms (but not killing him) in Confederacy, he still spends a lot of time trying to explain Frank's code (read depth) to Spidey and Wolvie (read to the general audience). Ennis tried via DD to speak some sense to the masses, but Frank Castle continues to be an acquired taste. ;)

I have to admit, I didn't read that deeply into it back then! Some of the meta people are posting is fantastic and making me think about Frank in ways I never have. I never approved of him either, you see..

Frank/Matt *as a pairing* rather than a complicated platonic thing is new to me but its brought a lot of depth to both characters, which is one of the reasons I enjoy fanfiction and slash. :) That, and I feel like normal people getting into Punisher/Daredevil conflict makes me feel like a drug-dealer giving out freebies.

God, I really want to see a 'Frank IS a Butch Queen just trying to date a Red Leather Princess' fic now..

ayrt o/

I feel like normal people getting into Punisher/Daredevil conflict makes me feel like a drug-dealer giving out freebies.

*cackles* I know exactly how you feel. Although I don't have a picky palate when it comes to Matt pairings, I'm a big fan of complexity and Matt/Frank is where I find all the best umami flavours. And that's really saying something considering all of Matt's sticky relationships.

Frank IS a Butch Queen just trying to date a Red Leather Princess

*dies* I'm kinda waiting on some super-cliched Gangster/Ballerino fic myself (give it half a year and this fandom will be saturated with Matt/Frank fic no matter what kind of relationship they have on the show), but yours is being added to my Christmas list RIGHT NOW. *high-five*

Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

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