It’s still unclear when Netflix will release their next big Marvel series, The Punisher, for all of us to finally watch. We’ve known about the series for a year now, but despite that length of time and relative proximity to release, all we really know of the series is that there are actors in it and that Jon Bernthal is reprising the role he created in Daredevil season two.

In fact, according to Deadline, Netflix is playing it close to the vest in terms of when they’re going to release their newest Marvel series. As they say, “In an unusual move Marvel and Netflix are leaving fans in the dark about exactly when The Punisher will launch on the streaming service this fall – with sooner rather than later seeming to be the case.”

But have no fear! New York Comic Con is next month and we can almost guarantee we’ll finally get a full trailer and release date then. 

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It’s uncertain what their marketing strategy here is other than the possibility that they are creating even more fervor for the series by not telling us anything. It’s sort of the opposite of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Avengers: Age of Ultron marketing where we’d basically seen the entire movie in trailers by the time those films hit theatres.

However, maybe we’re one step closer to getting something as Netflix released a new teaser sort of video today on the Punisher twitter account. There’s no new footage or anything like that, it’s just graphics of classified documents throwing around a few various key words. The camera then pulls out to show that the classified documents are all creating the Punisher’s iconic white skull logo.

The keywords we pulled out of the video were —

“Operation Cerberus”
“…aimed at whistleblower later identified as…”
“Identified as Fra…”
“Codename: Micro”
“Covert Action Kandahar”

So, here’s what we’re thinking.

Frank Castle was part of an operation called Operation Cerberus. This was a covert op in Kandahar, meaning that Frank Castle was a part of the Afghanistan conflict. That is, this is the modern day update to The Punisher’s story which, in the comics, started in Vietnam. Now, the question to us is this — is Frank Castle the whistleblower or is Micro? It’s entirely possible that the act of blowing the whistle is how Micro met Castle insofar that Castle was unaware that Operation Cerberus was nefarious until Micro — a.k.a. David Linus Lieberman as played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach — blew the whistle.

Though, there is that pesky little bit that seems to say that Frank Castle is “identified as the whistleblower …” though we expect that Castle and Micro have worked together to expose the shadier government elements of Operation Cerberus in Kandahar and now, due to their actions, both are being hunted down by government agencies seeking to keep this operation under wraps.

Matt Key
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