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Next month marks 45 years since the Punisher’s first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129. Why do you think the character has endured for all these years with Marvel fans?

He’s a character that’s resonated in the law enforcement community and the military community, and that’s something that means a great deal to me. Look, I think deep down we all have a little bit of Frank Castle in us. I think any of us who puts family ahead of anything else, or any of us that have children or spouses, can begin to understand just a kernel of that feeling of what would happen if they were taken from us. (The show) takes you to an enormously dark place and I think that’s the place where this character dwells. But there’s a reason why people get behind him and there’s a reason why, as dark as it is, The Punisher is just good, escapist fun.

How is Frank different in Season 2? At first, when we meet him he seems more settled in his life and then s— hits the fan.

He enters into this relationship with this woman and he sees another way he could be, but then, as you said, s— definitely does hit the fan. She ends up getting shot and that reawakens all these feelings of personal responsibility and self-loathing and self-hatred. He feels like he caused that and brought that on her. It sends him spiralling. Along with that, he meets this young woman and he’s forced to take up her cause. At first, it’s not personal with him. It’s something that just happens. Then, as he comes to respect her, it becomes highly personal. He finds his calling. I don’t think peace would have ever worked too well for Frank Castle. I don’t think that’s a real possibility for him. I think what it comes down to is he can have some use in his world. He can have some purpose, and that purpose is to be a cold, blunt instrument of war.