Spider-Man 4 Casting News Gives Hope For Marvel’s Most Controversial Hero

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is shaping up to be an overstuffed film. It features confirmed cameos from Scorpion, Hulk, and the Punisher and rumored cameos from Daredevil and White Widow.

Recently, it was confirmed that Marvin Jones III will be playing Tombstone (he previously voiced the character in Into the Spider-Verse), and online scooper DanielRPK claims that this villain will be in “direct conflict” with Punisher. That actually gives me serious hope for this movie because without his own street-level antagonist, Punisher’s appearance in Brand New Day would be a joke, because he can’t effectively fight characters like Hulk and Scorpion.

Punisher In Over His Head?

While nobody knows what the exact plot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be, it’s a safe bet that the titular webhead will end up fighting Hulk. It should be fascinating to see: Spidey is both powerful and creative, but Hulk was able to hold off countless alien invaders all on his own in The Avengers. Against such a powerful threat, Spider-Man might be able to hold his own, but Punisher would be helplessly in over his head.

If you have any doubt about that, go back and watch movies like Batman v. Superman and Justice League, both of which featured a very human Batman fighting against forces that were way out of his weight class. There’s nothing Bruce Wayne can do against a rampaging monster like Doomsday (who was basically the DCEU’s answer to the Hulk), so he had to sit back firing little Kryptonite pellets while Superman and Wonder Woman did the real fighting. And when the whole Justice League fought Steppenwolf, Batman had to settle for fighting Parademon henchmen because there was nothing he could do against a rampaging New God.

Punisher: Batman With Bullets

In case the analogy wasn’t clear, Punisher is Marvel’s murder-friendly answer to Batman, one who uses a combination of battle strategies and high-tech weapons to take out his foes. With the right gear and a bit of prep time, Punisher can fight and possibly even defeat street-level characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil. But he would stand no chance against the Hulk, and even Scorpion would be nearly impossible to take out with small arms fire.

This is why I’m glad that Tombstone is in the movie and will reportedly be a major antagonist for the Punisher. It seems like Spider-Man: Brand New Day is giving its primary heroes their own respective villains, ones suitable to their power levels. Therefore, Spider-Man can concentrate on fighting the guy who put a god in his place, and Punisher can concentrate on fighting the guy who is mostly super strong and might not yet (in his first MCU appearance) even have the super-powered abilities he later got in the comics.

Could Punisher Save the MCU?

Now, I’m not saying this as someone who hates the Punisher; I’m actually one of the character’s biggest fans, one who thinks Jon Bernthal’s Punisher show was nearly perfect and that the Garth Ennis run of comics is required reading for Marvel fans. Because of that, I want the character to look his best for his big-screen MCU debut. And I won’t be the only fan seriously disappointed if that debut mostly has Punisher firing bullets at bulletproof guys and getting his butt handed to him.

It’s a very low bar, but I want Marvel to treat Punisher better than Batman was treated in the DCEU. We should see how scary the character can be instead of him looking like a useless plus-one to a cinematic party filled with superpowered characters. Here’s hoping Tombstone’s presence leads to some cool Punisher fights; otherwise, the fandom disappointment may be so intense that we will have to wait another few decades to see Frank Castle on the big screen again.