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Frank Castle is Marvel<\/a>\u2019s most complicated antihero. He\u2019s a military veteran who returns home from the war, only to find a new one waiting for him when his family is murdered after they witness a mob killing. So, he arms himself to the teeth and enacts revenge on the city\u2019s criminals while wearing a skull and crossbones emblem on his chest. It\u2019s a story about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and loneliness, wrapped in a bundle of crazy cartoon violence. (Imagine if Rambo pointed the barrel of his gun at Spider-Man<\/a>.) And no one\u2019s ever played the character on screen better than Jon Bernthal.<\/p>\n In The Punisher: One Last Kill<\/em>, a new film on Disney+ that continues the character\u2019s story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bernthal portrays Frank Castle at rock bottom. He\u2019s attempting to live a life without wanton killing when he\u2019s drawn into another violent conflict. According to Bernthal\u2014who also wrote and executive-produced the special\u2013it\u2019s a story about the difficulties that special forces veterans go through when they feel their purpose slipping away. It\u2019s a battle, he says, that too often ends in suicide.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cut ties with every pillar of belief, whether it\u2019s religion, whether it\u2019s the Marine Corps, whether it\u2019s your family,\u201d Bernthal tells Esquire in our latest digital cover story<\/a>. \u201cBasically anything that was important to you, you start to see as a corruption. You look at yourself as the reasons for the problems in the world around you, and 99 percent of the time it results in suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n It sounds like dark material for a Disney+ product that lives alongside Zootopia <\/em>and Grogu, but comic book fans absolutely eat up Bernthal\u2019s take on the character. He\u2019s played Frank Castle since Daredevil s<\/em>eason 2 in 2016, which led to two seasons of his own series, a cameo in Daredevil: Born Again<\/em><\/a>, and now One Last Kill<\/em>, premiering on Disney+ on Tuesday, May 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET \/ 6:00 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n