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Watch: Marvel sneaked a Punisher trailer at the end of The Defenders

Marvel’s Punisher trailer is about a devil collecting his dues.

Alex Abad-Santos
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.

Following the tradition of Marvel movies, Marvel’s Netflix series The Defenders has a treat for anyone who sticks around through the credits scene in its last episode: a trailer for Marvel’s next Netflix series, The Punisher.

The trailer opens with Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) slamming the ground with a sledgehammer and talking about his past.

“Memories, they never hurt me,” he says while we see glimpses of Castle’s past — his murdered family and his stint in the army. “The past is more than memories, it’s the devil you sold your soul to. He’s coming. He’s coming to collect.”

The trailer closes by zooming and out and revealing what Castle’s handiwork with the sledgehammer has produced: the iconic and ominous Punisher skull logo.

Bernthal’s Castle was introduced in the second season of Daredevil, as a broken vigilante. Castle, unlike his Netflix superhero cohort, has no hesitation in killing anyone he believes is evil. Scarred by the murders of his family, he sought revenge on everyone and anyone — the members of Hell’s Kitchen’s crime mobs, the Hand, the villain known as the Blacksmith, etc. — who had any connection to their deaths.

And now, in his solo series, we’ll see the next chapter in Castle’s story: a look at what happens to the man in the aftermath of all the bloody fury he’s unleashed upon Hell’s Kitchen.

The Punisher is set for release later this year.

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