I'm not really a huge fan of the Punisher myself. I think he works best in an antagonistic role rather than the lead. However, I do have faith in Marvel that this show will be more than a mindless "Dirty Harry" type shoot-'em-up.
Yeah. What I like about the Netflix shows is that its heroes are practically the only ones in the MCU who show any reluctance to kill. The
Agents of SHIELD do tend to use nonlethal "ICER" guns when they can, but they're still willing to kill, sometimes out of tactical necessity and sometimes out of sheer murderous vengeance (though that did ultimately get portrayed as a mistake that the character in question regretted). And the movie characters are quite casual about killing, even when their comics equivalents are historically known for having no-kill policies (which was the norm for comic-book heroes until characters like the Punisher and Wolverine came along). But even though the Netflix shows are supposedly the "darker" ones, their heroes have a stronger commitment to avoiding lethal force. Daredevil makes a point of not being a killer, though he's quite violent otherwise and there are instances where that commitment was imperfectly kept, let's say. Jessica Jones was willing to kill in one instance, but in general she avoided going that far. And Luke Cage is just about the noblest, purest hero in the whole MCU -- he hardly even cusses, let alone killing. (Captain America is generally the archetype of pure, noble heroism, but he is a soldier and a killer when necessary.)
So the Punisher, whose whole deal is killing bad guys, feels incongruous in that context. As an antagonist, sure, he fits in, since the Netflix villains are prone to shocking degrees of violence and brutality. But as a protagonist, he's very much the odd one out. I agree that the show is likely to treat him as a conflicted antihero and won't glorify his use of deadly force, but it's still a change of pace, to put it mildly.
