The first two Blade movies are the perfect model for MCU’s next Punisher project
Someone brought up last week the idea of *Reacher* being a model for the next MCU Punisher project and I disagreed on character grounds. But as I’m reading the old 70’s Tomb of Dracula series, it hit me that the most frustrating thing about all Punisher adaptations post 1998 is that they already had a perfect model for how to handle the character in live action: Blade, and subsequently, Blade II.
Though they’re drastically different characters, I don’t think anyone could blame a layman for thinking of Blade as “The Punisher if he killed vampires” or The Punisher as “Blade if he killed criminals”. As incorrect as this is from a character standpoint, that idea works perfectly from a plot standpoint. Blade is just as deceptively simple as Frank in the way that other writers treated as some big obstacle. Because too many storytellers forget that character is just *part* of storytelling, they think a character with simple motivations and no life outside of them is too hard to make interesting. But I say what keeps fans coming back to them is that they’re the proverbial bulls in china shops. Most of their best stories revolve around the affect they have on their enemies’ respective worlds.
Now, going back to the other adaptations except The Punisher (1989), The Punisher (2004) was too slow and focused on his origins. Punisher: War Zone sacrificed drama for cartoonish action. The Punisher series on Netflix kept avoiding violence while resolving his origin two times despite that being resolved in Daredevil’s second season. And Punisher: One Last Kill feels more like half a story since it’s most likely a bridge to whatever they want to do next with a character.
Blade showed a character well into his career despite being even less well-known than Punisher to mainstream audiences at the time. They used an original character caught up in the events to explain the world of vampires as well as give us a victim to relate to so we never forget how bad those bloodsuckers are. And Blade II showed how that world is complicated enough that Blade can wind up working with vampires even though he hates them.
Now, I don’t want a beat-for-beat recreation of the plots of those two movies for whatever Marvel Studios is going to do with the Punisher, especially if they make another TV show. I think we’re all pretty done with 10-13 hour long movies that only have about 1 1/2-3 hours of plot. But the lesson to be learned is to stop relying on the Punisher for complex characterization, world building and plots, and focus more on the element of his world that does have those things: his targets.
Even if you give us just black-and-white evil villains for Frank to massacre, they still have a world he’s going to disrupt. Frank is one of the few protagonist where giving up a large chunk of his screen time to bad guys is a plus. It allows us to hate the villains more when we see what they do and why they do it while making us worry about Frank as we see the steps they take to stop him. Likewise, Frank’s scenes should be like the ones The Punisher (2004) did best: recon, prep, planning, and action. No more of Frank jumping into a situation with barely any knowledge like some 80’s Arnold Schwarzenegger action hero who just knows he’s going to win. He’s former Special Forces. Show us how he works, how focused he is, and use that villain POV to make the old adage undeniable: No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Anyway, that’s just what occurred to me thinking about Blade as I read his original tales and how those movies are to the Punisher what video game plots are to video game movie adaptations: a guide to follow so obvious that it’s baffling no one else uses it.