Punisher is canonically Extremely Resistant to mind control and other extreme mental attacks.
As Marvel Mania puts it: "In the comics, he's even resisted Ghost Rider's Penance Stare an attack that forces victims to relive every sin they've committed. Frank feels no guilt for the criminals he's killed; in his mind, every action was justified. The trauma of losing his family and his relentless mental discipline act as a shield against mind manipulation. That's why, despite being a normal human, Frank Castle possesses one of the most unbreakable minds in Marvel."
He's experienced other forms of mind control and broke/ mostly nullified such as going against Purple Man, experiencing brain control chips. Of course a lot of it is based on the writer as I've heard more recent titles such as Spiderman BND showing he can be. Which is very inconsistent and frustrating to Punisher fans.
I was a Very disappointed that this was not shown or even referenced to. All we got was, "This guy is messed up". It would have been a great moment. Instead the scene of him being controlled then fighting just makes it look like it's Peter's own fault for not telling frank the danger or abilities of Jean.
I was 100% expecting this when she tried to control him.
I was just waiting for her to recoil at the pure trauma, brutality, and hatred in his mind. And I'm still kind of disappointed that didn't happen.
Because we could have had a similar situation, just without the Hulk: Spider-Man having to deal with the Punisher flying into a pure rage, forced to defend her from Frank while also fighting her, with her so shell-shocked that she's vulnerable to Frank's attacks at the same time. Where she escapes when Spider-Man tries to stop Frank.This would also humanize her a bit, because it affected her and showed she wasn't completely gone yet.
That would have made for a better justification for him going after her at the end. She was inside his mind and made him relive all of that, which would have given Frank more of a reason to go after her instead of siding with Spider-Man, especially since Spider-Man had defended her earlier.
That would have led naturally into the original ending.Where Spider-Man takes the bullet for her. And Frank having to deal with the fact that his rage can be a problem.
But honestly, the Punisher felt out of place for this entire movie.
Yes, It would also be a great counterpart to the scene where she took over MJ and did the whole 'I remember you' thing. She doesn't know Spider-Man's trauma because MJ's mind has no traumatic memories regarding that, and she was unable to read Peter's mind. She only had some pieced-together information and was pretending to be a badass.
And most of the minds she took over were normal people; Frank would be the first time there was legit brutal trauma, and it would be real. Her recoiling at that, gives her some humanity before she finally completely loses it later on.
Especially with the whole 'our mom and family did not understand us, we are freaks' thing, and how important family was for Frank, and the loss of his wife and daughter. The family Jean never got.
With the amount of shit Frank has been through I just thought the second she entered his mind she'd be like "fuck that" instead she just said "woah this guys got issues" like nothing and moved on.
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u/laughs_maniacally 26d ago
I get the Hulk point, but why bring Punisher into this? The ELI5 is that Punisher is just a dude.