Jon Bernthal had to cut down on his time at New York Comic-Con to accommodate his production schedule for The Punisher, where he will reprise his role as Frank Castle from Daredevil season 2. But just because Bernthal can’t stick around doesn’t mean that Marvel couldn’t reveal some news about the next round of characters who will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
On the first day of New York Comic-Con, Marvel and Netflix announced three new cast members for The Punisher: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Amber Rose Revah, and Ben Barnes. Moss-Bachrach is playing Micro, an updated version of Microchip/Micro from the ’90s Punisher comics, where the character was Castle’s partner, hacker, weapons master, and the closest thing he had to a friend. In the comics, Micro’s real name was David Lieberman, and he eventually had a very violent falling out with Castle over his methods. For the MCU, Micro will be a former NSA analyst who assists Castle. His name was briefly teased in the second season finale of Daredevil.
Related: Netflix’s ‘The Punisher’ Has its First Villain
Revah’s character is Dinah Madani, and she doesn’t appear to have a comic book counterpart. She is a “Homeland Security agent who is said to be “vexed” by Castle. But who says “vexed” anymore?
Comic fans should be excited about Barnes’ character: he’ll be playing Castle’s perennial nemesis, Jigsaw. But it sounds like Marvel is giving Jigsaw a new origin story to closely tie him to Castle. In the new version, Jigsaw presumably doesn’t have his horrific scars, and he still goes by Billy Russo, a man who served with Castle in Special Forces before joining a military contractor called Anvil.
The Punisher is expected to debut in 2017 on Netflix, and further announcements may come at the Marvel TV panel at NYCC.
