Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), also known as the Punisher, has always occupied a strange place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not least because he has yet to appear in actual cinemas. That will change in July, when the Punisher has some kind of role, whether supporting or (more likely) cameo, in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But to this point, Bernthal’s version of Frank Castle, the fourth live-action incarnation of the character so far, has been confined to TV projects like the recent “special presentation” The Punisher: One Last Kill. And because this Frank first appeared in an early round of Netflix Marvel shows that were in continuity, then out of continuity, then sort of halfway worked back in, his timeline within the MCU can get a little murky, even for a universe that has included time-travel, alternate universes, and Deadpool making the jump from a whole other company. Presumably the episode-length One Last Kill, the first solo Punisher project since these Netflix shows were reintegrated into the larger MCU, is meant to clarify where and when Frank Castle’s whole deal is unfolding right now.
So when exactly does The Punisher: One Last Kill take place?
At first you might wonder: Possibly after some heretofore unmentioned apocalypse? Because the New York City where Frank Castle wakes up in the special is like a local news scare report come to life: Gangs run rampant and lawless in the streets, as the city suffers from a cop shortage (uh, sure) and, apparently, the lack of mafia protection now that the Punisher has executed (mostly offscreen) members of the Gnucci crime family. In other words, no, there wasn’t another Thanos-style global event to create this ridiculous, cartoonish level of violence and chaos. In fact, at this point, the MCU is a full decade removed from the events of Infinity War.
But let’s jump even further back, to the Punisher TV series that ran on Netflix from 2017 until 2019, and is now streaming on Disney+ along the other MCU stuff. At that point, most of the Marvel movies and shows were taking place roughly during the time of their real-life release. So the first season of The Punisher takes place in 2016, shortly before its 2017 release, and the second season takes place a few years later in 2018 (and was released in January 2019). An epilogue to that second season seems to be taking place in summer 2018, which means it’s after Thanos snapped away half of all life in the universe (so apparently Frank was not snapped and would have had his own adventures during this weird five-year period; missed opportunity for The Punisher Season 3, if you ask me).
Here’s where it gets tricky: As the MCU timeline grew more complicated (with Avengers: Endgame taking place in 2023 despite coming out in 2019), the Netflix series were increasingly considered a kind of a weird sideshow that maybe the MCU brain trust didn’t want to bother including going forward. Then a bunch of MCU shows fell on their faces and it turned out bringing back Daredevil might make more sense than continuing to do weird one-off miniseries as incoherent as Secret Invasion. (Talk about some continuity best swept under a rug.) So when Daredevil: Born Again restarted that series in 2025, including a role for Bernthal’s Punisher, it was somewhat more tightly integrated into the MCU as it stood, which meant setting most of the show in 2027. Castle doesn’t appear in the second season of Born Again; One Last Kill is meant to explain what he’s been up to in between the first season of that show in 2027 and his appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is set in 2028, four years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home (which take place in 2024, despite releasing in 2021).
This is all to say that One Last Kill takes place roughly a year from now, sometime in 2027. It’s appropriate that this one-off, Daredevil: Born Again, and Wonder Man are among the recent MCU projects that have come the closest to taking place contemporaneously with our world; while none of them are exactly grounded in reality (even the gritty Punisher, as mentioned, is dealing with Mad Max levels of societal-collapse crimes, including a dog getting intentionally throw at an oncoming truck), they’re less fussy about the broader MCU and more interested in the characters right in front of them.
Then again, they may be all helpless in the face of timeline shenanigans if the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday tries to recreate that questionable Infinity War magic. Hopefully that’s one fray our man Frank Castle can stay out of.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.