Rumor has it, the Punisher special's villain might be a woman

Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 finale ended with Frank Castle/The Punisher escaping Mayor Wilson Fisk's captivity. It was a post-credit scene that set up a Disney+ special presentation focusing solely on Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle, who made his debut back in Daredevil Season 2, which was released on Netflix in March 2016.

Details about the Punisher special on Disney+ are very sparse, except for the fact that Jon Berntal, the actor who is playing the character, is also one of the project's writers. Bernthal teased the tone of this special to The Hollywood Reporter during the SXSW premiere of The Accountant 2:

“It’s going to be dark; Frank has no interest in breaking out the darkness. It’s not going to be easy. I don’t know if that’s the Netflix tone then that’s what it’s going to be. It will not be Punisher-lite, I promise you that.”

Now, renowned internet scooper Daniel Richtman, or DanielRPK, teased the possible antagonist of the Punisher special presentation through his Patreon entry. Richtman, who has provided some accurate information in the past, revealed that the special is searching for a woman who could portray a crime boss. The scooper's exact words were:

“For ‘The Punisher Special, they are currently casting a female crime boss as the villain.”

Given this information, a lot of Marvel fans believe that they know who the yet-to-be antagonist of the Punisher special is.

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Fans believe that we will meet Ma Gnucci in The Punisher special:

A lot of fans believe that one of the antagonists that Frank Castle has to contend with is Ma Gnucci. It makes sense considering the Gnucci Crime Family was entirely massacred by Frank in the first season of The Punisher when it was released on Netflix. Considering the events of the Netflix Marvel shows are canon, the massacre of the Gnucci Crime Family sets up Ma Gnucci.

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Who is The Punisher's Ma Gnucci?

Ma Gnucci/Isabella Carmela Magdalena "Ma" Gnucci is one of the numerous antagonists that Frank Castle has faced over the years. Like Frank did in the first season of The Punisher, he killed several members of the Gnucci Crime family, prompting Isabella to swear revenge. One day, she and her guards located Frank Castle close to the Central Park Zoo and chased him inside it.

However, Castle shocked Ma and her guards by releasing the animals from the cages. Ma had the misfortune of encountering a group of polar bears attacking her, who tore her arms and legs. Furthermore, she also lost her scalp due to an unknown reason in this attack. However, she managed to survive even this attack, and orders a ten-million hit on Frank Castle.

Castle, on the other hand, drives to her mansion and lights it on fire, thus ending Ma Gnucci's reign of terror. In the Disney+ special, Ma Gnucci could be one of the mob bosses allied with Mayor Fisk. But since it is not officially confirmed, we should wait for some sort of official confirmation.

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What is the Punisher special about?

As mentioned before, details surrounding the special are very sparse. Bernthal was interviewed by Collider’s Steve Weintraub while promoting The Accountant 2 at the 2025 CinemaCon. He said:

“I've said it a million times: Frank is in my bones, is in my heart. I care about him."

Bernthal then went on to continue:

"In discussing what this thing could be and this sort of version of Frank that I really felt that the audience was hungry for, that the military community was hungry for it, the first responder community, the comic book fans, they were really hungry for it. I presented that version to them, and they encouraged me. They encouraged me to keep coming to the table. As we were talking with different writers, the ideas that we were coming up with started to resonate, and I think they saw how much they resonated with me. I got a great group of vets that I work with. One in particular, my friend Nick, he's just been incredible. I hope that it goes alright. I don't like talking about these things because it's a little bit of bark before there's a bite, you know? I'm honored and I'm grateful. It's an incredible group of people that we're assembling."

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Are you excited for the Punisher special on Disney+? Let us know.