Marvel's Punisher The Terrible Fate of Lewis Wilson

Jason O'Toole

Late in 2017, Marvel and Netflix added a new hero to its streaming universe, the Punisher. While Frank and his allies hunt for justice is fantastic and action packed, it is the fate of Lewis Wilson that presents the most engaging part of the story. Lewis is a soldier who has recently returned from Afghanistan and is participating in group therapy led by Curtis Hoyle, an old friend of Frank’s, for P.T.S.D. His story starts off as a very real world look into what soldiers experience when coming home and trying to go back to their lives. This social commentary points the finger at our own government for failing to help the people who risk their lives defending our freedom. The story evolves to show us a man who is willing to go to extreme measures to show the government that they are the enemy. Wilson’s story becomes a very dark reflection of the road that Frank Castle walks. He too goes to extreme measures to achieve his goal. Lewis suffers because of the things he had to do and the poor reception he received upon coming home. During group therapy he says,

“I just know that I fought for this country and that it’s got no place for me. I don’t know what the rules are anymore. All I know is that we risked our lives and did terrible things and it meant nothing when we got home.”

The stress of trying to go back to his normal life ultimately leads to a very emotional moment in which Lewis almost guns his father down after having a nightmare. The stress leads Lewis down a very self-destructive path. He deduces that his only option is to find a way to return to a battlefield which is where he last felt home. This calls into question another tragedy that returning soldiers have to face. The skills taught to them by the government have very little to offer outside of war zones. Wilson’s attempt to find his battlefield in Anvil, a private military firm whose purpose is providing military and security services, is quickly halted when Curtis convinces the head of Anvil, Billy Russo, that returning to the battlefield is the worst thing for Lewis. Curtis is simply looking out for this young man that he is worried about. However, Lewis sees this as a betrayal. He genuinely tries to make his normal life work again but a series of setbacks and tragedies push him down a dark path. When confronted violently he reacts the only way he knows, by killing a man who encourages his hatred of the system. This terrible act forces Lewis to attempt to take his own life. In that moment Lewis has a profound realization that he needs to use the skills the system taught him to take it down. He uses his skills to arrange a series of bombings on government buildings. It is easy to see why Lewis felt he had no other options left. He makes a statement reading,

“The United States government has become a tyrannical force, using its power to persecute teachers and citizens, trying them in a court like criminals for seeking to defend themselves as the Constitution allows. They want to take away our guns, our freedom, and then we will be unable to defend ourselves. I have acted in defense of our liberty and identity. I have acted for all of us, to do what is right.”

Punisher as a show holds a mirror up to society and asks a very important question. Why have we failed these brave men and women? The show makes a very bold statement about our country. The questions that it poses are worth answering. These people defend the freedom that we all take for granted. We owe them more than we have given them.

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Tales From the Table.

My Introduction to Role Playing

 Rodger Moss

           My brothers bodies lay in front of me bloody, beaten, knocked out or potentially worse. My hands ache as they strengthen their grip on my katana. The rain that was a soft whisper earlier in the night has turned into a deafening roar, almost blinding me on the high city roof top. My breath is heavy and deep but steady. My body tense, yet ready to spring into action when the time comes. I know the enemy is around, moving closer and getting ready to attack. He will strike fast. Testing me as he did my brothers, and fade back into the darkness, calculating how to best me. Tonight it will all come to an end. The fate of the city rest with me and me alone. It has been a long war. Many lives cost on both sides, but peace and justice must rise above all else. I can feel the electricity in the air. Lighting strikes! I can see his silhouetted claws in the shadows. I leap into action.

          “OK, How do I fight?” I ask my cousin sitting in his basement. I was seven at the time.
He was a little older, thirteen. This was my first time role playing. We were playing a home brew of Palladium's TMNT and Other Strangeness. I was Leonardo, who was not my favorite Turtle, though I really wanted to have a sword. During this session, I had single handedly discovered Shredder's plan to bring Krang and his followers into our reality. This would destroy New York, yet more importantly, kill April O'Neil.

         “Here. Roll this d20. Subtract this, this, and add this... What did you get?” I did not really understand a word he said. All I wanted to do was hit Shredder. I wanted to knock him off the roof just like in the movie, then hit the sewers for a pizza party. I rolled this huge, opaque green die. Apparently, it was not good enough. Shredder killed me and won. That was my introduction to role playing. I failed in saving the world while dying in the process. I could not understand how a game based on my favorite cartoon could end with Shredder winning. As most kids do when things don't go the way they want, I threw a huge fit. Needless to say, my cousin was a good game master. He did not change a thing. Shredder still won. The day was lost for sure, but not the war.

         “You can make another character if you want and we can keep going. Now you can't be one of the TMNT because they are dead. However, you can make another mutant. Keep trying to stop Shredder as well as push Krang back to Dimension X. Do you want to try that?” my cousin asked.

           With that I was hooked. Even though I had lost, I could still win. Unlike the video and board games that I had played in my seven years on this earth, I could keep playing forever. At least that was what I had thought. That idea in which I was not playing a game that had an ending. instead I was part of a world that would change every time we played, blew me away. This was the last time I played that game. I made another character. By the next time we met to role play, X-men had taken over. I no longer wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Now I just wanted to be a mutant with awesome eye beams, that could fly and teleport.

           Over the years I fought dragons, flown star ships across the galaxy, plundered pirate's treasure, learned how to hack into a mainframe, battled timeless evil, piloted giant death dealing robots, brought honor to my clan, and saved more than my fair share of cowpokes. I have played in more groups than I care to count. I have made and lost countless friends. I have seen the hobby go from boom to bust and back to a boom again. I have so many fond memories of sitting around a table, rolling fifty cent pieces of plastic and creating stories that would amaze the heavens

           I'm currently working on the campaign for our new show Dungeons and Dumbasses. Once again, getting ready for the fight against evil. It brought me back to where my love of role playing began. It all goes back to that cold basement. That damn huge, opaque green d20. Over the next couple of posts, I will dig deeper into my history from the table. You will read stories of me playing as well as tales as a game master from my many years of running games. I hope you enjoy. Please share with me your stories or fond memories from your role playing experiences.

Superhuman: Routine

Routine

Written by Chris Parsons

What is it to be superhuman? Is it simply putting on a cape and fighting crime? Can someone be bombarded with radiation or bit by a bug to unlock unfathomable power? This is highly unlikely, but being a better you by honing strengths and minimizing weaknesses is viable. With you, the reader, I want to go on a journey at the end of which superhumans stand proud. Each week we will explore a different area of our lives and implement a plan for starting new habits that will  ultimately bring us one step closer to being superhuman. In an ideal world, this will be a six month ordeal, but lets just see where we end up.

There are 100s of cliches that say how important it is to wake up early, and many successful individuals would attest to this. Jocko Willink, a retired Navy SEAL and accomplished author, starts his day at 4:30am because of a belief that he must work while his enemy sleeps. We all know that evil never rests, so this is probably a great place to start. While waking at 4:30am may not be for all of us, waking up a bit earlier to work on a few things before “real life” starts happening can’t be a bad thing. So, in order to find more time in the day, Let’s start our morning routine one hour before we would normally wake up. The eight hours that most people claim to need isn’t actually what a human requires to work at optimum efficiency. Studies show that sleep cycles happen in three hour increments. Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed to slept six hours every night, and if six hours is good enough for the Terminator, it’s good enough for me. On a side note, do not press the snooze button, it will leave you more tired than you were before.

What we do following waking up is of the utmost importance. When we get up and begin to stare into our phone before even truly starting our day a few things happen.

1. It messes with our dopamine levels

2. It distracts us from tasks that we should be working on

3. Seeing a bunch of notifications can cause stress

4. We are waking up early to become a superhuman, not a zombie

So, we will start our day with an accomplishment; making our bed! Retired Admiral, William H. McRaven, wrote a book on it, so if you want to understand the methodology behind it read it. It’s called Make Your Bed, Imagine that... He has also given speeches on it that you can find by using the google machine. After doing this, we are going to outline a few key items that we want to accomplish. Make sure that you can actually achieve these micro-goals in the time period that you have allotted yourself.We will be doing something similar with our nighttime routine as well. We want to be in constant pursuit of goals and we want to be constantly achieving goals so that we feel accomplished in our endeavors.

It is at this time that we are going to start getting into working out. We all want the superhero physique, and this part of our morning routine will help us to achieve it. It also raises energy levels and will help you sleep better later, so don’t skip out on this. Bodyweight exercises are perfectly adequate if you don’t have access to weights or a gym. Lookup a few workout routines, and pick one that works best for your situation. You won’t regret it when it has come come to cosplay.

Follow your workout with meditation. Meditation is a fantastic way to free yourself of things that weigh you down. There are guided meditations and apps that can help you with this. Don’t look at what you can gain from meditation, but what you can lose. Buddha said, “Let me tell you what I lost through meditation: sickness, anger, depression, insecurity, the burden of old age, the fear of death.”

Now it’s time for the most important meal of the day! Assuming you don’t have any diet restrictions, due to health conditions or anything like that, I’m going to recommend a High protein breakfast. This type of meal is supposed to make you less hungry between meals, reduce metabolic inflammation, reduce risk for heart disease and diabetes, and help with anxiety. I will normally eat six to eight scrambled eggs and be pretty content until lunchtime.

One of the things that is most difficult for people is time management. If we sit down and schedule an entire day we are probably not going to be able to adhere to the schedule that we’ve created and end up failing because of it. If we fly by the seat of our pants, the lack of structure is generally enough to keep us barely treading water. The fix is beautiful in it’s simplicity. Schedule time blocks for a few blocks of time for uninterrupted work. For example: 9:00am-11:00am I’m working on ________ task, then making said task your life mission. After you have finished doing whatever it is, give yourself some time before scheduling the next task. Having these little blips of massive productivity can be extremely rewarding, and working on certain things at specific times of the day will help to refine your ritual and reduce stress because you know when you’re getting things done.

Before you lay your head to rest, after a day of performing like a superhuman, we need to once more ditch the phone. Give yourself at least 30 minutes before going to sleep where you aren’t staring at that tiny mind control device. Take a few minutes to reflect on what you have accomplished and how you could make it more efficient. Then review what it is you want to get done tomorrow. It’s good to write out a to-do list, but not completely necessary. Now give yourself a minute to decompress; let the stress from the day fall away.

Stay Geeky!