New photos from the set of Marvel Television's The Punisher Special Presentation show what appears to be a confrontation between Frank Castle and Ma Gnucci in a playground.
The wheelchair-bound mobster still seems to have her arms and legs, so the Daredevil: Born Again follow-up likely isn't heading down quite as twisted a route as what we saw on the page (at least not at this point in the story).
This character is easily identifiable as Ma Gnucci from her hair, but the crazy thing about this is that we still don't know who's playing her! Marvel Studios must have cast a relatively big name in the role, though neither the trades nor scoopers have deduced her identity.
In the comics, Isabella Carmela Magdalena "Ma" Gnucci sets out to kill Frank after he murdered three of her sons. Using her connections in the NYPD to send the "Punisher Task Force" after the vigilante, she also dispatches the formidable Russian (played by WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash in 2004's The Punisher) to take him out.
Gnucci loses all of her limbs and scalp when The Punisher throws her into a polar bear enclosure in the Central Park Zoo. He later burns her to death, but only after punting the limbless mobster into the burning building.
"Welcome Back, Frank" (written by Garth Ennis with art by Steve Dillon) is a classic, and Marvel Studios adapting elements of it for the MCU is an exciting prospect. Whether we see something in the special that leads directly into Spider-Man: Brand New Day remains to be seen.
In a recent interview, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said, "When Punisher is in the Spider-Man movie, it’ll be a different tonality We are seeing for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories him being a proper Spider-Man. Him being by himself, dedicated to saving the city, and dealing with, for lack of better terms, street-level crime, as opposed to world-ending events."
"So when you do that, you say, okay, who are the other street-level characters that we’ve never seen him interact with? And of course, I love that The Punisher started in a Spider-Man comic."
Feige added, "That great cover. I don’t want to say too much, but Destin, I will say too much, Destin is doing an amazing job right now on that movie, which starts shooting very soon. And he’s got eight or nine comic covers up on his wall in his art department that he is bringing to life in this movie, which is super cool."
The Punisher Special Presentation will premiere on Disney+ in 2026, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day set to swing into theaters on July 31, 2026.
We wouldn't put too much stock in this, but speculation is also running rampant today that Élodie Yung is teasing her return as Elektra in Daredevil: Born Again. She seems to have wrapped a project in Spain, so it doesn't seem likely, but that is a devil emoji...