Disney Plus seemingly edits another Marvel series – to remove a badly-timed Stan Lee tribute
The season 2 finale of The Punisher has seemingly been removed on Disney Plus
The Punisher season 2 finale has apparently been edited on Disney Plus to remove a tribute to Stan Lee.
Originally, the words 'In Loving Memory of Stan Lee' appeared on screen before the credits rolled, as season 2 of the series dropped on Netflix shortly after the Marvel icon died on November 12, 2018 (H/T Screen Rant).
If you stream The Punisher season 2 finale now, though, the tribute is missing. The message appeared right after John Bernthal's Frank Castle violently shot dead a group of criminals, so it is perhaps in poor taste. The same tribute at the end of Jessica Jones season 3 remains.
A tribute to Reg E. Cathey has also seemingly been removed from the Luke Cage season 2 finale. The actor played Cage's father in the series. Disney is working to restore both tributes, which were unintentionally left out of the episodes.
The Netflix Marvel shows have only recently arrived on Disney Plus. For a while, it looked like they'd remain non-canon forever, but Charlie Cox's Daredevil appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin had a role in the Hawkeye series. Not long after, the shows made the jump from Netflix to Disney Plus, and received a new name: the Defenders Saga.
"It needs to be a level of darkness. I think if there's any let up on that character, you do a disservice to the character, to every iteration of the character, to every comic book that’s come before, and to all of the unbelievable fans of the character," Bernthal has said before of whether he'd return as the Punisher in the MCU. "This character means so much to people in the military. So like I said before, it's not about whether you do the character; it's about whether you can do it right, and I'm only interested in doing it right."
The next Marvel release to hit the big screen is Doctor Strange 2, which arrives this May 6, while Moon Knight continues every Wednesday on Disney Plus.
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In the meantime, check out our ultimate guide to Marvel Phase 4 for everything else the MCU has in store for us.
I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.