An iconic logo is going by the wayside thanks to the mob. In their new Punisher comic series, Marvel has decided to change the iconic logo due to its frequent use by law enforcement and military personnel. The series, written by Jason Aaron, will see Frank Castle ditch the logo along with his guns—trading them in for swords—as he becomes the leader of the criminal organization the Hand. This change comes after the Punisher himself stated (in comic dialogue) that he is against the use of his logo by law enforcement.
The new Punisher logo has drawn criticism both for its replacement of the original logo and for being too similar to the Mythosaur logo used by Mandalorians from Star Wars.
After the original logo was worn during the January 6th riot and was used by police officers during the Black Lives Matter riots, the calls to cancel or change the already controversial character’s logo became much louder.
The calls came primarily from average Twitter leftists, but prominent comic writers joined in with the mob, as well. The creator of the character (and many other iconic DC and Marvel characters and storylines), Gerry Conway, called seeing law enforcement use the logo “disturbing” and likened it to being “as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building.” He also called for the Black Lives Matter organization and “comics book artists of color” to “reclaim the Punisher skull as a symbol of justice rather than lawless police oppression.”
Former Punisher writer Garth Ennis, who is known for his highly political and violent works (as well as for his hatred of superheroes), similarly critiqued users of the logo, suggesting that the users didn’t understand the logo’s meaning.
The logo change is not the first time Marvel has succumbed to the mob. In 2016, writer Tim Seeley quit writing a book about Blade and his daughter, since Seeley is white and Blade is a black character. Agreeing with the mob, Seeley stated that “[he] couldn’t help but feel like a black woman might write this stuff better than [himself]” after he claimed “a lot of people saw ‘here’s another black lead with an all-white creative team,’” which he concluded is “valid and definitely the case.” Although Seeley has since moved on to writing other books, the Blade book was ultimately canceled following his departure.
No one gives a shit. I’m not trying to be mean but like, is writing article after article about how some superhero succumbed to/triumphed over the Leftist Mob™️ the best use of your time? Seriously, have some perspective. You study math and physics, right? Don’t you have more important things to think about, like the beauty of the universe or epsilons and deltas or whatever?
Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean nobody does. Besides, like Shapiro says, politics is downstream of culture.
I’ll do you one better and say that all of culture is inherently political. So what? Is this one, tiny, niche issue that basically no one cares about except fans of The Punisher/a few police officers, and that is also completely irrelevant to UChicago, really worth spending the time to write an article about it? I see no reason anyone should care about it, though I do think people should be concerned that a UChicago student was willing to put his name on such a ridiculously facile and intellectually lazy article.
Good for you Chad! You obviously do have time to study math and physics at an elite University and the time to push back on and expose Leftists seeking to re-write or erase every aspect of American culture and history. So please keep it up! The late, great Charles Krauthammer observed that the left now wants to shut down the debate – don’t let them.
The country needs more unafraid youth like you to expose the Leftist tripe, where law and order are demonized, cancel culture runs rampant and the virtue of forgiveness is tossed out the door by keyboard trollers consumed only by anger and jealousy.
….bruh is it really the mob if the creator of the character and one of the writers says “lol the police are missing the point of the character we created”???????
SO mishandled!
The Punisher is a literal vigilante, dealing death and injury without due process. Fine, fictional characters have a right to their unique views to further a plot conflict.
Dumb cops, duty-bound to due process, adopted the logo of a vigilante who was not. Stupid PR, terrible optics. While claiming they aren’t arbitrary brutal, they adopt the logo of someone who is. Self-defeating.
The cops are at fault, not Marvel. The clean solution would be for Marvel to assert copyright on the logo and deny its use to PDs.
Instead, they created a new logo… with zero assurance that it will not be similarly adopted in the future. Pure idiocy.
And then there’s this:
“reclaim the Punisher skull as a symbol of justice rather than lawless police oppression.”
That sort of nonsense just clouds the issue. The Punisher is not a symbol of justice, but of retribution. They can be the same thing, but they also can also not be. That’s why due process was invented.