The brief furor over the Punisher‘s iconic logo was a snapshot of internet culture in a microcosm. After an image made the rounds online that showed one of the rioters who stormed the Capitol building sporting Frank Castle’s insignia, there were calls on social media for Marvel to either stop promoting the symbol or retire the character altogether due to his purported glorification of violence.
Looking at it realistically, people more than likely wouldn’t have demanded the same thing had a rioter been spotted wearing a Mickey Mouse badge or a Superman T-shirt, but the Punisher’s reputation as a vigilante who deals out his own unique brand of street justice gave the picture in question some unfortunate optics.
However, not only is co-creator Gerry Conway very much against the idea of people co-opting the logo for their own means, but he was even asking Disney to sue the police for using it, while he also released a Black Lives Matter range of merchandise inspired by the Punisher. Famed comic book writer Garth Ennis and Jon Bernthal have gone on to denounce the rioters, too, who clearly have a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes Frank who he is in the first place.
There were some rumors a while back that the studio was considering getting rid of the logo in the future, but tipster Mikey Sutton is now reporting that whenever the Punisher‘s rebooted as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the skull will remain as it is. Which is exactly how it should be, as the actions of one idiot in a photograph shouldn’t force creators to bow to the demands of a few and censor their art, especially for a massively popular antihero that’s been a fixture of comic books since 1974.
