During the attack on the Capitol, insurrectionists wore the Punisher skull and Captain America’s shield. That didn’t go over well with their creators.
We’re now over a week out from the day when a mob of insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol Building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. The riot left five people dead, including a capitol police officer. People have hit this story from a million and one angles, and given how unprecedented the events were, people will likely be finding new ones for a long time to come.
For instance, what to make of all the insurrectionists who who were wearing symbols mainly used by superheroes? In particular, a lot of people were seen wearing the skull symbol associated with Marvel’s the Punisher.
Trump insurrectionist in military gear in the Rotunda on January 6. Detail of AFP photo. #CapitolSiegeReligion pic.twitter.com/NHNyOAGJ2t
— Peter Manseau (@plmanseau) January 11, 2021
The seditionists that invaded the Capitol today wore a Punisher logo. I say @marvel needs to either aggressively enforce their trademark so it isn’t printed everywhere or abandon the Punisher completely. You can’t allow your characters to be used by terrorists. pic.twitter.com/CLHv243N9u
— Comic Tropes (@CTropes) January 7, 2021
To start, the people actually associated with the Punisher are not fans of this, starting with Jon Bernthal, who played the character on both Daredevil and his own Punisher Netflix series:
I’m with you. Beautiful work. These people are misguided, lost, and afraid. They have nothing to do with what Frank stands for or is about. Big love. J. https://t.co/Q4GpaGW3ek
— Jon Bernthal (@jonnybernthal) January 12, 2021
The Punisher, real name Frank Castle, is a vigilante superhero who operates outside the law and kills other criminals as he sees fit. There’s actually a pretty long history of his signature skull symbol being appropriated by members of the military, far-right domestic terrorists, and police officers, many of whom were seen wearing it during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Comic book writer Garth Ennis, who has written some very influential Punisher stories, thinks they’re missing the point. “I’ve said this before a couple of times, but no one actually wants to be the Punisher,” Ennis told SYFY WIRE. “Nobody wants to pull three tours of duty in a combat zone with the last one going catastrophically wrong, come home with a head full of broken glass, see their families machine-gunned into bloody offal in front of their eyes and then dedicate the rest of their lives to cold, bleak, heartless slaughter.”
"The [insurrectionists] wearing the logo in this context are kidding themselves, just like the police officers who wore it over the summer. What they actually want is to wear an apparently scary symbol on a T-shirt, throw their weight around a bit, then go home to the wife and kids and resume everyday life. They’ve thought no harder about the Punisher symbol than the halfwits I saw [on Wednesday], the ones waving the Stars & Stripes while invading the Capitol building."
Seeing the Punisher symbol in this context is weird because he’s a lawless character, whereas members of the military and police are supposed to uphold the law, not break it. Speaking to SYFY WIRE back in early 2019, before any of this began (which tells you how long the symbol has been getting appropriated), co-creator Gerry Conway outlined his problems with how the symbol has been used: “The Punisher represents a failure of the Justice system,” Conway said. “He’s supposed to indict the collapse of social moral authority and the reality some people can’t depend on institutions like the police or the military to act in a just and capable way.”
"The vigilante anti-hero is fundamentally a critique of the justice system, an example of social failure, so when cops put Punisher skulls on their cars or members of the military wear Punisher skull patches, they’re basically siding with an enemy of the system. He is a criminal. Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol."
As to why people embrace the Punisher symbol in this way, I don’t know, although I’d venture to guess that they find the character’s black-and-white view on morality appealingly simple: find the bad guys, get the bad guys, screw due process. I can imagine that’s more or less what the insurrectionists were thinking, too, but when you apply that kind of simplicity to the real world, which is full of complications, things go really wrong really quick.
As you can see in some of the tweets above, some people think that Marvel should retire the Punisher logo, and I can see that being a good idea. On the other hand, as Ennis points out, symbols only have the power we give them. “No one’s going to suggest that the American flag is now a fascist symbol and should be treated as such, just because a bunch of would-be fascists employed it ,” he said. “I doubt there’s anyone who would suggest that any of the clowns who wore the Punisher skull would have acted any differently in DC had it or the character never existed. They did what they did because their demented turd of a leader convinced them the election had been stolen; if you’re ready to take violent action on that basis then no bloody, silly T-shirt you wear will have any bearing on the line you’ve crossed. In fact, it’s completely irrelevant.”
The appropriation of the symbol by police in particular has even been addressed in an issue of the comic, when the Punisher runs into a group of New York City with a decal of his skull symbol on their car. “We believe in you,” one tells him. He is not amused.
“I’ll say this once. We’re not the same,” the Punisher tells the officers. “You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave all that up a long time ago. You don’t do what I do. Nobody does. You boys need a role model? His name is Captain American, and he’d be happy to have you.
Speaking of Captain America, a few insurrectionists also appropriated his symbols, particularly his iconic shield and red-white-and-blue outfit. Neal Kirby, son of Captain America co-creator Jack Kirby, expressed his displeasure over this in a statement: “Captain America has stood as a symbol and protector of our democracy and the rule of law for the past 79 years,” Kirby wrote. “He was created by two Jewish guys from New York who hated Nazis and hated bullies. Captain America stood up for the underdog and, as the story was written, even before he gained his strength and process from Army scientists, always stood for what was righteous, and never backed down.”
"These images [of insurrections wearing Captain America symbols] are disgusting and disgraceful…Captain America is the absolute antithesis of Donald Trump. Where Captain America is selfless, Trump is self-serving. Where Captain America fights for our country and democracy, Trump fights for personal power and autocracy. Where Captain America stands with the common man, Trump stands with the powerful and privileged. Where Captain America is courageous, Trump is a coward. Captain America and Trump couldn’t be more different.My father, Jack Kirby, and Joe Simon, the creators of Captain America and WWII veterans, would be absolutely sickened by these images. These images are an insult to both their memories."
And that wasn’t the only pop culture artifact being appropriated for the occasion:
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