How do you stop the far-right using the Punisher skull? Make it a Black Lives Matter symbol
Sometimes it takes a bootleg T-shirt to stop a bootleg Tshirt. For years, the military, the police and white supremacists have displayed the skull symbol of Marvel’s comic-book outlaw the Punisher on unauthorised clothes, bumper stickers and spraypaint stencils. But, as Black Lives Matter protests around the world draw attention to institutionalised racism, Gerry Conway, the Punisher’s politically progressive co-creator and writer, is launching an unusual fundraiser: his own line of shirts designed by people of colour to take the symbol back from the right, with proceeds to go to Black Lives Matter.
“[The skull] should be a symbol for Black Lives Matter,” Conway says. “It should be a symbol for people on the outside of the justice system. I want the movement to claim this symbol for themselves.”
The Punisher begins his life as a vigilante after he loses his family to organised crime, then any chance for justice because of the corruption of the NYPD. Conway and artist Ross Andru originally envisioned the character with a small skull-and-crossbones symbol over his heart for his 1974 debut, but Marvel’s art director, John Romita, had the idea to cover the character’s entire torso with a skull symbol.
Then in 2012, Iraq veteran Chris Kyle published his memoir American Sniper, in which he distorted his war record and bragged about spray-painting the Punisher logo on his unit’s equipment during the 2004 battle of Fallujah. Kyle’s machismo and tall tales about shooting “looters” during Hurricane Katrina made him a hero to the far right. When his book was adapted for film in 2014, the Punisher skull gained increased currency among police unions, gun-loving militiamen, and neo-Nazis. Marvel, who did not respond to requests for comment, told Gizmodo last week that it was “taking seriously” unlicensed use of Punisher imagery while its notoriously litigious parent company Disney has not made any legal challenges.
Reasoning that turnabout is fair play, Conway has assembled a team of artists who will donate their work to make a BLM-themed line of not-quitePunisher-logo merch, called Skulls for
Justice.
“Just like many of the skulls you see out there are not the trademarked Marvel skull, we’re simply doing what these other people have been doing in our own right,” Conway says. “I put my name on the project because I have some notoriety and can use it to promote this to people who might not otherwise see it.”
On Twitter, Conway called for people of colour to work on the project; among the artists who agreed to participate are some white creators, including legendary superhero artist Jerry Ordway.
One reason Conway is so troubled by the use of his work to promote white supremacy, beyond his personal politics, is the diversity of Punisher fans. “I go to conventions now and I would say that two-thirds to three-quarters of people who come up to me and talk about the Punisher are men and women of colour,” Conway says. “He’s so popular with young men and women of colour that [the way the logo is misused] just infuriates me.”
Conway particularly hates seeing his creation repurposed by the police: “I think the way cops use it is extrajudicial: they are cops, and they are going to punish you. And the Punisher is an outlaw. He’s a symbol of the failure of the justice system to treat everyone equally … About three years ago when it started to show up on police cars and on challenge coins that cops were using, I was really disturbed, because it was such a fundamental misunderstanding of what the character was and was supposed to represent. In that sense, he’s been completely defiled.”
Disney is not a company that generally lets copyright infringers hang around eating all the chips and dip. In 2012, it filed under seal a preliminary injunction asking that the court keep
the filing secret until police had seized all merchandise bearing the likenesses of its trademarked characters and executed a restraining order on the defendant, who ran a car accessories store in California. It’s one of scores of examplemaking lawsuits the company has filed, or been party to, over the years – including one last year against a company selling unauthorised Darth Vader shirts in Florida.
But even though Marvel Characters, Inc holds a trademark on the word “Punisher”, a brief look online reveals a shop called Sons of Liberty Tees selling a “Blue Lives Matter Punisher
Skull” shirt. Another sells the same design on a hoodie, also using the character’s name. A third sells a “Blue Lives Matter/Punisher Skull Flag Thin Blue Line” shirt that is also listed for sale at Walmart.com. An Amazon retailer called American Vinyl sells a Punisher decal with Trump hair.
Asked why he thinks Disney has not brought its legal muscle to bear against rightwing retailers, Conway responds with a bitmoji of himself shrugging.