Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Fox, Marvel Comics, TV | Tagged: chuck dixon, fox news, punisher

Chuck Dixon on Fox News Blames Marvel for Prejudice Over The Punisher

Chuck Dixon is concerned that the Punisher is losing his class roots at Marvel Comics. The questiion is, will the new Punisher be woke enough for Chuck?

Fox News has reported on, of all things, Chuck Dixon's podcast. In which the comic book writer has claimed that Marvel feels uneasy about the Puisher because of his working-class origins. Though he doesn't explain why Marvel seem fine with the likes of Peter Parker, Ben Grimm, Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Riri Williams, Luke Cage and the like, with similar class backgrounds. "They don't like him for the same reason that DC doesn't like Guy Gardner and fans like the Punisher for the same reason they like Guy Gardner," noting that "There's very few superheroes that have blue-collar origins" and are "average guys driven to extremes… People respond to these characters because of those origins and because they have blue collar origins — when they're written correctly — they say stuff and do stuff that other comic book characters won't. They don't have the same mores, the same code," he said.

This would be the same DC that saw Guy Gardner star in Human Target, currently in Doom Patrol, and has been cast as Nathan Fillion for the upcoming Superman Legacy movie? And the Marvel Comics that has Wolverine in every series? But maybe Dixon is right and there is just not enough working-class representation in Marvel's comic books. and they should introduce more working-class diversity in their characters. You know, to be more woke.

And that Chuck Dixon insisted, "The main reason they wanted to get rid of the Punisher is because they hated the Punisher and they hate you for liking it. It's that simple" and that "new people took over at Marvel and they were just really, really just embarrassed about everything about the Punisher, particularly his audience. They didn't like the Punisher, and they didn't like the people who liked the Punisher."

Fox News reports that the last straw, however, he claimed, was when "our military and police began using the Punisher skull symbol on uniforms" noting it had been famously seen "on the sides of armored personnel carriers and Bradly fighting machines in Iraq" to the point that many ended up seeing the Punisher skull logo on an armored vehicle or police uniform long before they knew it came from a Marvel Comics character."

And that he then suggested the thought process of Marvel leadership, "We're going to take the Punisher, and we're going to mangle him, and we're going to destroy him. We're going to do what no other entertainment company ever has done. We are going to purposely take one of our intellectual properties and tear it to the ground."

Which is odd because it wasn't new people at Marvel Comics who were leading the public charge on issues regarding the Punisher and Fox News knows this. Back in 2020, Fox News reported on The Punisher's actual co-creator, the seventy-year-old Gerry Conway finding it "perplexing that The Punisher's infamous white skull logo has become a favorite among law enforcement, with many adopting it for pro-police slogans and even wearing it on their uniforms" and that "in the wake of the ongoing protests against police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, Conway is taking steps to place the logo in a different context", quoting him saying "For too long, symbols associated with a character I co-created have been co-opted by forces of oppression and to intimidate black Americans. This character and symbol was never intended as a symbol of oppression. This is a symbol of a systematic failure of equal justice. It's time to claim this symbol for the cause of equal justice and Black Lives Matter." And Fox News quoted a previous interview with SyfyWire from 2019 where Conway said "To me, it's disturbing whenever I see authority figures embracing Punisher iconography because the Punisher represents a failure of the Justice system. 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 sides with an enemy of the system. They are embracing an outlaw mentality. Whether you think the Punisher is justified or not, whether you admire his code of ethics, he is an outlaw. He is a criminal. Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol."

Bleeding Cool has covered increasing criticism of the use of the Punisher skull by police, army, militia, white supremacist groups, QAnon events, and Sean Hannity on Fox News, even Trump Punisher pins have been popular. And then during the January 6th Insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington, many Punisher skull insignias were seen. This also followed Black Lives Matter protests and a focus on real and fictional police behaviour, including the use of Punisher imagery by the police. Amidst calls for Marvel and Disney to cancel The Punisher as a character, Bleeding Cool observed that this may have happened already and that there had been no published or solicited Punisher comic books since November 2020. There was a collection of Punisher Vs Barracuda – but that series was never completed. It was initially postponed by the pandemic but then abandoned altogether, despite completed issues having been completed. In July last year, Bleeding Cool ran the news that Jason Aaron was to reinvent The Punisher for a new age, adding the headline story "Jesus Saiz and Paul Azaceta Join Jason Aaron on Punisher No More". Then we ran the official news that Jason Aaron, Jesus Saiz, and Paul Azaceta are indeed launching a new Punisher series in March 2022. And the Punisher as featured seemed to be sporting a different skull. One that Marvel has trademarked.

During the series, we have seen that The Punisher has allied with The Hand, to use them as a tool to take down the worst people in the world. While the Hand is using The Punisher to be its Fist to increase its prominence in the world. It has also been revealed that The Hand were keeping an eye on Frank Castle long before he went to war and long before he became the Punisher. Because even as a child, Frank Castle was committing such works of lethal justice in his neighbourhood. The series ended with the resurrected Maria Castle turning on Frank, seeing him flee from superhero persecution and set up shop in Weird World, another dimension where he is forging a new path, protecting the weak and innocent from danger.

In the new upcoming Punisher series, retired S.H.I.E.L.D. black ops agent Joe Garrison is taking over the role of Punisher. His class background has not been examined yet, but he's unlikely to be British nobility. The new writer, David Pepose says "I asked myself 'How do we build a bigger table? And how do we invite as many readers as possible?' For existing fans of the Punisher and for new fans, this is a story that's not going to sacrifice any of the attitude, any of the action, and we are not letting the pedal off the metal." But he doesn't answer the big question, will the new Punisher be woke enough for Chuck Dixon?

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