New ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Set Photos Confirm Series Will Adapt Storyline Where Punisher Confronts Police Officers For Using His Logo
Jacob Smith
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Frank Castle is known for taking down drug dealers, mob bosses, violent criminals – and now, with Daredevil: Born Again police officers.
RELATED RUMOR: Jon Bernthal Refused To Reprise The Punisher Role In ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Because He “Hated” Disney’s Creative Direction
The Punisher has a long standing history of being one of Marvel’s most popular characters, and his logo is known the world over by both comic book fans and regular audiences alike.
However, over that time period, a number of industry professionals, including some former Punisher creators, have grown resentful of certain individuals who have taken to wearing his logo – mainly right-wingers and police officers.
Last year, after reportedly going through half of the footage from the then-18-episode show while production on the series was on hiatus due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes, reports claimed that Marvel Studios executives, as well as their head honcho Kevin Feige, had chosen to take Daredevil: Born Again back to the drawing board.
In light of this revamp, recent months have seen various set photos from the Disney Plus series leak online, all of which have given glimpses into The Man Without Fear’s new direction.
To this end, a new set of leaked photos depicting actor Jeremy Earl, in-character as police officer Cole North, wearing a Punisher logo spray painted on his tactical gear.
Notably, North’s fashion choice appears to confirm a previous rumor that suggested Daredevil: Born Again would see Disney bring to life the Punisher comic book storyline wherein Frank confronts and lambasts police officers who are fans of his work.
In 2017’s The Punisher Vol. 12, as written by Becky Cloonan, a scene occurs in which Frank, after finding that a number of cops are looking up to him as a heroic symbol, rips a Punisher sticker off of a squad card before chastising the officers for their fanaticism.
“I’ll only say this once,” he tells the boys in blue. “We’re not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave 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 America and he’d be happy to have you.”
The Punisher’s newfound hatred of police officers mirrors the sentiments of his creator, Gerry Conway.
In a 2019 interview with Syfy, Conway asserted that he found it disturbing whenever authority figures embrace Punisher iconography because, in his view, the existence of the anti-hero represented a failure of the justice system.
“He’s supposed to indict the collapse of social moral authority and the reality that some people can’t depend on institutions like the police or the military to act in a just and capable way,” he explained. “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.”
“It goes without saying,” he concluded. “In a way, it’s as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building.”
“My point of view is, the Punisher is an anti-hero, someone we might root for while remembering he’s also an outlaw and criminal,” Conway further detailed. “If an officer of the law, representing the justice system puts a criminal’s symbol on his police car, or shares challenge coins honoring a criminal he or she is making a very ill-advised statement about their understanding of the law.”
A year later, Conway announced he’s starting a project to “reclaim the Punisher skull” logo from the police and military members who co-opted it.
Taking to Twitter in June 2020, Conway wrote, “I’m looking for young comic book artists of color who’d like to participate in a small fundraising project for #BLM to reclaim the Punisher skull as a symbol of justice rather than lawless police oppression.”
Notably, Conway is not the only Punisher-related individual to have called out what they viewed as a misappropriation of the hero’s logo.
In a 2021 tweet, the character’s Netflix and Daredevil: Born Again series actor Jon Bernthal replied to a fan who refused to allow so-called “nut-jobs” to “steal” the logo by asserting, “I’m with you.”
“These people are misguided, lost, and afraid,” he declared. “They have nothing to do with what Frank stands for or is about.”
As to why the people running Marvel Comics today hold a deep-seated hatred for the Punisher and his fanbase, comics legend Chuck Dixon, who himself has penned a number of the anti-hero’s adventures including The Punisher Vol. 2 and The Punisher: War Zone Vol. 1, has previously explained, “They have contempt for the Punisher, this new crowd of editors. In addition to their contempt for the Punisher, I think this current crop of editors has a deep-seated dislike of the police and the military as well.”
“So, it’s the old gang of deplorables thing,” he told his viewers of the 152nd epoisode of his Ask Chuck Dixon webshow. “They don’t want to deal with them. And they don’t like the idea that they use this symbol. And I think they don’t quite understand why the police and military adopted the Punisher symbol.”
“He’s carrying samurai swords now,” Dixon added, making note of Frank’s bizarre decision to serve the Hand in 2022’s The Punisher Vol. 13. “Because they are embarrassed. They are embarrassed to be associated with people who probably don’t share their world view. And that’s really as simple as it gets.”
In recent years, the Punisher logo has been altered due to right wing Americans adopting the logo and it looks like this arc will be adopted into the upcoming Disney series.
As of this writing, the release of Daredevil: Born Again has been pushed back to a yet-to-be-determined date in either 2025 or 2026, the exact day of which depending on the progression of the reshoots.
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