Originally published at: The Punisher is getting a new logo | Boing Boing
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Is it just a police badge?
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I’ll keep an eye out for the new version, likely to show up on monster truck/blacked out window autos. Essentially “I’m a dumb/lame ass badge”.
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Even that mass-murdering vigilante doesn’t want to be associated with the police.
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Hopefully Marvel/Disney has trademarked and/or copyrighted it so they can crush the makers of said stickers to dust.
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There’s nothing stopping them from using trademark enforcement against people using their current skull logo, but as I was mentioning in another thread it’s almost impossible to stamp out that kind of thing.
Most of the people selling unauthorized Punisher merchandise are small time businesses, often based overseas. Literally anyone with a vinyl cutter or a screen-printing set up can sell this stuff. I have a vinyl cutter, if I was so inclined I could make a bunch of window stickers and sell them at my local street market next weekend. As long as there is still demand Marvel is never going to be able to shut them all down as quickly as new sellers pop up.
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Isn’t the original logo a registered trademark?
If it is, then there is a mystery why Disney have no problem coming after kindergartens and hospitals if they use Mickey Mouse without permission, yet do nothing when this badge is appropriated by the far right, police and the military.
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I’d have thought that a big white hand would have been a good symbol for the leader of the hand.
or, for the Police Force version
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How’d that work out for Bill Watterson?
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But either way, it’s comics, so the change probably won’t last that long anyway.
It looks like he is working with The Hand, which is primarily based in Japan. If he is joining them for an arc, it looks like he is adopting an Oni mask like icon.
Either that or someone from the Extreme 90s binged the whole Mandalorian series and came up with that.
Obligatory Oni mask example.
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So he’s still going to go around murdering people, but with a different picture on his top?
Cool.
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Wow, that’s, um… really dumb looking.
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When the Punisher movie came out, I got to go to an advance screening & got a cool black t-shirt with the logo on it.
We haven`'t been able to wear it for years now, because of the association of fascists wearing the logo.
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For those who haven’t read it, the “About Face” cartoon linked in the FPP is really worth your time.
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Yeah! What about that!?
BTW if a bunch of jerks appropriate the Silver Surfer I really really won’t forgive them.
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I get that the fascism makes it worse, but the character is already a mass-murderer, with or without an association with fascists. Are there logos for other characters primarily known for being violent mass-murderers that are considered to be acceptable for wearing in public?
(Now that I think about it, I guess that would include guys like Darth Vader, Boba Fett and the Mandalorian, so never mind, I guess)
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oh that was depressing…
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It largely comes down to commercial use. Legally speaking it’s easy to sue a business (like a daycare or a hospital) for using your trademarked/copyrighted content without permission. It’s much harder to stop individual cops from wearing unlicensed merchandise, in part because of the First Amendment issues.
Marvel could sue the people selling that merch, but shutting them all down is next to impossible for reasons I mentioned above.
This article explains a lot of the legal questions involved and directly addresses the “why go after day care centers and not cops?” question:
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