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Comic book writing veteran Chuck Dixon called out Marvel for undermining and minimizing one of its most popular heroes, the armed vigilante known as the Punisher. According to Dixon, the company is "embarrassed" by the "working class" hero and his appeal within military and police ranks.
The Punisher was a gun-wielding anti-hero created by Marvel Comics in 1974. He is described on Marvel’s website as a "Family man turned crime-fighting vigilante, Frank Castle embodies the persona of the Punisher to avenge personal tragedy and ensure all criminals receive the justice they deserve."
Dixon, who has been in the comic book industry for decades, particularly in writing comics about The Punisher, has criticized how Marvel has handled the character in recent years. On a recent episode of his podcast, he shared theories to a fan about why Marvel may have grown to dislike one of their most popular characters.
Dixon first claimed that Marvel feels uneasy about this character because of his working-class origins
Screencap from a video on the official Marvel Entertainment channel, "A One Man Army - Punisher - MARVEL 101" (Marvel Entertainment)
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"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."
He added that "People response 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.
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."
He compared the Punisher to how many Americans embraced working-class World War II veteran Archie Bunker in classic sitcom "All in the Family." Dixon noted that while the head of the Bunker household was created to be the "butt of all the jokes" and portrayed as a politically incorrect father complaining about America’s decline and believing in "unfortunate stereotypes", he ultimately became a fan favorite of people across the country because, unlike bigoted Hollywood caricatures of Southerners, the blue-collar New Yorker seemed like a real person people related to.
"I'm certain that the writers were horrified that the American television audience took to this guy," he noted, even as they continued making a profit off of his popularity.
By contrast, he suggested that as Marvel in recent years has been far more willing to ditch large portions of its audience, claiming that when "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."
The last straw, however, he clamed, 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.
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."
File photo - A life size "Iron Man" is on display in the Marvel booth at the 39th annual Comic Con Convention in San Diego July 24, 2008. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
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The website Bounding into Comics observed that Dixon has spoken about this phenomenon in the February 2022, claiming. "[Marvel] are embarrassed to be associated with people who probably don’t share their world view. And that’s really as simple as it gets." He later added that Marvel has indeed succeeding in driving away many of their former customers, suggesting that have "left comics" or gone "looking for some alternative to what Marvel is offering."
Fox News Digital reached out to Marvel comics for comment and this article will be updated with any response.
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