While the Marvel comic book character The Punisher has gone through a variety of changes over the years, especially with his most recent comic book series, it appears that Image Comics Chief Financial Officer Erik Larsen has his own ideas for the character. In particular, he wants to give the character a completely new goal – to hunt down and kill anyone who wears his iconic logo. With such real-life complaints about law enforcement and the like adopting his logo, it isn’t too surprising. Interestingly, however, Larsen also wants to make The Punisher gay – for no other reason than to upset homophobes and prove that there’s allegedly no difference.
As mentioned above, there have been no shortage of variations on The Punisher and the lore surrounding him. But as of yet, they’ve never actually tried making him gay or readjusting his motive to hunt down anyone wearing his logo. Although Marvel did slightly alter his traditional logo, so there is that. In any case, Larsen still has quite the take for the character.
He began by stating:
“Instead of changing Punisher’s chest emblem they should just have Frank finally realize that he’s gay.”
He then suggests that it wouldn’t be any different from the comics anyways.
“And the beauty of it–is that it wouldn’t alter the comics at all. He’d still be dressing in leather, ignoring the ladies and hanging out in bars with other sweaty dudes.”
https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1495267273300271105?s=20&t=kmdLBJC0DXGHUW_b4ue0xw
However, Erik Larsen then suggested that this gay version of the iconic comic book character should begin hunting anyone who wears his logo:
“And then the Punisher skull would take on a whole new meaning–and it would just kill the dudes who brandish it–they’re such a homophobic lot.”
https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1495268416063610883?s=20&t=kmdLBJC0DXGHUW_b4ue0xw
He further emphasized just how easily his take on making Punisher gay works after a user said he’d read it:
“Seriously—if you read Punisher comics which exist–nothing changes. You can read comics that are in print and it all works.”
“Man, he keeps his van tidy. Weird how he hasn’t hooked up with any lady in 50 years. It all fits,” he concluded.
https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1495269392686325764?s=20&t=kmdLBJC0DXGHUW_b4ue0xw
It’s worth noting that The Punisher has had several female romantic interests over the years, including his wife that forms an integral part of his origin story. With the way the character has been utilized lately, however, it wouldn’t be surprising to see some variation of these changes implemented at some point.