Warning: contains spoilers for Savage Avengers #8!In a preview for Punisher’s infamous skull logo is cursed. The Punisher’s legacy is one of bloodshed and violence, and as seen throughout the pages of Savage Avengers, this legacy extends at least to the year 2099, when the team is forced to recruit that era’s Punisher for a highly dangerous mission.
The Savage Avengers’ most recent arc kicked off when a future Miles Morales, now Deathlok, came back to the present to prevent a great catastrophe. Unfortunately, the Savage Avengers - including Elektra, Cloak, Dagger and Anti-Venom - were thrown back in time, and then forward to the dystopian future of Marvel 2099. There, they discovered that Ultron had conquered the Earth, using an army of Deathloks. The team first recruited Jake Gallows, the Punisher of 2099, in his first comic appearance in years. After recruiting Doom 2099 to the cause, the team sets out to engage Ultron and his legion of Deathloks - and as they head into battle, a stunning revelation is made about the Punisher’s skull symbol.
The preview opens with a brief history of the animosity between Ultron and Doctor Doom, relating the story of how Latveria fell. The action then switches to the Savage Avengers’ Quinjet: the team is about to head into action, and the closer they get, the tenser they become. Doctor Doom has a plan to defeat Ultron, involving the device that actually brought him to the year 2099. The Punisher 2099 is getting antsy, and a little trigger-happy. Elektra warns Gallows that she knew his predecessor, and the skull symbol he so proudly wears, "destroys everything it touches." Gallows shrugs her off, saying that he died years ago, and the Punisher is all that is left. Gallows tells Elektra that the skull symbol now represents ending the Deathloks once and for all. The issue is written by David Pepose, illustrated by Carlos Magno, colored by Espen Grundetjern and lettered by Travis Lanham.
The Punisher's Skull Symbol Represents His Violent Legacy
Elektra is spot-on: the Punisher’s skull symbol represents violence and brutality no matter what era it is used in - both Frank Castle and Jake Gallows have body counts in the thousands. Elektra would know better than anyone the Punisher’s cursed legacy: she and Daredevil currently have their hands full with Frank Castle, who has been reborn as the Great Slayer of the Hand. The Hand targeted Frank for this role because of his propensity towards violence, making him an easy target for their manipulations. Now, as the Great Slayer, the Punisher has completely surrendered himself to his bloodlust; under the Hand’s influence, the Punisher’s legacy has been carried out to its extreme.
Punisher Has Pledged Himself to Death
Indeed, in Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's Punisher: Born, it was implied that the symbol represents the Grim Reaper's influence over Frank, and the idea that Death has claimed him as its agent after he surrendered his soul in order to survive Vietnam. It even appears behind Frank's family shortly before their deaths, describing them as the price of his own survival and his desire to never have to give up his addiction to warfare. Granted, this was in Marvel's MAX Universe, but it fits the mainstream Frank even better now his destiny with the Hand has been revealed.
In the Marvel Universe, symbols have a power all their own, and each version of the Punisher has tied themselves to a ruinous force by wearing the skull - something Marvel is likely embracing as a way of acknowledging the symbol's significance in the real-world, where the Punisher skull has taken on hateful meaning within some reactionary groups. Frank Castle and Jake Gallows may be capable of heroism in some situations, but the Punisher symbol has nothing to do with that - it's a symbol of death, and one that curses its wearers to become the latest in a doomed legacy.
Savage Avengers #8 is on sale December 14 from Marvel Comics!
