Slavers

On a routine shooting spree the Punisher comes across a female shooter who takes out his targets when Frank saves her from being killed it leads him into the dark world of sex slavery.

This was a hard read for me not because of the quality of the story telling but the subject matter, this was my 5th time reading it and it might be that I'm getting soft in my old age but it really did horrify me with what I read because unlike most mainstream comic stories with the animated villains and no one really dying this is based on real world issues, the tactic the main villains use are ones that exist in our world, this stuff is happening in streets possibly where you live, women are being abducted from war zones and countries of extreme poverty  and sold into sex slavery, the customers are people you know, school teachers, judges, cops, ordinary men. The Punisher does that rare thing of holding these people accountable, the girls wouldn't be sex slaves if there wasn't a market for them pointing out that they're not paying for sex they're paying for rape. You could argue they don't know or they don't see it that way, if someone looks scared when you're having sex with them you should know something isn't right. That's leads into why I found the book so hard to read because it deals with the reality of sex slavery it reveals the tactics the slavers use to break the women, in this case the use of violent rape until the women learn to do as they're told obediently.

 You would assume it be all men who sanction this but there's a lot of female heads who act/ give the impression of kindly mothers but if a girl acts up they gets punished in the worse possible way as they showed with Vera. It's also one of the few times you see Frank ever attacking a woman but after he finds out she's responsible for how the women are treated it's almost satisfying to watch what he does to her and that's why we read Punisher to watch evil people we can't touch in our real lives suffer the way they treat others. Her death seems prolonged compared to the other characters, I'm guessing it's because she's the one who orders the men to rape the girls to keep them scared. Prolonged but not the most brutal.

 The impression you get is she enjoys the brutality in contrast with Christu is a business man, which he inherits from his father. Despite the horrors he inflicts on people hes just doing what he feels is right for his business which leads him to do one of the smartest thing any of the Punishers targets has ever done. Pay that police to go after Frank. It's  a brilliant tactic that almost worked if the police he used didn't have so much respect for Frank. If I sound like I admire him, I don't I've just come to realise he's a deeper character than he first appears. His death is the most gruesome in any of the MAX my jaw was on the floor at the image and in a series that has so many stand out moments this is one you will remember. Because Frank realises Christu has been brought up in a war zone the normal tricks he uses to get information like breaking fingers won't work as it's something someone like Christu isn't phased by so he opens him up and wraps his colon round a dead tree like it's tinsel on a Christmas tree from hell. It turn my stomach but you're so full of hatred for him by the time Frank is finished you're glad.

The old man is in it for the violence, the way he's been taught to survive is in the brutality and views anyone who can't live up to that beneath him. It doesn't excuse what he's done or how evil he is. He commits atrocities because he's forgot what it's like to be human, for him it's tied in with being a man and a survivor. His death while slow and painful (he gets set on fire) it still doesn't feel enough, like he's been punished enough for his crimes. I feel like I could write more about him but he's a basic character. His motivations are very simple.

No one comes out of this good, not Jen Cooke the well meaning but ultimately hopeless social worker who represents how broken the the system is when you try and work with in it. It makes her physically sick working with Frank, it goes against all her morals. She's fails at protecting anyone and is tired of watching women being brutalised while she can't even keep them safe for a night. It makes her siding with Frank even for one day all the more satisfying, you can be a well meaning woke hipster all you want it's men like Frank who they look down on that actually makes change.

There's two side stories with the cops, one is showing how corrupt some of them are and those are the ones connected with the slavers and make the mistake of going after Frank which is mostly them faking injuries to make out like the Punisher is attacking police to give them an excuse to go after him. The other has 2 cops who are outsiders because of their sexuality and sex. It's probably the weakest part and is mostly for comic relief as their made to look like assholes when the Punisher knocks them on their asses when they catch him killing a crook. It all adds up to make the complete story.

Slavers is an uncompromising story, it hits you in the guts harder than comic book fluff piece, it's not a story with a happy ending, it reminds you even the survivors will be scared for life but I think that's a good thing it's reminding the readers this stuff happens and it does it without guilt tripping you, unlike most comics you read these feel like real people and I find that more relatable than a billionaire in a bat costume or invincible robot armour.

All in all I give slavers 9 out of 10. There's no real issues with it, you know what to expect when you read an Ennis book, the writing and art is superb and it's great to read a book soley aimed at adults. Amazing read.

Yep I'm back doing this

Well this is just weird, it's been years since I did any review besides my popular rants on Twitter but even with 280 characters that isn't enough, anyway since the cops got scared of my original stories (which these days can get you to jail for being offensive) I thought I'd go back to reviewing as I'm good at that too according to the 5 people who read it last time. I hope to do at least one review a month because I have a real job and little free time  and I'm typing it all on my phone because my laptop is fucked (patreon me bitches, I'm joking I'm not a begging fuck, unless by some miracle this gets popular in which case gimme all your money!!!)  which makes typing for a long time a pain in the ass so I want a cookie for that.

This site was originally supposed to be a punisher fan site but I'm expanding it to feature more mature characters like joker and carnage because it's stories more aimed at adults that you tend not to get in most comics, I'll try and cover games and movies too

Anyway I hope you enjoy the new content, I should have the review for slavers up by Friday.

Enjoy bitches 

Dont I know your face?

Sometimes in comics the artists need a reference point on what to base the characters on. In Punisher Max, Ennis went as far as stealing the faces from famous actors which Im sure is stored in a vault at Marvel somewhere.

cue the credits!

 Clint Eastwood

 

 

 

 

John Wayne

 

 

Al Pacino

 

Christopher Walken
 

Samule L Jackson

 

Pete Postlethwaite

Morgan Freeman

Tony Sirico

TH-TH-THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

Up Is Down Black Is White

by Garth Ennis and Leandro Fernandez

*warning this whole thing is one long spoiler

  

Now on to my probably my favourite book of all time, Up Is Down Black Is White, I know this book so well I haven’t even bothered reading it before I did this review.

The story starts with Frank doing a routine gang bust/slaughter afterwards he goes to a diner to have some food and he finds someone has dug up his family and pissed on their skeletons via CNN, who seem to have the thing on 24 hour repeat. while this happening O'Brien (last seen in the beginning being shot and horny) is enjoying her jail time when 3 prison lesbians  try to frame her for a prison guards death because she won’t go down on them so she has to escape. meanwhile we find out that it was Nicky Cavella (also from in the beginning) who has set the whole thing up so he can be the Godfather of the mob, as you can imagine Frank isn’t too happy and goes on a killing spree of the underworld so massive it makes the Rwandan genocide look like a picnic for the elderly. so he goes from gang to gang only leaving one survivor with the message to the police if they don’t rebury his family then he will just keep killing and they cave faster than a priest at an all boys school because they are getting so much shit from the press and criminals who are shitting themselves that they will be next. When the his family are reburied Castle goes after Cavella who is waiting with a hit squad including Rawlins from Mother Russia who has been told to kill Castle on the orders of that general who Fury kicked the shit out of other. Just as Rawlins is about to shoot the Punisher,O’Brien ambushes him and shoots Cavella in the chest, causing the Punisher to snap out the funk he's in and letting him make a getaway, so she rescues frank and kidnaps Rawlins (what a woman) taking him back to Roth’s so she can torture him for every bit of black market info they can get out of him. They take care of Cavella after being ambushed by Pittsy's little brother I mean sister and warn him not to go near Rawlins because even in his half dead state he's still dangerous. It all ends nicely with Rawlins killing Roth and escaping, O’Brien going on the run and Cavella dying a slow painful death in a forest allowing Frank to get closure on the whole thing and go back to killing at his normal speed.

Just a dream



I hadn’t really gotten into The Punisher at this point in my life so I had no idea what I was picking up when I was browsing through the random issues at the comic book store, but I got to the end of issue two and that speech kicked in, the one where he's killed all the gangsters and he turns his guns on the innocence with the line "if my world ends so does yours" that one line changed how I viewed not just comic book heroes but heroes in general. Heroes can kill, not only can they kill they can torture you, and it’s weird this concept isn’t a new one we've just been conditioned to think that heroes have that line they should never cross, all our saints and historical figures all their victories and notoriety is bathed in the blood of the people they murdered and killed all in the name of our country, we just gave them some disturbed notion of honour because well do you really want to see the men that enslaved nations as bad people. History remembers them as good that all that matters. We view these characters like angels holier than holy they can do no wrong, and this guy just turns the whole thing on its head, it breaks convention at its very heart. It was just a complete shock to me, like that first time you watch the ending of Fight Club with the sky scrapers crumbling to the ground, it was like time slowed down panel by panel in these two pages and your just sitting there in shock at what you've witnessed. Wolverine might be damaged but these was always a line he never dreamed of crossing because at his heart no matter how much he wanted to be an animal he would never give into it, Frank Castle on the other hand is that monster, that darkness, it’s so much a part of him he can barely even see the light he just knows it these guiding him.



The way Fernandez and Ennis have dragged you into someones darkest personal hell and still have you connecting to Frank is just something to behold, watching a character that far gone, the way he is compulsed to do and carry out the kill even though he knows it will end badly for him. He know there will be serious consequences but he needs to do it, there’s something in that you can relate to, how many times have you did something that you know will fuck you over but you do it anyway? It’s like its saying something brutally honest about human nature, some dark impulse where you have to make to prove your point even at the expense of something you love or your health, like walking away from a relationship, it hurts like fuck but it’s just something you have to do. In this case what happens to Castle was like opening a meat grinder on to the world, and it wasn’t going to stop till it was fed, writhing on the floor choking on its own bile and vomit.

what the hell did I drink last night?



What happens to Cavella also brings up some great issues of whether someone is born a psychopath or can be groomed to be like it, all the horrifying crap in his childhood is brutally realised in this, there’s the old argument that child abuse creates mental health issues but before any of that has even happened he's already murdered his whole family guided by his monster of an aunt who pretty much kills any chance of a childhood he had, does it excuse all the forcing a man to eat his sons or digging up a family and pissing on them? probably not no matter how much sympathy you want to give them but it was interesting having at least some reasoning behind his behaviour rather than just making him a flat out two dimensional psycho.

This book is full of strong women Pittsy’s sister makes less of an impact than her brother but he was going to be a hard act to follow, she's very well drawn and you can tell they had a specific person in mind when Fernandez drew her if I didn’t know any better I swear he drew one of the girls I went to school with (hence the reason I didn’t get laid a lot in my teenage years Crufts wouldn’t take them for being too dog like) she has a dominating presence and a face that says 'I will rip off your balls because you don’t have any' it’s a good analogy because she is just a dog on a leash waiting Cavella’s command to attack anything he clicks his fingers at, you get the feeling she could have had more of a story but dies before she gets beyond the love sick puppy routine, which is a shame I wouldn’t have minded an issue where her and barracuda team up.

Another strong woman Obrien is just a powerhouse in this, the way she’s the only one in the whole book she seems to have her head straight apart from the fact she acts like a love sick school girl with a wet on for the punisher, she does do the whole sensitive thing but it’s a good reflection of how fucked up the punishers world is, there’s a sadness in her, a wish fulfilment that things could have been different for them but at the same time resigns herself to the fact there is no other way of life for people like her or Castle.

worst threesome ever



As with most of the MAX series the art is a highlight but Fernandez truly out does himself in this book, the whole thing is almost played out in black and white, giving the effect that your reading the whole thing from a darkened room and the few shades of light you do get normally come from a gun shot. There are lots of detailed close ups of characters grimacing the only time you ever see anyone smile in this is when they have done something evil, you can see clearly what each person is thinking that you could get by without dialogue.

I could talk about this book all day if you give me the chance, every page, panel and word is as near perfect as you’re ever going to get in any comic you will ever read, if that isn’t enough for you to pick it up you've obviously been fucking your aunty.

Mother Russia

by Garth Ennis and Doug Braithwaite



On to one of my favourites Mother Russia. Nick Fury offers Frank the names and whereabouts of every major criminal in the US if he does a job for him, it involves taking a bio weapon from Russia that can wipe out a human body in a second unfortunately its been injected into a little girl who happens to be in a nuclear silo, so frank journeys to Russia with an action man boy scout whose only job is to complete the mission, which needless to say doesn’t really work out for him, on the bright sides franks almost starts world war 3 to get her out by setting off one of the nukes. By the time he gets her back it’s out of her system and the US generals want to have him arrested because they couldn’t get their weapon. It’s a great laugh.

It feels shorter than the others in the series but that doesn’t mean it has less impact, this is the first one I read with my mouth open, there’s an underlying intensity to it that’s burning in the background.

For the last time Im not the fucking Kingpin,

I will have your balls for this Braithwaite

 

 

The other stories featuring Rawlins really feeds into the government conspiracy stories that everyone seemed to have after 9/11 so you can imagine it actually happening (there’s defiantly a few of you who actually believe that it is happening with the CIA). the whole set up of an Arab American convincing a bunch of religious zealots to kill themselves doesn’t actually sound that farfetched and although you barely see Rawlins it’s an horrifyingly fucked up sight to see someone pull that off, just because that’s the way the world is right now and I’m sure the book made a lot of people wonder 'what if...'

Zakharov is great as the bored Rambo villain general who like Fury, still holds the utmost respect from the soviet but is stuck behind a desk unable to actually do anything, which basically means he's been put out to pasture. He seems to be the only one in the whole of the Russian army that even has a clue what’s actually happening especially when he's dealing with another officer who takes it on face value arguing with Zakharov on everything.

The scene that really touches me is where Frank is losing consciousness after getting the shit kicked out of him by the pygmy, he can feel himself slipping but that darkness in his soul drags him back and at that moment he would do anything to protect that little girl, it’s really touching, to have someone who is so hardcore in his ways to almost soften, it’s almost like he becomes human again instead of the rampant killing machine he has made himself.

To be honesty this whole book is worth reading just for Fury, he's been perfectly realised by Ennis in this book and the man is a classic shit kicker, there’s a presence he commands when around other soldiers who consider him a legend so much so when the MP's are told to arrest them you get the feeling they'd rather take on a pit-bull naked covered bacon than even think about it. To watch him at work is like watching a force of nature you can tell he knows 15 different ways to fuck you up and that’s just through him talking. The fear in the other general’s eyes as their ringleader was being beaten into submission is just a sight to behold, my only complaint about this book is there wasn’t a full page when Fury lays into him, it has just as much impact as any of the gruesome deaths that are in this series.

beaten like a 5 star bitch

 

It’s hard to explain why it’s one of my favourites, despite all its complexities like a possible nuclear war, a bio weapon that can kill in an instance and any number of conspiracy theories you can come up it’s a very basic story and I suppose that’s it secret, it doesn’t need the 101 villain or the millions of guns when it comes down to its just about a man who wants to protect a little girl and that’s something wether you’re a father or not you can identify with.

well I’m going to go fuck every hooker in new York before some asshole bans that too, see you in Up Is Down Black Is White.

Music Of The Punisher

To mix it up a little bit I'll be doing segments on the Punisher in other media. this week its music and my top 3 Punisher Songs.

Holy Wars...Punishment Due by MegaDeth

The Punisher inspired the second part of this classic metal song with lyrics

 "you killed my wife and my baby,
   with hopes to enslave me,
  First mistake last mistake"

You really cant get more Punisher if you tried, the way the guitars kick it is just fucking awesome and you can really start to head bang, for some reason Mustain stopped being a fan claiming he got too commercial, dunno what that's about maybe he got pissed off at Frank using energy weapons in the Spiderman cartoon. I'd also add Good Morning Black Friday as it definitely fits the comics due to it being about somebody starting of numb then going on a killing spree, sound familiar?

Warzone by Rob Zombie

This is on the sound track to the best full length Punisher movie so far Punisher Warzone.

"Yeah, I spot a crack nearer on a jigsaw face
Blood and knuckles roar on a muzzle flash
Another day in hell and she's the same
The skull will punish all that will survive"

It starts with great thumping drums that slowly builds into the classic Zombie guitar riffs. Zombie sounds like he actually gets the characters and the comic, which is a refreshing change because the movies have been complete shite (at least the makers of Warzone tried god bless em)
Its got it all jigsaw face, the skull,  you cant kill me, what more do you want that's going to scream its about the Punisher.


Dark In Here by Alien Ant Farm

I know your probably shocked I'm choosing something that isn't thrash metal but this song holds a special place in Punishers history being that's its at the end credits of the best super hero game ever (Yes the Punishers game was better fuck you Batman, Arkham Asylum was boring as shit)

 "Everything descends,
And my head is dark.
I will not depend,
On anything at all"

The song might be a bit weepy but for some reason after all that torture and killing its a welcome relief, I suppose the amusing credit sequence helped too but I the fact I couldn't stop myself humming it after I played it 6 years later means it leaves a lasting impact you rarely get from most credits.

So there you go, if you think I've left anything out or disagree please leave a comment.
 

kitchen Irish

Story by Garth Ennis art by Leandro Fernandez

 

 

*contains major spoilers and one instance of racist language 

Back by popular demand, I say popular demand I have 2 people hungry for these reviews but at least it makes me feel wanted. On with the review.

A bomb goes off across the road in a bar that Frank happens to be relaxing in, miraculously he survives thanks to being cocooned the other body parts of the bomb blast victims, but the aftermath sets him off to find the people that did it. As luck would have it Yorkie (making a successful transaction from the mainstream marvel universe) contacts Frank to tells him it’s the work of Finn Cooley and his nephew Peter Cooley members of the IRA, it’s not all business however and Yorkie brings along Andy Lorimer the son of one of Peters victims as a favour to his dead friend.

They easily find Cooley who is being toasted at a local bar for being a 'hero' and Cooley thinks nothing of sacrificing his dear nephew so he can make a clean getaway from Castle who nails the little prick with a bullet in each of his legs, of course the kids a pussy who spills the beans the second he thinks he might suffer pain. He tells the story of Nesbitt the godfather figure of the Irish mob who leaves in his dying breath leaves 10 million to his adopted children Tommy Tonner who leads the westies, Eamon and Polly the river rats, Maginty the mad dreadlocked bastard and Cooley, they each get a part of a code that completed will grant them access to the will but they figure if they can kill each other they will get the full 10 million  so Frank and Yorkie sets it up so they’re all in one place and lets starts killing, they all manage to get away and the sudden euphoria of them escaping a war zone in New York makes them all sentimental towards each other and they all agree they were better of just splitting the money, unfortunately for them Nesbitt was a bastard and....well I won’t spoil the ending for you.



This book is a strange one as it feels more like a sequel to business as usual than any book in the MAX series, there’s nothing that connects it to the final book unlike the others in this series that have recurring elements and characters besides Yorkie, because of this it feels like the odd one out but that in no way takes away from the great story telling.There’s so many characters and they all have a great story, it’s amazing Ennis actually managed to squeeze them all and develope them the way he has. The only real problem with this is that castle almost feels like a bit player in how own story there’s a definite shift from being purely about castle story to trying to tell the back story of every character.

Because of the way it’s drawn the whole thing plays out in slow motion and the aftermath is just horrific,in the opening pages there’s a waitress whose last dying moments involves having no arms from the elbow down and gagging on a mouthful of broken glass and its a great contast for the next part where Frank has to restart a bomb victims heart by placing his hand through the guys open rib cage and manually massaging his heart to keep him alive, for whatever reason it’s important to Frank that this guy does not die, maybe he sees himself in this guy but it’s one of the few acts of kindness that the you ever see him perform, so it’s a major thing when you do see it.

 

why so fucking serouse ye cunts

The art in this book is brilliantly realized as always, specifically the design of Finn Cooley’s face who has no skin on it due to a failed bomb attack on a British target, its visceral and every time you see him you feel repulsed on some level, there’s a definite feeling that it’s a physical representation of all the evil this man is seeping out, it’s ironic because he just comes across as a pissed off thug and its probably the most normal of all the villains in the max series. It doesn’t stop him from having the best scenes in the book, like when he escapes the punisher and tells his friend he is tired of being a slave to the system he's spent so long following, he ends up shouting "I WILL BE NO ONES NIGGER" it’s then revealed he's in a  bar full of African Americans. It's in no way ment as racist but it’s a classic gag at the end of a very realistic conversation you can imagine these guys having. and the scene where castle rips off his face with his in a desperation move of survival is fucking hideous.

Another stand out arc is the scenes with Napper and Maginty. You have the old order being pushed back into work because if he doesn’t do as he's told his grand child will die. Napper used to make people disappear for the westies and is a bit of a legend Maginty uses him to hack up tonner as a message to the rest, because Maginty is a sick fuck he forces the Napper’s grand kid to watch him work. You can’t help but feel for Napper, here’s a guy who actually managed to make something for himself and move on with his life when he gets dragged back into it he is in hell and you can see it in every panel, he hates what he did and the last thing he ever wanted is to be reminded of it, you are cheering for him when he snaps, Maginty is just an evil fuck using the old excuse he had to be that way because of his upbringing and the brutal racism he received in Ireland, but there’s no charisma to this guy either he's just nasty for the sake of it ironically he is probably most like Nesbitt out of all the characters because of how much of a bastard he is.

 

The only interesting thing about the river rats is there may or may not be an incest angle i.e. over protective brother but they hold no real interest and Tonner is just cannon fodder for Maginty.

 I said no trainers

 

 

Ennis has done alot on the subject of the IRA and this is another story of the futility of their existence, he has done other stories such as The Magnificent Kev trilogy and Downtown where the Punisher ends up in Belfast, but this one is noticeable in the way the even the member of the IRA are tired of it and are reduced to just being in it for the money but at the same time know no other way of living, perhaps that makes them victims of their own stupidity. Yorkies conversation with Peter about how his cause is nothing but a selfish act and he is only causing suffereing to his country when all they want to do is get on with their lives is thought provoking. Its a great book end to these stories that are still having a very real impact on people living there today.

All in all Kitchen Irish delivers in every thing it sets out to do, so go on pick up a copy its a good craic.