Punisher MAX - The Slavers #3

[history79]

7 pages of 22

Comments

[glprime]

No, we don't like to talk about the officials and servicemen involved in the sex trade, do we? That would be unpleasant.

Give Frank some credit, he's never untruthful about what he is, or what he does. Or the extent of what he does or its effectiveness; he knows he won't stop the entire Drug Trade or Sex Traffic industry. But he'll keep killing the the people that involve themselves in it, just the same. Such is his mission...

[lucean]

You know, I've always been puzzled about the level of loathing Ennis always shows towards people trying to do good. I mean, I think that everytime he has had a social worker or any other kind of public sector worker, they have either been cynical people not caring about anything or incompetent, naive idiots who deserve to be spit upon. I mean the woman here isn't the worst of them, but even she is constantly going on what an idiot she was.

What stymies me even further is that while no one can deny that such horrific actions described are happening, Ennis seems to be hellbent on denying that there are any kind of govermnet organizations or groups trying to fight against them. Hell, for some reason the woman here has pretty detailed evidence about the slavers, yet could not get ICE or any kind of police agency to look in to as they are completely fine with human slavery?

I actually even liked this storyline, it's just Ennis's personal opinions are almost always so deeply present that at a certain point it just started my ability his inidivual works.

[nyadnar17]

Loathing? Interesting viewpoint and entirely different from my take away. Whenever I read Ennis there always seems to be a high level of respect for people who actually try to help people. He despises the naive and their quick fix or slactivist. But people who understand exactly how bad the problem they are fighting is and continue to fight anyway he seems to really respect.

In this scene the woman is going on about herself being an idiot not because she is trying to help, but because her ineptitude got the people she was trying to help brutalized.

[lucean]

Yeah, but that's just the thing. They are always inept. It is only through application of brutal violence that anything gets solved and anyone who actually tries anything that involves approaching proper authorities and such is shown to be an inept, naive idiot. Ennis respect to people trying to help people is limited to those people that accept it requires violence.

[sagrada]

It could be argued "but then that wouldn't be a Punisher comic". Frank being a hero* relies on nobody else trying to do what he does as well as he does it, and no alternative being as immediately effective as his methods. Same as most fictional characters, actually. Which is weird, since he's not sympathetic as much as he's empathetic.

*(he isn't one)

[lucean]

Oh, I agree with that and it was one of the reasons I've never been that big of a fan of Punisher. I think with Ennis's run it became an even more pronounced problem because the Punisher Max delved more deeply in to storylines which corresponded with horrific crimes in the real world while pretending as there are no competent in the real world caring about those things.

My main point, though, was more about Ennis and his style of writing, as he seems to be largely unable to write any character who has an opposing view to his main character to be competent. Even Starr in Preacher was used a lot more as a comedic relief despite being the main opponent. I personally find at times frustrating, as I do think that Ennis is a great writer in the comic book medium, but I find it currently almost impossible to enjoy his work is so formulaic and lacking in real tension for me.

[stolisomancer]

One of the points of the story as written is that Frank has essentially done nothing. All he does is take the titular slavers off the table so that they, and only they, cannot commit further crimes. The situation that resulted in their crimes has not been addressed; the monster factory is still very much in operation; he doesn't touch their distribution network or source.

Jen Cooke is notable in this arc because while she screwed up with Viorica, she did so in the service of trying to do the right thing, she's still trying to do the right thing, and if any lasting value has been salvaged from the situation at all, it is because of Jen Cooke. Frank rescues several of the enslaved women from Cristos's gang, and while she doesn't save them all, Jen is able to take them in, keep them safe, and give them something resembling a second act. She's also doing what she can to address the situation, and while that may not be much, it's more than nothing.

[lucean]

I both agree and disagree with this point. I remember there being an undercurrent for that, but in a way it wasn't different from the general 'crime goes on' undercurrent, all the while the only person who was able to strike even that superficial hit was Frank and his brutal killing, as any kind official sources were just utterly incompetent in handling it.

And even with Jen, the only way she achieved in the story was giving the information to a brutal killer, who went and killed everyone while saving the women. She herself was shown to be completely inefficient in actually addressing the issue or getting anyone from official sources to participate despite apperantly having pretty accurate evidence and linkages on what was happening.

[stolisomancer]

The authorities weren't incompetent: they were disinterested. Cristos specifically has a cop on his payroll to make sure he has to deal with niceties like law enforcement as little as possible (and that cop is slick enough that the moment Frank Castle pokes his head into Cristos's operation, the NYPD suddenly develops an anti-Punisher task force.

The point of the scene as shown in these scans is that a lot of Americans don't want to engage with these issues at all. They're outside our "monkeysphere," to quote David Wong, and none of that is on Cooke's head. Ennis is writing about an actual situation, and an actual societal reaction to that situation. He didn't make this shit up off the top of his head.

In a story with these kinds of themes, the fact that Cooke is trying, and will keep trying, and is still alive at the end of the story to keep trying, counts as a victory. Frank actually respects her, in his way.

Short version: if you haven't read the full story, read it. It's in TPB and might even be in your local library system. If you have read it, I think you're misreading it and its themes if you think it's in any way contemptuous of Cooke.

[lucean]

I have actually read the storyline in question as well as most of Ennis's Punisher MAX run. And I am aware this is a real problem that sadly receives very little attention and the people dealing with are underfunded and underappreciated.

My point was general to Ennis's writing, with Cooke being not the worst example of it, but still an example. The thing is, I do actually think Cooke and what she does is extremely admirable. However, because of Ennis's writing style and preferences, what she also does is highly ineffective. Yeah, she's still alive and fighitng, but she personally didn't really achieve anything here, the Punisher did by brutal violence. In Ennis's work, anyone trying to achieve anything without violence is always ineffective and truly worthy of respect only after they understand the need for the violence.

[stolisomancer]

In Ennis's work, anyone trying to achieve anything without violence is always ineffective and truly worthy of respect only after they understand the need for the violence.

Except no, not at all. There's a thread in his work going all the way back to Hellblazer that violence is a red herring; it may be satisfying, but it gets nothing done. Jen Cooke's solutions are more constructive than Castle's, and while she can do nothing about Cristu's operation, she is viewed as equally competent in the narrative ("They do it their way, I do it mine."). Castle can kill the slavers, but he can do nothing for their living victims; that's Cooke's job, and she does it as well as can be expected.

Go forward into the Widowmaker arc, which is about how the desire for revenge and the cycle of violence almost literally poison Jenny Cesare, and how just seeing Castle convinces Budiansky to drop his gun and go home, ready to live in peace with his wife. In Kitchen Irish, the same theme is delivered as blatantly as could be imagined, when the British soldier accompanying Yorkie says he feels nothing after killing the man who killed his father.

In his Hellblazer arc, a would-be radical's attempts to start an open race war only succeed in getting virtually everyone he knows killed by the police, and nothing else changes either way. In The Boys, even Butcher admits in the end that his approach is worthless, to the point where his violent tendencies are treated as a serious illness both in his miniseries and in the main series ("...it looks tasty, but in the end it's fuckin' self-defeatin'").

Ennis finds many of the stories he likes to explore in people who are accustomed to violence, but it is never treated as an end in itself, and those who are unwilling to put it aside, when given the opportunity, come to bad ends. There's a great deal of his work that's pretty facile and doesn't demand or require any further reading than the surface (Preacher wears most of its themes right on its sleeve, for example), but when he's more restrained, he's also more subtle.

[espanolbot]

There are cops and what not in Ennis' books that are both good people and good at their jobs. The guy in Widowmaker, for example, who is targetted by some gangsters who accidentally shoot his wife instead, leading to him NEARLY going the Frank route, only for him to pull back and choose the moral high ground instead.

Or the ME who treats Frank and the other victims of the Hell's Kitchen bombing in Kitchen Irish, who knows who Frank is but still doesn't hesistate to give both him and everyone else medical attention. This causes Frank to remark "It's not every day that you meet your exact opposite".

The thing with the Slavers is that it was sparked by Ennis finding out about the sex slavery business and the depths it sank to (the examples the social worker uses are real), and this entire story is an elaborate revenge fantasy out of Ennis' personal feelings towards those who profit from the sordid affair.

IF he had no respect for the social worker and the policewoman that quits the force to help her with future cases when she herself learns about it, he could have portrayed herself as more naive if not flat out stupid.

[cyberghostface]

I'd have more respect for the Punisher if he went after people like this as opposed to killing the Stilt-Man or trying to shoot a group of kids.

[punisher007]

Let's not blame frank for crappy writing by people who clearly completely misunderstand his character. That's on the writers, not the character. The Punisher DOESN'T do that when he's written correctly. It's not as simple as "you're a criminal, so I shoot you in the face." He KILLS the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, psychos, organized crime people, etc. He has other methods for "lesser" crime (like merely intimidating the more petty criminals to scare them into stopping).

Hell, when Rhino was in his "trying to reform" phase a few years back, he and Frank were actually able to form a semi-cordial relationship. But Frank would sometimes remind Rhino that it would be wise of him NOT to backslide into his "old ways."

[alschroeder3]

I can take this a lot better than his declaring war on some Mafia boss.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Was that Joe Quesada watching the lecture?