Violent, brutal and powerful (The Punisher Vol. 5: The Slavers - Garth Ennis)

Member Name: Raptor32

Product:	The Punisher Vol. 5: The Slavers - Garth Ennis
Date:	19/08/08 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story, horrible villians

Disadvantages: Not suitable for everyone, very dark subject matter

*Spoiler free section*
This is going to be a fairly gushing review, this is one of the best written graphic novels I have read and deals with subject matter I will admit I knew very little about, and almost wish I still didn't. Be warned, this is not your usual superhero adventure or even your usual Punisher MAX story. I found the violence in previous books brutal and sometimes shocking, but the criminals in this story, and the punishments meted out by the titular character are several notches above anything seen before.

*Spoilers*
A problem with the Punisher as a character is that no matter what situation he finds himself in, because his name is on the cover you know he is going to survive. The other problem is his methods of crime fighting are very different to more traditional superheroes. He doesn't arrest criminals; he shoots, stabs, tortures and blows them up. This means, that to keep the reader on his side the writer must come up with villains that deserve this fate. In The Slavers it is human traffickers who find themselves in Frank Castle's gun sights and I for one was rooting for him to punish them. Frank encounters a young lady from Eastern Europe who tells him about an organised team of brutal traffickers who bring girls from war torn countries in the Balkans to America for use in prostitution. Now if this plot seems dark, it is, even for a Punisher story. At the same time as Frank is tracking these monsters down, the police are attempting to stop him, thanks to a corrupt officer on the force. A third strand in the story is that of a woman who has spent her life trying to educate people about human trafficking and some of the brutal realities of the sex trade.
What follows is a brutal and violent story in which the Punisher resorts to methods that are extreme even by his standards in order to try and send a message to other potential traffickers. However, the ultimate message is that he will never stop the trade in women, that whatever he does, nothing will change in the long run. Even the fates of the girls he manages to rescue are revealed to be no great improvement as a result of what they suffered at the hands of their kidnappers.


Reading back through this review I realise this book may not sound appealing to everyone. It is true that the story has a very pessimistic undertone which is reflected in the dark, moody lighting and violent imagery. However there are touches of Ennis' dark humour and some amazing writing which had me looking forward to seeing what the punisher had in store for the villains when he caught up with them. The book is definitely for adults only but, for those who can stomach the violence and subject matter; this is an amazing, mature and eye opening story.

Summary: A very grown up graphic novel with some very bloody content