Punisher Max Little Black Book

I liked this book a lot ... for the first three quarters of it. The plot isn't too complicated -- the Punisher uses a high class prostitute (is that an oxy moron?) to get close to a gangster by acting as her body guard, then kills him & his crew. The story is more of a character piece on the hooker & how she views the Punisher. She went to Princeton, where I'm guessing her major was "Giving Head Worth Paying For", and she learned that men will bow down to her because of her beauty, and decided that "all men are dogs" and chose to become rich by using her looks (and her vagina).

I liked her character, and I liked how her memories about her father training dogs was her basis for how she thinks of men -- some can be trained & some are too wild, like wolves, and can never be controlled. So, the whole book she is thinking of the Punisher as a wolf, and she is disgusted & shocked at the way he deals with the gangsters, and that was cool to see how a "regular" person would react to the things that the Punisher thinks of on the same level as making himself breakfast. It ends with the Punisher killing the guy he was after (big surprise?), and I was really enjoying the story, and the dark style of art ... and then the book totally went off the rails for me.

After the Punisher shoots the shit out of the gangsters in the packed nightclub & everyone is running for the exits including the hooker, she is confronted by a group of guys who were also fleeing. There was just a heavy gun battle in a club filled with people, so common sense would tell anyone that police are on the way ... right? Well, these guys (who a second ago were stealing a car they wanted to get away so bad) decide raping her out in the open, with cops on the way is a good idea. What the fuck?

I understand this was to set up the big finale of the Punisher coming out to save her, and to continue the "men are dogs or wolves" thing, when he kills all the would-be rapists (who are also "wolves" ... maybe semi-retarded ones?) & the big last page is the Punisher standing amidst thier dead bodies & the hookers final thought "but there are also lions", but the idea of five men being THAT brain dead, was just too much for me to swallow.

This would have been such a cool comic, if not for that one huge mistake.