The Punisher #27 (January 2006)



"The Slavers, Part 3"
Penciler: Leandro Fernandez
Inker: Scott Koblish
Colorist: Dan Brown

Summary: Frank interrogates a pimp by holding a knife to his eye. He's already killed two of them and crippled another three. Unfortunately for Frank, none of the pimps are of any use because the Moldovians are completely isolated. They organize their own operation, they import their own girls, they arrange appointments online and no girls ever quit on them. Frank decides to go to Plan B.

The Old Man is watching the news. The cop that hurt himself last issue is now claiming to have been beaten up by the Punisher. The news brings up the Cavella incident from "last summer" (more on that below) as evidence of Frank's mental disintegration. The Old Man believes it to be evidence of sanity, and says that if anyone dug up the grave of Cristu's mother he would slaughter thousands. He believes the Punisher will be an interesting man to kill. Cristu warns him to stay away. They will let the police handle The Punisher, as that is what they have paid for. The Old Man criticizes Cristu for being a sissy whose life revolves around business. Cristu fires back that the Old Man just wants a war. He leaves the apartment, calls Vera and tells her to give the order.

In a bar Russ and Marcie buy drinks for Ernie Mosstow, the cop from the news. He tells them that his encounter with Castle was no big deal but Westin, who knows Ernie has some serious "debts," gets him to play along. Ernie is grateful to be able to talk to someone about it but he tells Russ and Marcie that he won't aid them in their investigation.

Speaking of Westin, Captain Price is tearing a flaming chunk out of his ass. Turns out the Punisher has a lot of fans in the department and with the press involved there is a lot of pressure on Price. Westin deflects responsibility and takes a phone call from Ernie.

In a motel room Frank drops off some food and clean clothes for Viorica. He didn't want to contact her again except to tell her he'd killed the slavers. He asks her who the social worker was. Her name is Jen Cooke. Frank knows her.

Cooke is giving a lecture on human trafficking to a mostly empty hall. She explains that because the girls are in the currently illegally all the police can do is deport them, which sends them right back home to their deaths. She also says that crime syndicates are switching to human trafficking because it's easier than drug dealing. There is no DEA to handle teenage girls and a person can be sold multiple times, whereas drugs are a consumable resource. Slaving has become integral to the ecomonies of Albania, Ukraine and other Eastern European nations. Because of the slavers 90% of Albanian teenage girls no longer attend high school. They don't leave their house because they're terrified of abduction. She ends the lecture by pleading with the audience to imagine this happening to their sisters, wives and daughters.

Frank was watching the lecture and waits for her in the corridor. When she sees him she freaks out, drops her books and begs him not to kill her. He asks her what she's done to deserve it. She tells him she saw too much when they were in the subway tunnels and she knows he's the Punisher. He tells her to stop being stupid, everybody knows he's the Punisher and hands her her books. He needs to ask her about her lecture.

In the locker room Russ is questioning his and Marcie's private investigation. Marcie says that whatever Westin is up to can't be good for the department. At that moment a cop named Peters' says something thats as racist as it is homophobic to Russ. Marcie insults him back and Peters punches Russ. Marcies smashes Peters with her nightstick as a crowd of cops gathers. The cops jump in and start kicking the crap out of the both of them.

Frank and Cooke are in her office. She's trying to talk herself into giving Frank her information. She says the cops won't investigate the murder of Anna. A picture of a dead baby isn't a dead baby. She says she had to sanitize her lecture for the sake of political correctness. If she hadn't the audience would have been so horrified they won't even think about the problem. Girls are trafficked to Iraq to serve as whores for American soldiers. A Rumanian girl agreed to testify to police about her abduction. Her father came home to find his other daughter ripped to pieces. Cooke has been investigating trafficking for two years and is growing increasingly hopeless at the insane cruelty that isn't being stopped. She says her despair makes her want to burn the world clean like an angel with a fiery sword. But there are no angels. She gives Frank the folder. He tells her the straight dope: He is going to kill all of these people. It won't stop the trade, it won't make life easier for the victims. She tells him to leave and asks him why he didn't break in and steal the folder. He says it was easier just to ask her where she kept it.

At his safehouse Frank analyzes the information. It's too soon for Cooke to have found the new house but she did know about a V.I.P. house upstate. One of the escaped girls had seen a road sign when the driver forgot to lock the windows. Identifying the slavers was trickier. They were found in reports of the 1990s Balkan Conflicts. A Serb militia outfit that joined the war against Muslims, led by father-and-son Romanians Tiberiu and Cristu Bulat. In two years they wiped out a dozen villages. The last four villages were killed the same way with one difference: All of the girls were unaccounted form. Cristu had a brainwave, theres more profit in slavery than massacre and with your death squad you've already got a gang.

The Badlands of Eastern Europe have been at war forever. They give the world its hardest soldiers. Frank will have to go to extreme measures to make them talk.

Cooke throws up and asks herself what kind of person she is and what she's done.

Observations: Frank Castle is the devil. Or at least, thats how Jen Cooke sees it. The religious allusion during her meeting with Castle is no accident: She is making a deal with the devil and she seems to regret it instantly. She says that she wishes she was an angel with a flaming sword. The angel with the flaming sword is the Archangel Uriel, who stands at the gates of Paradise wielding a fiery sword. In Paradise Lost Satan is able to trick Uriel into granting him access to Paradise. Here Cooke plays the role of Uriel and Frank is of course Satan, except now Uriel knows it's Satan and willingly lays down her sword.

Frank coercing Cooke into giving him the folder shows his total lack of consideration. Cooke is horrified by cooperating with Frank while Frank only cooperated with her out of convenience. If he had just searched her office and stolen the file her conscience wouldn't have been assaulted. Frank pays no mind to the smaller costs he forces others to pay.

Tiberiu Bulat's introduction to The Punisher is odd: He empathizes with him and agrees with his thought process, at least concerning the issue of family. Tiberiu was referred to as The Devil by Viorica, which could be a second parallel to Frank. Their military backgrounds is a third parallel. It's pretty insane to make a psychopathic monster the foil of your hero but then again Batman has been getting away with it for years.

As a sidenote, this arc shows what might be the closest Frank comes to taking a gray stance. He has no problem torturing and killing pimps but he does care enough about them to kill them systematically like he does gangsters and drug dealers. We saw it in the second issue, where he murdered a pimp not for being a pimp but for pimping a minor. It's strange to see this in an arc where he targets the worst pimps imaginable.

This arc continues a pattern that started in the first arc: The integration of outside continuity. The first arc featured Microchip, a Punisher supporting character for a few years in the 90s. Him being in the story isn't a stretch, it's just an alternate version of that character. The second arc featured Yorkie. Yorkie is a character who first featured in the Marvel Knights Punisher series, which was set in 616 continuity. In that arc there are no references to the 616 stories so they could be different versions. The third arc features the MAX version of Nick Fury, who had been previously established in the FuryMAX miniseries back in 2001. The fourth arc revealed that Kathryn O'Brien is Kathryn McCallister, a character from Ennis' series "Hitman." O'Brien really complicates things, since her presence potentially means that Punisher MAX takes place in the DCU (although like Yorkie and Nick Fury it's possible she's just an alternate version). And now we have Jen Cooke. Jen Cooke featured in one arc in the Marvel Knights Punisher series, which is how Frank knows her. But unlike Yorkie's stories, which have gone unreferenced, we get explicit mention of Jen Cooke's story arc from the Marvel Knights series. So there is a quasi-shared continuity going on, where that one story happened in both universes.

The timeline gets a few new detail. Frank mentions that it's the winter, and the newscast mentions that UIDBIW happened "last summer." UIDBIW happening in the summer doesn't work in the timeline established so far, since previous estimates (and the story's own artwork) stuck it in the winter. But it does recontextualize a few timeline tidbits from that story. If ISDBIW happened in Summer then ITB happened early in the year, and all of this roughly lines up with the release schedule of the arcs. So here is the revised timeline as it best fits:

In The Beginning: Early 2004 (18 months prior to UIDBIW)
Kitchen Irish: Fall 2004 (timeframe hinted at by foliage)
Mother Russia: Late 2004 (mentioned as happened "end of last year" in UIDBIW)
Up Is Down, Black Is White: Summer 2005
The Slavers: Late 2005 or possibly early 2006

In this issue it's also mentioned that Cavella's body was found soon after his death. But we know from #25 that his body was found two weeks prior to the story. This is pretty impossible and something an editor should have picked up on.

The Punisher #29 (March 2006)



"The Slavers, Part 5"
Penciler: Leandro Fernandez
Inker: Scott Koblish
Colorist: Dan Brown

Summary: Cristu bled out at noon. Not long after Frank dumped all of Cristu's weapons off the pier and now Tiberiu shows up screaming for his son in Rumanian. Frank isn't exactly pleased by this. His number one target just showed up and he was now unarmed. Worse, the old man searched the house, found the bloodbath and started speaking English: "The Punisher...." Frank has stowed himself under the pier. He should slip away and wait for a better opportunity but he's only human. He shoots a mook through the pier, climbs up and opens fire on the slavers. Frank realizes right away that he screwed up. These were trained soldiers, they are prepared for a firefight and severely outnumber him. They shoot Frank three times before he dives off the pier and swims to safety.

Jen Cooke gets a phonecall. The situation is screwed. Her car is still there. They'll trace it to her. She'd better escape. Russ and Marcie are in the room with her. Russ tells her to arrange a meeting. After, she asks if the cops need her. They encourage her cooperation to help her legally. In private Marcie asks Russ what the hell he's doing involving The Punisher in their investigation. But cops taking money to beat them to protect a slaving racket has changed his perspective.

Vera gets an unexpected visit from Tiberiu at her office. He tells her that three black men came for him. They said Cristu set it up but a woman gave them the address. He went upstate to find Cristu but all he found was the Punisher, with Cristu unaccounted. And because Vera is still here he is giving her the benefit of the doubt that she's not involved. If they were in it together, he reasons, they would have escaped together... Unless Cristu just panicked. He leaves two thugs with her.

Frank walks into a diner to see Cooke and the cops waiting for him. He recognizes them and tells them they're taking the whole Brooklyn thing way too personally. Marcie says that she's willing to finish it anytime he'd like. He says he's not interested in dating and tells Cooke that the cops are working alone, there is no backup. Everyone explains their side of the story. Russ and Marcie visited Ernie and smashed his face in. They found out that Westin had him doing odd jobs. The last job he was doing was tailing Cooke. They went to Cooke to figure out why but she panicked and told them everything about the Punisher, much to their surprise. Frank asks her how the girls are. She says they're freaked out but otherwise fine. She wonders why she'd be followed. Frank says Vera knew about her from the girl who got recaptured. They were probably figuring out whether or not to kill her. They all agree that Westin is definitely crooked and Marcie wants to know where they go from there. Russ says he's fine with letting Frank deal with the Slavers, since a legitimate police investigation would go nowhere, but Westin has to be taken in legally. So thats the deal: The cops give Frank a clear run at the Slavers, Frank digs up solid evidence on Westin. Marcie leaves in disgust.

Frank arrives at Vera's office. He's shot both of Tiberiu's guards. He grabs Vera by the back of the head and says Cristu told him everything. He throws her face first into the plate glass indow. The only thing Cristu didn't know is where Tiberiu is hiding. Frank picks her up and throws her into the window again. And again. And again. The window becomes a collage of splattered blood. It's shatterproof glass, Vera will break before the window does. Frank digs a folder on Westin out of the safe and tells Vera that he knows about Vera's idea: Rape them to break them. Rape them until they understand that they are completely powerless, that they can't prevent anything from happening to him. Frank grabs her again. He tells her the glass won't break but after a while the frame will bend and give way. She cries and begs for mercy. Frank tells her how it is: "All that counts is you can't stop me. I'm stronger than you, so I can do anything I want. Isn't that the way it works?" She screams for a final time as Frank throws her at the window. The frame gives and she is flung out into the open air far above the Manhattan street.

At this moment Frank realizes that it has been a long time since he hated anyone the way he hates them.

Observations: Frank's brutality reaches another level. Cristu's execution was a single carefully calculated act of violence. Vera's death was violent, brutish and extraordinarily painful. This is also the first time we see him murder a woman. Prior to this the closest he came was Teresa but O'Brien finished her off. Seeing a man overpower, beat and kill a woman might cross a line for chivalrous readers but in this case it's is just too sweet: Frank is finally giving Vera, the most cruel of the trio, a taste of her own medicine. And just before she dies she might have an inkling of an understanding of what she did. (PS: The odds of that big window not hitting anybody are slim and from that height it could certainly kill).

And for the first time this arc Frank starts to show something deeper than "These are bad guys, I must kill them." He shows concern for the girls he rescued, in a situation where doing so didn't aid his agenda. And while his torture and murder of Cristu was a means of interrogation, his torture and murder of Vera was much more emotional. He had no need to interrogate her but he tortured her because he realized for that his stake in this case is an emotional one. Jen Cooke implored the audience at her lecture to imagine these things happening to their wives and daughters. Frank Castle, former husband and father, took her message to heart without realizing it. It has become personal for him. He even implies that he hates them more than Nicky Cavella, who desecrated his family's grave.

The issue also gives a good indication of just how the Punisher has been able to kill people for thirty years without dying. We know he's an extremely skilled and dangerous person, the best of the best of the best. But his real advantage is in the general incompetence of his foes. This has been mentioned prior but here we see the inverse in action: When put up against hardened soldiers he is on much more even footing and loses his Godlike ability to kill.

The Russ and Marcie subplot finally hits the A story. Like Jen, they make a deal with the Devil. But while Jen's deal was based on raw emotion, Russ and Marcie play on more even terms. And while Marcie clearly has trouble with it, it doesn't feel like the same blow to their personal ethics. The law has failed them. More specifically, it's kicked the crap out of them.

It's an issue about power. Frank's powers fail him against the Moldovians. Russ and Marcie relinquish the power of their badge to Frank. And Frank shows Vera what it means to be truly powerless. The immensely satisfying destruction of Vera pushes it over into an A.

Wounds gained this issue:
-Three gunshots to the chest, one of which penetrates his vest.

Past issues:
- Seven gunshot wounds across his body (Born #4)
- Seven stun rounds to the body, hand and face (The Punisher #2)
- A bullet fired at point blank range grazing his forehead (The Punisher #5)
- Right arm grazed by a shotgun (The Punisher #5)
- Hit in the chest and possibly other parts of his body by a shotgun through the roof of a warehouse (The Punisher #6)
- Fell through the roof of a warehouse (The Punisher #6)
- Shot in a left rib by a shotgun at point blank range. (The Punisher #6)
- Lung grabbed and squeezed through the wound in his side. (The Punisher #6)
- Punched in the face. (The Punisher #6)
- Slashed on the right forearm, right thigh and left side of the head (The Punisher #6)
- Right hand stabbed by shard of glass (The Punisher #6)
- Stabbed in the back at least once (The Punisher #6)
- Caught in an explosion resulting in a nosebleed and bleeding from the ears. (The Punisher #7)
- Upper left arm impaled by shard of glass. (The Punisher #7)
- Grenade shrapnel to the right arm (The Punisher #12)
- Probable concussion (from grenade) (The Punisher #12)
- Smashed through a bar, delivering blunt force trauma (The Punisher #14)
- Right eye socket broken (The Punisher #16)
- Head repeatedly smashed with an AK47. (The Punisher #16)
- Gunshot to the left arm (The Punisher #22)
- Shotgun to the chest, mitigated by bulletproof vest. (The Punisher #23)
- Stabbed in the left shoulder (The Punisher #24)
- Bashed over the head with a nightstand (The Punisher #24)
- Eyes clawed at (The Punisher #24)

The Tyger (February 2006)



Artist: John Severin
Colorist: Paul Mounts

Summary: A young Frank Castle is sitting on a rooftop across from an Italian restaurant. With him is a silenced sniper rifle. Across the street the entire top echelon of New York's biggest crime family is gathered outside. He is pondering how what he is about to do will change his life. The precision of the shooting will lead the authorities to the military. Investigation in the neighborhood will turn up suspects, strangers who were digging around prior to the shooting. Eventually they'll come up with a possible suspect: A marine who served three tours and was in the Firebase Valley Forge massacre. He'll have the motive that makes him the prime suspect. They'll blame Vietnam for what he is and they'll never go back into a summer 16 years prior.

In 1960 a man is on fire outside the Brooklyn Navy yard. 10-year-old Frank Castle watches it. He's there to bring his Dad his lunch. Dad thanks him and sends him home. He shouldn't be watching.

At home Frank eavesdrops on his parents. It's easier for him to observe than to ask questions. His Dad is saying the man on fire was an idiot for lighting a cigarette in a paint store. He has no pity for him, he turned scab three times when the workers were on strike. When the company took away the safety rails a man named Terry Cooley was paralyzed and can't even feed himself, let alone his own family. Frank's mother says that was an accident but Frank's father says so was the thing today. Frank is curious about his parents. His father is a WWII Vet. Frank has seen a photo of him holding up the Rising Sun and grinning, kept in a box with his medals. His mother still cries every morning for her stillborn son, Michael, who would be three.

Father asks if Frank has gone to his fruity poetry class. Mother insists that it's not fruity. Frank is very smart and even though he's quiet he's not a sissy. He's deadly on the football field and he knocked an older kid's teeth out. Father is happy that they have some alone time. Frank leaves them to their intimacy.

Frank's best friend is a girl named Lauren Buvoli. The entire school had a crush on her. Men started noticing her a year ago. Frank meets her at her stoop to walk her to their class. Her brother Sal, a Marine, teases her as she goes to get her books. Sal asks Frank if he heard about the burning man. He wonders how you can hate someone that much to set him on fire. Sal is sorry that he has to report back the next day, he misses being at home and doesn't like being unable to look out for his sister. He gives Frank a couple bucks to buy her a milkshake.

Frank spends most of his time reading. He loves literature more than comics and movies because it's much more vivid in his imagination. His mother signed him up for a class for junior high kids. Their teacher, Father David, reads them "The Tyger" by William Blake.



Frank imagines the tiger. Something more deadly than anything else that walks the Earth, that if you looked in its eyes you would know terror. There would be no mercy or remorse, just force made flesh.

The class discusses the poem. Father David interprets it as affirmation of God's power of creation, especially the line "Did he who made the lamb make thee?" Frank believes it means God didn't make the tyger, because the tyger was made by someone who doesn't make lambs. Father David tells him thats impossible because God is the only one who creates and that His power is beyond comprehension, and thats what the poem is about. Lauren suggests that the poem can be read both ways and that Frank can read it however he likes. Father David says he can't.

After class Lauren is teasing Frank about being so distant. She just can't figure him out. She spots her friend Sue standing in the street. Sue is crying. A truck comes and she doesn't run, allowing herself to be killed.

Three weeks later. Lauren has been withdrawn since the funeral. People preferred to believe Sue died in an accident, suicide was still a scary word, but there were other theories in the neighborhood. Frank's father thinks the girl just went crazy. Frank's mother says she was with the Rosa boy, who had gotten the Donegan girl into "trouble." Father warns mother to stop talking like that.

The Rosas were the local crime family. Frank didn't understand why they were talked about in hushed voices and why everybody was nice to them. He was innocent of that side of life. Their youngest son was Vincent, who had movie star good looks. Frank and Lauren pass Vincent on the way to the museum. He and Lauren share a look. Frank says he's heard bad stuff about him, Lauren just tells him to stop spreading mean rumors. She can't handle hearing mean things right now. Frank couldn't understand it when he was ten, but as an adult he understood what that look meant and why Lauren was upset.

Frank is an awe of the museum. He realizes the world has always had Tygers. Bears, sabre tooth tigers, dinosaurs, sharks. Lauren asks him why boys are obsessed with monsters and kisses him on the cheek.

On another day, Frank punches a big kid in the face. He makes him return a smaller body's comic book. It's Tim Donegan. Frank wants to know what happened between his sister and Vincent. The kid hesitates but he tells her: Vincent impregnated her. Her father was so furious he hit her. She cried and told him she didn't want it but was forced to get the baby. Her dad got even more mad and hit her more, calling her a liar and other bad names. The next day the girl was sent away and when she came back there was no more baby. She still cries about it. When Sue died she cried a lot.

Frank tried to talk to Lauren about it but he couldn't reach her at home. He didn't know if she was in danger or not, or how he could even help her. A week later he sees her at poetry class. She's crying. When Father David asks if shes alright she runs out of the room. She took the bus home but Frank missed it. When he gets to her house her Dad greets her at the door. She came home crying and went to her room. Her mother screams. Lauren had taken a razor and opened her arm from wrist to elbow. What Sue couldn't face Lauren looked straight in the eyes.

At home Frank eavesdrops on his parents. They're arguing about it. Mother wants to call the cops, something needs to be done. Father suggests the girls should just keep their legs shut. Mother blows up. He doesn't know what it's like to walk around in mortal fear of rape. Shes sick of this situation. The kid is spoiled evil, nobody can handle the Rosas and this isn't how America is supposed to be. She tells father that he was furious when Terry Cooley fell off a ladder and how he was even more furious when he saw the scab walking about. But if it's OK for the workers to set a man on fire why can't they do something now? Father says he did try something. Him and some of the guys went to see Albert Rosa. He listens to what they have to say, then he takes out a shotgun and breaks one of the guys' hands with the butt. Father was more scared than when he was on Iwo Jima.

That night Frank sneaks into his parents room. He finds the box with the medals and the photograph and grabs the gun from it. He goes to the Italian restaurant where the Rosas hang out. He watches Vincent hang around the entrance. Vinnie gets a message saying a girl wants to meet him at a place called Maxie's. Vincent doesn't know who it is but he goes to check it out. Sal is waiting for him. He kicks the piss out of him and drags him to the graveyard. He throws Vincent into an open grave, pours gasoline on him and lights him on fire. Frank sees the Tyger.

Sal was AWOL but had someone cover for him. Thats why no cops ever came looking for him. When Albert Rosa got the news he had a heart attack and died. His replacement had his own business to attend to. Everyone went to the funeral out of respect.

Frank next saw Sal eight years later, his first week in 'Nam. He was a corpse on a stretcher. He did two tours. He'd get promoted in combat but off-duty he'd get himself busted back. He was a Marine Corps lifer looking for death. During Frank's second tour he was sent up north to deal with a problem. An NVA general had gone sightseeing and ended up in the Hanoi Hilton. There was only so long before he would start spilling. Frank had been sent to take care of it and he did so successfully. On his way back he stopped at a stream and saw a tiger. Their eyes locked. Frank doesn't know if it was really there or if his imagination was just filling in the gaps.

Back in 1976 Frank opens fire on the Rosa family. He remembers the aftermath of his family's murder, hearing the paramedics try to reassure him as they fight to get him in an ambulance. At the hospital they tell him they pulled two bullets out of his chest. His wife didn't make it and his children are dead but they died instantly and painlessly. He's unresponsive. As he fades out one of the doctors remarks on the look in his eyes.

"They'll blame it all on Vietnam. And they'll be right. And they'll be wrong. I know what the world needs now. Same thing it's needed all along. I walk off the Brooklyn rooftop and into the future: A future full of screams and bullets, and bad men dying in the ancient dark. And I show the world a face not made by God."

Observations: This is a very dark, personal story with heavy symbolism. You can see the roots of Frank's entire pathology here. In his home life you have his Dad, who is willing to set a scab worker on fire, and his Mother, who despises the mafia and having to walk on eggshells. You also have his dead brother, who was stillborn but is still mourned daily by his mother. Right there you have the seeds that create The Punisher. But then you have a truly horrible story of corruption, not just among the authority but also corruption of the innocent. The girls in the neighborhood are raped by the local scum and they just can't handle it. And over the course of one summer Frank experiences two immolation and two suicides, transforming him into a dark minded little boy with an unnerving interest in monsters.

The use of the Blake poem is a nice touch. Ennis has spent much of his career skewering religion and here he is subtle yet ruthless. Father David, the good egg who sees monsters as evidence of God's powers, firmly telling Frank that his interpretation of the poem is wrong. I don't want to start an analysis of the poem itself but this story is obviously closely tied to it. Blake's interpretation of the poem was more or less the same as Father David's. As Hannibal Lecter said, "typhoid and swans, they come from the same place." Frank rejects this interpretation because whatever creates beauty and happiness could never create monstrosity. As we find out, what creates monsters is the monsters that existed before. Vincent's evil inspires an evil inside of Frank to match it. If Father David is right then God is the first monster. By the time he was in his early 20s Frank had become the Tyger he so admired, more powerful than anything else on the planet.

Ennis also references a previous hint to Frank's time in Vietnam. Way back in Born #1 Stevie Goodwin mentioned a rumor of an N.V.A. general sniped outside of Hanoi. Here Ennis gives us the details: It was an A.R.V.N. general who'd gotten captured by the N.V.A. and needed to be silenced before he could betray the anti-communist forces. Frank, who at this point is probably 20 at most, is completely unaffected by this. We also get the treat of seeing Frank as a greenhorn.

As for sights in general, John Severin is the man. His line is scratchy and he pours on texture. I heard that by this point Severin wasn't even pencilling, just going straight to inks and slapping a patch of fresh bristol over ever mistake. His art has a real organic quality that does a lot to establish the gloomy mood of the story.

A final note: This issue might show us the reason Frank burned Tiberiu alive and it's possible that Vincent Rosa might have been the person Frank hated as much as The Slavers, perhaps even more than the people who killed his family.

Overall this is a haunting look into the childhood of Frank Castle. Easily an A. It's a story thats really worth reading. If you're interested it's available in the "First to Last" trade alongside "The End" and "The Cell." And with this we finish the final one-shot and have only 30 issues to go before the end.

Next: Frank goes way outside of his comfort zone and tackles his most morally ambiguous case so far.

I've also decided to tally Frank's body count as a matter of curiosity, both his lifetime total and his kills credited as The Punisher, which exclude his military operations including Mother Russia. I did the best I could to count the kills as Frank made them. When the entire battle wasn't shown I counted the corpses. There is a measure of estimation here. Whenever an official figure was mentioned I used it.

The Tyger: 20, 19 as The Punisher
Born: 35, 0 as The Punisher
The Cell: 12

#1: 42
#2: 6
#6: 20
Total: 68

#9: 8
#10: 18
#11: 8
#12: 1
Total: 35

#13: 11
#14: 4
#15: 27
#16: 24
#17: 8
Total: 74, 11 as The Punisher

#19: 19
#21: 59
#24: 1
Total: 79

#25: 5
#26: 4
#27: 2
#28: 10
#29: 7
#30: 8
Total: 36
Grand total: 359, 260 as The Punisher

By year:
2004: 114
2005: 115

The mayor said that Frank kills a dozen people a week. If that figure is accurate then we're only seeing 18% of his kills, which seems generous considering there are months between arcs. Law enforcement estimated that as of Summer 2005 he killed 2000 criminals. That would only add up to 68 kills a year, half of what we see and barely a 10th of his estimated killing rate. Whatever way you cut it, thats a lot of corpses. But out of the 30 issues in the main series he has only killed in a third of them.

The Punisher #32 (June 2006)



"Barracuda, Part 2"
Artist: Goran Parlov
Colorist: Guila Brusco

Summary: Barracuda and a prostitute are on his boat. He's complaining about unsatisfactory oral sex while she smokes drugs. She starts gagging and runs off the boat onto the deck. Cuda hears her scream and investigates. A rattlesnake bit her on the leg. He grabs the snake and smashes it on the dock. By this point the girl is dead so he kicks her body into the water and sails off.

Frank and Si are in a diner having breakfast. Frank tells Si to shut up, stop complaining about everything (clothes, motel, food, etc) and get on with his story. Si asks if he'd heard of Dynaco. Since the only literature Frank reads is "Autoloader" thats a no. Dynaco was a crappy energy company that was going nowhere until they brought in Harry Ebbing in early 2003. Harry is a well known businessman with a long record of success stories. He overhauls the company, firing 90% of the staff and turning the remaining employees into a real team with two Golden Rules: Stick together and go to Harry with your problems. The company became a massive success and has been so for three years. Harry's secret was the legal loophole that states you can base your accounts on your projected earnings rather than your actual figures. The inflated numbers lured in investors, big money for the company. Harry's next plan is definitely illegal though.

At a mountain resort the Dynaco crew is enjoying a ski trip. Dermot tries to apologize again for his screw up but Harry tells him to forget it, it's taken care of and he's starting to have doubts about him. Alice asks Dermot if he's ever had sex with a trophy wife before.

Si tells Frank Dynaco's scheme: After the hurricanes in fall 2005 there were mass blackouts in Florida. This meant power was at a premium and Dynaco stock skyrocketed. Dermot Leary (formerly O'Learly, his name was changed on Harry's suggestion) suggested it: Cause random blackouts in Florida, cause the value of power to go up. It bothered Si because the blackout would cause massive damage and loss of life. Si spoke up against it at the meeting but didn't take the hint to shut up. He told him that Dynaco's profits would hit the public soon, the projected returns would be worthless and Harry was desperate for capital. And if they didn't cancel the plan he'd go to the FBI. The next morning he got kidnapped by Enrique's crew. He knew the company had police connections and that he wasn't safe with them. He wonders if Harry isn't desperate, and that he's just decided he doesn't care about causing chaos for profit.

Dermot and Alice just had sex in the lodge kitchen. Dermot makes it clear that she can't tell Harry. She mocks him for being so influenced by the man and he starts choking her, to her excitement.

In downtown Miami Barracuda is attending to business. A hummer full of gangsters is rolling down the street and gets cut off by Cuda. Cuda props up an M60 and opens fire. These gangsters owe him money and are backdue by a week. Cuda leaves one alive and throws him in the trunk of his car for use as a sex slave after he finishes the Frank Castle thing.

Frank left Si whining into his bacon. He was no longer any use to him. That was his first mistake. Frank wonders if the Dynaco thing is even his business, since corporate crime has little in common with street crime. But if Dynaco goes through with it they'll have a body count so that settles that. He knows the best course of action is to capture Harry Ebbing, force a taped confession out of him and release it to the media. A simple job, especially since Dynaco has a shareholders meeting in Miami coming up. Frank decides to fly there since he figures he won't need to bring any artillery. That was his second mistake. When he's beaten and bloodied in the ocean and a shark is closing in on him he remembers thinking how wrong he can be.

Observations: The most obvious aspect of this issue is how little Frank Castle appears. He's only "on-camera" for 14 panels, including one panel where he appears in a fake ID. This is all about setting up the villains. Harry Ebbing turns out to be a total piece of crap. Dermot turns out to be a phony piece of crap. Alice has violent sexual fantasies and commands obvious power over the men in her life. And Barracuda is... something else. His first scene, last issue, had him screwing a woman to death. His second scene has him kicking a woman's corpse off a pier. And his third scene has him kidnapping someone to use as a sex slave because they were "begging like a bitch." What a piece of work. But Cuda is as deadly as he is vulgar. There is an obvious animal motif present. Barracuda is named after a deadly animal, here he effortlessly kills a very deadly animal and the first scene of the first issue has him apparently being eaten by sharks while Frank Castle watches. He even refers to Castle as "Big mutha****in' game." I might be tainted by my reading of The Tyger but Barracuda is building up to be a Tyger himself, at the top of the foodchain save for one creature...

Frank's decision to go ahead with the mission, and his outline of the mission, is interesting. Frank is going up against an enemy that technically has done no wrong, but is going to do wrong. He also makes no mention of whether or not he will kill Ebbing, he just wants to scare a confession out of him. In other words, this is Frank being a superhero: He's going to use non-lethal methods to not to destroy a criminal but to keep someone from committing a crime. And yet Frank himself has to pause and question if it's actually his duty to get involved. It could go either way.

This story predates the 2007 financial crisis by a year but Ennis shows remarkable foresight in the scenes depicting the businessmen enjoying their ill-gotten gains. In today's context the scene does a lot to make the villains look like garbage, even before the whole "murder parts of Florida" thing comes into play.

B

The Punisher #34 (August 2006)



"Barracuda, Part 4"
Artist: Goran Parlov
Colorist: Guila Brusco

Summary: Frank is in big trouble. He's hogtied and watching a Great White bite Horace's legs off. He manages to get himself untied and to the surface but Barracuda (who is drinking a Duff beer) shoots at him with a shotgun to send him back underwater. Frank makes a mental note and moves him to the top of his ****-list. He sees Horace is still alive and pulls him to the surface. Barracuda thinks it's hilarious.

Dermot is outraged that Harry would work with Si. But Harry is smart, he knows that what Si has experienced in the last two days is punishment enough. Si confirms it and begs forgiveness. Harry gently tells him that the reward for doing the right thing is knowing you did the right thing, while the cost of doing the right thing is giving up a life of luxury. Si wants luxury. Harry is very tender with him and welcomes him back to the fold.

When Si leaves the suite Dermot starts up with Harry. How can he trust Si when Si is such a turd. Harry smacks Dermot for backtalking and Dermot leaves fuming.

Out at sea Frank tells Horace to stay still. He doesn't know how Horace is still alive but if he wants to stay that way he can't move, sharks are tuned to movement (Frank mentions all of his info on sharks comes from Shark Week - I can't imagine Frank watching The Discovery Channel). Horace tells him he can get him a ton of money if he lives. Frank switches to business mode and asks where the money comes from. Drugs. Frank and the shark make up their mind at the same time. Frank tells Horace "Pleased to meet you, I'm the Punisher" and throws him into the shark's mouth. Barracuda cheers and doesn't notice Frank slip away in to the cloud of blood and grab onto the boat.

Dermot, Si and Harry are having a lunch meeting. Harry tells them that Barrcuda will be working security for the company while they're in Miami. He explains how he met Barracuda: Twenty-odd years ago Harry was imprisoned for insider trading in California. The leftist judge made an example of him and sent him to a maximum-security prison. When he arrived two inmates told him they would rape him the first chance they got. Harry found the toughest man in the prison, Barracuda, and explained the situation. The two men were found alive with their eyes gouged out, each other's testicles wedged into the sockets and their eyelids sewn shot. Since then Harry and Barracuda have stayed in contact.

Barracuda sails back to the mainland singing a sea shanty. Frank is clinging to the boat.

That evening Barracuda meets the Dynaco trio. Cuda says the two will make for good sex slaves. Dermort and especially Si are freaked but Cuda says it's a joke and asks why white people always think big black men are going to rape him. Si reads the altered message on Cuda's grill and Cuda tells him to get the hell away from him. He confirms the Punisher to be shark crap and Harry doubles his compensation for his troubles. Harry has a new job for him.

At Barracuda's shack Frank takes an hour to haul himself out of the water onto the pier. He's exhausted and severely injured and passes out on the pier. As he loses consciousness he knows Cuda will find him in the morning but thats alright, he'll just kill him in Hell.

Dermot and Alice are having sex in Dermot's jacuzzi. Dermot complains about how Harry is treating him and agrees to Alice's proposition. He asks Alice if she'd ever heard of Barracuda. She says no. Barracuda is standing in the next room with a massive knife, listening to everything.

Observations: Like Part 2, this one doesn't have much Frank action. His dispatching of Horace is nice and draws a direct parallel between Frank and the shark (continuing the theme of The Tyger) but he's far too beaten to really do anything. Barracuda doesn't get much action either, aside from his hilarious scene with Si and Dermot. This one is really all about Dermot but unfortunately he's just not an interesting character. In previous issues he's been alright because his scenes have taken a backseat to Frank and Barracuda but he really can't hold an issue all his own. The story with Alice is progessing slowly as well and by now the sex gag is starting to run thin (Parlov certainly draws a nice naked girl though). For the first time this series has gotten boring, which is disappointing considering how much fun the last issue was.

C

Frank's kills: Horace (1)

The Punisher #36 (October 2006)



"Barracuda, Part 6"
Artist: Goran Parlov
Colorist: Guila Brusco

Summary: Harry flees from the press and bribes the helicopter pilot to take off. On the yacht Alice sedueces Barracuda and lets him to the engine room. The gathered shareholders see the news and demand an explanation from Dermot, who is sneaking up behind Barracuda (who is distracted by the woman kneeling before him) with a pipe. Cuda turns around just in time to catch the pipe but Alice bites down, giving Dermot opportunity to bash his head in. They throw him overboard. Dermot belittles Alice for performing fellatio on Cuda and drags her by the hair back into the engine room. Dermot's phone rings while they're having sex. It's Harry, calling from the chopper. Alice answers, explains what she did and is doing and moans in ecstasy. Heartbroken and defeated Harry throws himself from the helicopter. After they're finished Dermot notices the bomb tucked under some pipes.

Topside Dermot addresses the crowd. Harry was planning something crazy but they can overcome it. Dynaco will experience continued success under his leadership. Alice confirms with a crewmember that the bomb was deactivated. She doesn't know who planted it.

An explosion rocks the boat. Frank planted two charges. One was on the hull and would sink the boat in a few hours. The second was in the engine room and would sink the boat instantly. Frank doesn't know how behind he is. He radios for Harry. Dermot answers. Frank demands that he turns over Harry and Barracuda and give the entire boat up to the FBI. Dermot tells him that Harry is no longer in charge, that he doesn't know what Barracuda is and that Frank is in no position to make demands, as they found his bomb. Dermot calls him an idiot for thinking he could kill a corporation, which is not a person that can be shot. If they had blacked out Florida nobody onboard the boat would care. The shareholders would have made money, thats what matters to them. He tells Frank to leave them alone and go kill some "N-word drug dealers."

Barracuda yells at Frank from the yacht. The charges are live. Barracuda leaps from the yacht as Frank detonates the bomb. The yacht capsizes and dumps everything into the see. Sharks come circling. Alice gets bitten in half. Dermot clings to some driftwood but Frank shoots him and sharks swarm him. Frank admits he wouldn't find out more about the situation until later and a lot of it is still unknown to him. He just has one last loose end to wrap up. Barracuda climbs aboard the boat and finds Frank's shotgun waiting for him. He says that they're on the same side now but Frank shoots him in the head and off the boat. As a shark moves in he looks it in the eye and asks himself "what's the only thing more dangerous than a barracuda?"

Observations: This is a very tricky story, mainly for the ending but I'll touch on that below.

First up is the good stuff. Betrayals stacked on betrayals. The characters in this story are sharks in a frenzy. Si betrays Harry, then The Punisher. Dermot betrays Harry's trust, Harry betrays his relationship with Dermot, Dermot and Alice betray Harry by sleeping together and conspiring to push him out of his own business. Barracuda betrays Harry, Dermot and Alice betray Barracuda, then Frank betrays Barracuda. It's a feeding frenzy and Frank is the only one to end up in the right place at the right time.

Theres also a strong heirarchy in place, a food chain. From bottom to top:

-Si, everyone's punk
-Dermot, trivialized by Harry and manipulated by Alice
-Harry, effortlessly destroyed by Alice
-Alice, who fails to match Barracuda
-Barracuda, who punks everybody at the end, except for...
-Frank Castle, the shark at the top of the food chain.

This continues the animal metaphor from The Tyger, with Frank being as close to a shark as a human can be: He's a killing machine, pure force, more deadly than anything else on earth. As Quint says, a shark has black eyes, lifeless eyes like a doll's eyes. Just look at Tim Bradstreet's covers to see how true that is.

Like I said before, this story is tricky. How I rate this issue depends on what Ennis' intent is, the storytelling isn't exactly clear. In this issue Frank kills 70 shareholders and crewmembers in addition to Barricuda, Dermot and Alice. The crewmembers might be justified, as it's implied that they're dirty, but the shareholders are innocent people. They aren't shady businessmen, they're ordinary people. Frank killing them is a massive violation of his code as it has been previously presented, and his killing them potentially alters the code into a much more lethal and morally ambiguous philosophy. So what it boils down to is this: If Ennis made a mistake and this just slipped through the crack then the issue gets a C for sloppy writing. If Ennis made a deliberate choice to have Frank murder these innocent people because he has judged them to no longer be innocent due to their unknowing financial contribution to a criminal conspiracy, the issue gets a B.

As for the arc as a whole, there is some cool symbolism and really fun action but the middle chapters drag and the ending a hugely controversial. What started as a potential case of legitimate heroism ended with Frank commiting what could be his most awful act yet. I say it works out to a B.

Frank's kills for the issue:
- 64 shareholders
- 6 crew members
- Dermot
- Alice
- Barracuda
Frank's total for the arc: 73

Next: Frank makes another pass at heroism and love.