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i_have_no_process's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
3.5
A step backward in the series, quality and momentum-wise.
daezarkian's review
3.0
To be fair, anything after "The Slavers" was bound to be a disappointment. "Barracuda" certainly has some things going for it, but in the grand scope of the Garth Ennis run this was one of his less memorable outings.
Frank stumbles upon a Wall Street broker who was left in the "care" of a band of drug dealers as punishment for threatening to blow the whistle on a crooked scheme being hatched by mega energy conglomerate Dynaco, who plans to black out the power all over Florida as a way of making their own profit shares skyrocket. What should be a simple matter of grabbing an executive and forcing him to spill the beans turns into one of The Punisher's most harrowing encounters, as the head of Dynaco has enlisted the services of one seriously bad-ass gangster/hitman named Barracuda, who proves to be more than a match for Frank Castle...
All in all, it was hard to get engaged by "Barracuda's" plot. As much as I hate corporate America (and I admire the way Mr. Ennis indulges some guilty pleasures with how Frank dispatches of so many corporate criminals), after dealing with the utterly vile Serbian mercenaries from "The Slavers" a bunch of corrupt businessmen seem almost banal by comparison. Most of the secondary characters in the story aren't particularly interesting: power and money-grubbing backstabbers, over-privileged and over-indulged, self-centered narcissists whose only concern is securing their own bank accounts (i.e. your prototypical Corporate American scumbag). The subplots of these characters figuring out ways to (in some cases quite literally) screw each other get old quickly, and though their master plan is certainly hiss worthy it's far from diabolic. Honestly, these guys seem beneath Frank's time.
But not Barracuda, and this series gets 3 stars for him alone. A giant of a man who at first appears to be little more than a stereotypical street thug, Barracuda is as terrifying a force of nature as The Punisher. He's damn-near indestructible, extremely skilled at killing people, and in spite of all his profanity-laced dialogue and base behavior quickly proves himself to be extremely canny and intelligent. Barracuda is probably the closest things Frank has faced to an equal and opposite in this comic series, and he's easily one of Garth Ennis' most memorable and fascinating villains. It's just too bad Ennis couldn't cook up a better story to feature him in (though he gets one later on, in "The Long, Cold Dark").
Certainly not as good as most of Ennis' other Punisher work, but still a terrific read, and recommended on the basis of its titular villain alone.
Frank stumbles upon a Wall Street broker who was left in the "care" of a band of drug dealers as punishment for threatening to blow the whistle on a crooked scheme being hatched by mega energy conglomerate Dynaco, who plans to black out the power all over Florida as a way of making their own profit shares skyrocket. What should be a simple matter of grabbing an executive and forcing him to spill the beans turns into one of The Punisher's most harrowing encounters, as the head of Dynaco has enlisted the services of one seriously bad-ass gangster/hitman named Barracuda, who proves to be more than a match for Frank Castle...
All in all, it was hard to get engaged by "Barracuda's" plot. As much as I hate corporate America (and I admire the way Mr. Ennis indulges some guilty pleasures with how Frank dispatches of so many corporate criminals), after dealing with the utterly vile Serbian mercenaries from "The Slavers" a bunch of corrupt businessmen seem almost banal by comparison. Most of the secondary characters in the story aren't particularly interesting: power and money-grubbing backstabbers, over-privileged and over-indulged, self-centered narcissists whose only concern is securing their own bank accounts (i.e. your prototypical Corporate American scumbag). The subplots of these characters figuring out ways to (in some cases quite literally) screw each other get old quickly, and though their master plan is certainly hiss worthy it's far from diabolic. Honestly, these guys seem beneath Frank's time.
But not Barracuda, and this series gets 3 stars for him alone. A giant of a man who at first appears to be little more than a stereotypical street thug, Barracuda is as terrifying a force of nature as The Punisher. He's damn-near indestructible, extremely skilled at killing people, and in spite of all his profanity-laced dialogue and base behavior quickly proves himself to be extremely canny and intelligent. Barracuda is probably the closest things Frank has faced to an equal and opposite in this comic series, and he's easily one of Garth Ennis' most memorable and fascinating villains. It's just too bad Ennis couldn't cook up a better story to feature him in (though he gets one later on, in "The Long, Cold Dark").
Certainly not as good as most of Ennis' other Punisher work, but still a terrific read, and recommended on the basis of its titular villain alone.
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