3 out of 5

I understood what was happening when this came out, and to be sure, I bought it, but it confirmed something suspected: Ennis and Parlov liked this guy.  Appearing in the pages of Garth Ennis’ Punisher MAX, in an arc drawn by Goran Parlov, Barracuda was a massive thug who was played up as a differently motivated – but just as motivated – killer than Frank Castle; whereas Frank, in Garth’s eyes, would pursue any criminal unto his ends (there was no grey area), Barracuda would do something similar for hire.  Both men were rather simple minded and straight forward in their pursuits, Punisher was stoic while Barracuda smiled, and though there was a sense of ‘playfulness’ in Barracuda’s inflicted miseries, they weren’t protracted torture sessions: you hire him to kill, you pay him enough, and he kills.  Then someone probably pays to have him kill you.  And done.

Both men took leagues of bullets and pain to be put down; both men were drawn as hulking monsters by Parlov.  Barracuda was an excellent foil, and most of his appearances made for brutal and thrilling showdowns, fitting in effectively to Garth’s study of, essentially, evil, and the relative moralities involved in inflicting violence.

Barracuda was an awful person.  There was no ‘good’ to him, and even hints of a backstory, later on, were not used to make him tragic, rather just to further beat us in to the cycles of begeted atrocities of Garth’s Punisher.

Ah, but you could tell that they liked this guy.  He was ‘cool,’ and ‘funny,’ the way he trash talked everyone and got pissed but then laughed through the blood when you kicked his teeth out.  And I’m sure fans agreed, and I won’t say I disliked him, but, yeah, then he got a solo series, each issue covered by ‘Cuda, smiling at the viewer, standing amongst guns and bodies and blood.  This would not be the same type of contemplative bleakness found in Punisher; this was going to be Ennis getting his outlandishness on.  I understood what was happening: we were supposed to like Barracuda too.  It’s his comic!  Let’s be on his side!

…A drug dealer hires ‘Cuda to kill another one.  In a subplot that’s just included for jokes, this drug dealer wants for his son to be blooded into the world by being the one to actually make the kill, and since the kid is a hemophiliac – huge glasses, super skinny, mumbling, whom Barracuda nicknames ‘Hemo,’ he needs the biggest and baddest to protect him and guide him, and cue our titular goon.  Ah, but there’s money to be made playing sides against the other, and so ‘Cuda goes to work trying to pit dealer vs. dealer and to make it so he comes out on top, with ex-pornstar Wanda Lube on his arm.  Yes, it’s the kinda book that has a gag that sends a bullet through Lube’s breast implants – ‘It’s okay, it’s just my tits!’ – and a defrocked priest who can’t wait to do the unspeakable to Hemo.  There are many jokes about prison rape, and forced rape by ‘Cuda in general.  It’s the double-dealing Garth (for better or worse) does well, inflicting happily racist and ‘retard’ and ‘faggot’ language-slingin’ character types on us, but then also making ‘Cuda rather sexually fluid, and pairing him with his friend ‘Fifty,’ whom he happily addresses gender-appropriately when he crossdresses with a blonde wig and a shirt that says ‘Daddy Touched Me.’

The book is entertaining, and it looks damned phenomenal.  Parlov was born for Ennis’ worlds, all of these over-sized, gregarious archetypes, and colorist Dan Brown has the perfect, water-colory touch that lets Goran’s loose lines breathe while also giving them a grounded, rounded look.  And Rus Wooton is a champ at finagling Garth’s crowded writing style, with panels and panels of text rendered supremely readable.

But: what are we to do with this?  Do we cheer it on?  Is it a ‘boys will be boys’ good time?  The Big Guy Babysitter shtick is too clearly just a buildup to a final joke, and it’s even trawling stuff I felt like Garth did in his original Fury MAX series.  Everyone gets the piss taken out of ’em, but there’s still this clear affinity for ol’ ‘Cuda, who has to survive since he was in some Pun arcs following this one.

Any Ennis fan will enjoy this.  It’s an odd fit amongst his Punisher MAX books, and there’s no depth here, it’s just a rowdy romp – and it can’t escape the trap of celebrating the same thing it condemns with some of its stereotypes – but, sure, this is what the people wanted.