Wanton Punishment Part III

At this time of writing, I am currently experimenting this using a wireless network at Starbucks across my neighborhood. Quite a dull day, a bit. The group Good Charlotte was at Subang Parade, where I did my grocery shopping today. I could have been joining the run at Kiara Park but the session of attending Clemen Chiang's preview of Options Trading prevented me from doing that thing. In my opinion, that was more interesting. Both are interesting.

While I went shopping today, there was heavy rain at around 3 p.m. But the problem was that it was quite heavy and a there was a thunderstorm. I got to thank myself that I bought a surge-protected cord that protects against lightning strikes. It saved my modems bacon. I wanted to rush back home to see if there would be a disaster on my modem or not. Saved by that thing. The car was left at the tire shop in order to do some rotation.

My friend told me that Windows Vista has a different IDE which might create problems for applications that runs well in Windows XP. Take SQL Server 2005 for example. It installs fine in XP but in Vista I encountered a problem where I could not proceed on. It's like that they could not detect the instance in my machine. Took me the whole day to discover the actual solution. The solution is two ways - one which is setting the machine name into upper casing and the other one is to disable case-sensitive collation. But I can't guarantee whether one of the applications that I carry - the office one - will work or not. Since their database is designed to work on SQL 2000. SQL 2000 does not work on Vista. Instead you need SQL 2005 SP2 to run. I hope it runs fine, since it is run together with JTDS JDBC driver.

Wanton Punishment

This would be the third part of the Punisher retrospective. I might consider of adding one more as to show those prequel: Born or the First And Last series in future, but I figure that those literally are the bookends of Frank Castle's life. Today, I would be covering the last two of the books.

The Slavers is called as the most brutal and humanistic drama in the current Punisher canon. This is the one occasion where the horrors inflicted on Viorica and other women who became the unwilling prostitutes of the Slavers - brutal men from the Eastern bloc nations triggered a spark of conscience in Castle's black heart.


The theme is clearly simple and clear: Slavery. For the sake of money, these men are willing profit from capturing women during the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian war of 1991-95. NATO's influence in the peace-keeping occupation to stop the ethnic genocide had forced the mercenaries led by the father-son team of Tiberiu and Cristu Bulat to leave their native Moldova (a fictional country) and depart for the West - to make money. The one thing that Cristu never like about his father was the unwillingness to change or adapt to the new lifestyle. He makes money but Tiberiu refused to be part of it.

In the first segment, Tiberiu slaughtered a gang of Yardies at an abandoned shipyard. Rather than killing one to show the rest a lesson, he killed all to show that. That eventually boiled the son down and that's where the crushing ball starts rolling onto him.

We are living in the current world where money is the essential need in order to meet our demands for the basic needs that a human has to have: food, shelter, clothes. Simply put that you cannot meet the basic needs if you do not have money. But money can be acquired in both legal and illegal ways. It the current psychology that people will do anything to get money at short term. In the context of legal ways of making money, many people think of one that is working. But a niche knows that there are many ways than that: passive income. A millionaire makes money through many streams of money avenues.

Internet marketing is one way, options trading is another new way. Options trading is a new way. This morning, I attended a preview of options trading by Dr. Clemen Chiang, a renown options trading expert. With options trading, according to him, a person can leverage 10 times the profit than in the stock market and still make money disregarding of the market condition. His method is proven around the world and people can make up to $50000 in one night. The most valuable playing field for the options trading is always the New York Stock Exchange. Only the best companies in the world are listed in the NYSE.

However, Robert Kiyosaki warned that the US market is currently in the slowdown. This situation currently foreshadows the impending stock market crash that might affect the US and possibly Asia except for Singapore (Malaysia - unsure) for 14 years from 2009. When that happens, you can imagine what happen to stock market players suffering from money loss. It's like a global level of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Consequently, you can say that people might be resorting to crime just for the sake of money.

The moment that sparked the chord of conscience in Frank was the moment the Slavers murdered the infant child of Viorica. This was the point that those genocide people had gone too far. These men had a mole in the NYPD at the form of the timid detective Stuart Westin. In the first-half of the story, Westin used his influence to exert the NYPD to declare a open-season manhunt on Castle. He had distorted the truth of Frank stopping NYPD's Parker and Miller without beating them or killing them. The NYPD had support for Frank for he had done things that they cannot do beyond the law.

These slavers are ex-soldiers by themselves and they know the rules of engagement and strict military discipline. But as the tagline says, "They think they know what war is," this doesn't mean that they the best soldiers ever. With that kind of military mentality, they know no bounds of violence or greed. Not even the prison cells hold them. You can't hold Frank forever in a prison, for he can find a way to get out. Try Ryker's prison. The only thing that they can fear of is someone who is equal and can show them what war is. This was evident in a soldier showing a soldier at the end of part 4.

Much of the scenes in the The Slavers were based on the under-appreciated Bond movie staring Timothy Dalton entitled License To Kill. In his two films as Bond, Dalton's portrayal is the most accurate ever as was written in Ian Fleming's novels. So far, License To Kill is the most brutal of all Bond movies, evident with the release of the Ultimate Edition last year which shows the gore including Leiter's stump, Dario getting minced and etc. Dalton's Bond exhibits anger and real emotion that is never seen in Moore's period (1973-1985). An actor that was chosen as Bond will be offered a customary three-picture deal with an option for extension depending on fan reception and box-office performance. This was the time we get to see Bond as a one-man vs organization with no help whatsoever. Frank is used to be under this kind of pressure and situation, so for Frank it's merely a clockwork for him.

You can check the review of License To Kill here.


Frank can be Bill the Butcher -as how he cut open the guts of Cristu at the end of the second act of the story. And this was the first time that an enemy is scared for his life, and eventually bled out to his death. The final act of Frank executing the father is the exact mirror of the climatic scene of License - Sanchez being burned to death after being soaked with kerosene. Frank has the dark menace inside him - he recorded the video to show those scum in Europe, "Don't come back here." Not even his allies are spared from his phrase here. He doesn't like people to come back and find him, believing that it might disrupt or interfere with his modus operandi.

But the reason d'etre behind his decision is was to serve as a warning to the rest. He knows that he cannot stop the entire criminal activity like kidnapping and robbery, drug smuggling and etc and one time. As the tagline of HYDRA, "kill one and another will pop out" applies here. Just the issue of pirated goods rampant in Malaysia, you can't shut down one and just stop - there will be more trying to exist and so on.

People without humanity -seems like it's better to have Frank step aside and get Anniyan.

For some reason, Barracuda proves to be part-drama and black comedy thanks to the superb performance of Barracuda, the 300-pound black man whose comedic humor was the reason he was chosen as Wizard's Best New Character in a comic book. His humor and slogan - the FUCK YOU gold teeth is something that will intimidate an opponent.


Barracuda is perhaps Ennis' dig of corporate crimes at the former ENRON energy company. According to Wikipedia, the Houston based Enron employed around 21,000 people (McLean & Elkind, 2003) and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of $111 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. It achieved infamy at the end of 2001, when it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained mostly by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption.

The description of Dynaco - a fictionalized account by Sid Stephens a man rescued by Frank in the opening matches the current description of ENRON.

Note: Sid Stephens was drawn based on actor Damian Lewis and loosely based on Neil Coulbeck.

The plan by Dynaco of withholding parts for electricity generation was to ensure maximum premium profits for its stockholders. A brainchild of Harry Ebbing and his golden boy Dermot Leary, modeled after Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the idea - in the eyes of the Punisher would be to cause another Hurricane Katrina disaster and in the process cost people money and worst of all - lives of those in the ICU of hospitals since you need power for those critical machines like the breather system.

Dermot Leary - near to the end of the story - boasted to Frank that he can't defeat an organization with just bullets and guns "Why not just go home?" But Dynaco never saw the entire picture that their scheme - the sharks of Wall Street - is still killing people indirectly. So that's why Frank thinks it's for the sake of those innocents, rather than having their blood spilling onto their hands decided to wipe all at one shot. So again, once again, we start to question of post Communism. Capitalism has taken over, and Dynaco is the dark side of capitalism - the choking and torture of the middle and lower class people.

Following the ENRON scandal, Arthur Andersen was shut down following the organization's crime of obstruction of the law and withholding audit evidence of ENRON to be given to the court of law. One of those member of the organization that I knew, Adrian Tsen was a victim as the result of the shutdown.

Barracuda is the collection of the negative stereotypes of black people of one. Hence the humor and his attitude towards those involving him. The funniest moment of all was the moment where Stephens asked him.."FUCKY?" He lost the OU teeth during his skirmish with Frank. Losing a few limbs doesn't stop him from his humor or his capable of maiming people. Barracuda is loosely based on Jaws - the lovable villain in The Spy Who Loved Me. He's a cynic.

Live and Let Die - the first Moore Bond movie is prominently referred to, particularly about Barracuda's characterization. Felix Leiter got bitten by a shark in the novel here. Sharks and combination of JAWS are prominently here.

A few cynical moments of Barracuda:

1. He sings the bad-mouthed version of Rod Stewart's I'm Sailing
2. He got annoyed with Stephens calling him FUCKY. "Bitch you best disappear with the fuck now! You are putting a strain to my famous god damn sense of humor!"
3. He was sent by Harry to look out for Alice and found her with Dermot. He wanted to chop them down with a machete but the next moment he eats pancakes!?

Alice Ebbing is the most perfect whore that I've ever seen in the comics. Artist Goran Parlov drew her as a nod to John Romita Jr and Sal Buscema's modeling of Mary Jane. According to the sleeve notes, Alice is the flipside of Mary Jane herself. A whore who gets what she wants and event backstabs Harry and Barracuda for freedom with Dermot.

Perhaps it's the popularity and critical praise for Barracuda that Ennis decided to write a spin-off of Barracuda. How he escaped the shark at the end of book remains a mystery. And it is up to me to grab the paperback and see how he escapes. But I had a hunch that it will be like how Jaws escaped The Atlantis - he bit the shark!

Well, that's the retro of The Punisher, for now..but in future there will be one. But I guess that it might be either next month or in year end when the TPB of Widowmaker is out.