Someone that anxious to avoid the police, I usually let them have him. If I'm not killing him anyway. 
Appearing in "Barracuda, Part One"
Featured Characters:
- Punisher (Frank Castle) (Main story and flashforward) (Impersonates Joseph D. Carson)
Supporting Characters:
- Si Stephens (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Enrique (First appearance; dies)
- Dynaco (First appearance)
- Harry Ebbing (First appearance)
- Dermot Leary (First appearance)
- Alice Ebbing (First appearance)
- Billy LaCarda
- Barracuda (First appearance) (Main story and flashforward)
Other Characters:
- NYPD
- Captain Art Carlin (Appears on screen)
- FBI (Mentioned)
- Jesus (Invoked)
- Brett David (Appears on screen)
- FDNY
Races and Species:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
- Barracuda (First appearance) (Main story and flashforward)
Synopsis for "Barracuda, Part One"
The End[]
The Punisher stands on a boat named The Barracuda that sits in an ocean full of blood, bodies, and severed limbs. That, however, is is not where this particular story begins.
The Beginning[]
The Punisher has traced the source of a recent mini-flood of high-grade cocaine to a specific group of dealers, and so has taken their den down--violently. After killing the last of them, he finds a man naked and tied up in a bathroom. After he telling him where the coke is hidden he asks the Punisher for protection, claiming he can't speak to the police, but the Punisher leaves him anyway.
Elsewhere, at an office party, Dermot Leary is telling his boss, Harry Ebbing, that secret plans he made to kill would-be company "Whistleblower" Si Stephens have gone awry. Ebbing chastises him for not "coming to him first" as soon as Stephens became a problem. In Ebbing's office, where Harry's wife Alice overtly flirts with Leary, Harry explains that he had his coke dealer kidnap Stephens to kill him, but a District Attorney friend of his just passed him the information that he's been brought into the police station as the lone survivor of one of The Punisher's slaughters. Hearing the Punisher's name upsets Ebbing, who reiterates that Leary should have come to him first. Now in more trouble than they need to be, he pulls out his Rolodex to find someone to fix it, asking what precinct Stephens is in.
The Punisher, eating a hamburger in a restaurant, catches a news broadcast naming him as believed to have taken down the drug gang earlier. A reporter questions the local Police Captain about the "Anti-Punisher Initiative"--supposedly begun after he took down a slaving ring with departmental ties, though Castle hasn't noticed much difference--who says he can't comment on it now. While watching the news he notices former mobbed-up Sergent Billy LaCarda walking into the precinct house. Remembering the naked man saying he couldn't talk to the cops, and putting that together with LaCarda's sudden reappearance, Castle decides to investigate further.
Using a fake ID naming him as NYPD Lieutenant Joseph D. Carson, the Punisher gets into the police station where he finds LaCarda attempting to get the survivor (Stephens) out of the holding cell, only to be stymied by the officer on duty demanding his Captain's signature. When he refuses a bribe LaCarda pulls his gun, prompting Castle to set off the fire alarm. He runs in, knocking LaCarda out, and demands the officer switch places with Stephens. To amp up the chaos of the fire alarm, the Punisher throws a white phosphorus grenade into an empty room to look like a fire and allow their escape.
Later, Ebbing receives a phone call in his office letting him know that LaCarda has been arrested and Stephen has broken out of police custody. Though he believes LaCarda is being paid well enough to not talk, he's upset that he used such a valuable asset with no prep time because of Dermot's mistake. With Stephens with the Punisher, Ebbing has no choice but to call in a big gun to fight a big gun and dials up Barracuda.
Trivia
- This is the only issue in the Barracuda story arc that the Punisher wears his iconic Skull shirt.
