Foolkiller: Psycho Therapy

Foolkiller (2017) #1-5

by Max Bemis (Writer), Dalibor Talajić (Penciler), José Marzán Jr. (Inker)

Greg Salinger was just your typical merc for hire - killing those he deemed "foolish" for money. But that life is behind him now. Today, he's a psychiatrist, trying to help others. But now S.H.I.E.L.D. wants him to try to rehabilitate super villains. The catch? If these "patients" don't make enough progress, they're dead! Sounds like a job for Foolkiller! But when he finds himself alone with an arsenal of weapons against an army of skinhead Red Skull sympathizers, he'll be asking questions about his own career choices! Who's the fool now, Salinger?

COLLECTING: FOOLKILLER 1-5

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Superheroes, Graphic Novels

112 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2017

Reviews

[Artemy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Foolkiller by Max Bemis is a weird book. It's a perfectly solid, stylish, fun comic that I just didn't feel at all. It's essentially a Marvel attempt at a Dexter-like character, with a hint of Deadpool added to the mix, because Deadpool is all the rage nowadays. And it's fine. A lot of people will love this comic, especially if they're fans of Dexter and/or Deadpool. I am neither, so maybe that's my problem.

Max Bemis is also very obviously inspired by Nick Spencer, to the point where if I didn't know who wrote this comic, I'd swear it was Spencer himself. It's all there — morally questionable protagonist, dirty sense of humor, painfully overwritten dialogue and narration (seriously, sometimes you can't see the panels because of all the text balloons). Again, if you're a fan of Spencer's style and his books like The Fix, or Superior Foes of Spider-Man, you might love Foolkiller. I actually quite like those comics, myself, but this level of similarity between the styles of two authors just doesn't seem OK to me.

So, yeah. Foolkiller. Didn't like it. Many other people probably will.

[James DeSantis · Rating 5 out of 5]

You gotta love when you go into a series with NO expectation and come out so happy that you want more to only learn there IS NO MORE!!! UGHHHH! Anyway.

What's Foolkiller about James? Well let me tell you. Greg is just a dude with a dark past trying to do good. He decides to become a psychiatrist and "help" people. Sounds wonderful huh? I think so! However, when he begins to meet some crazy people including a man who's origin is tooooo funny for words he realizes something. He needs to kill these criminals before they do something even worse! So it's basically Dexter but a little more insane.

The story spans 5 issues which feels like a complete first arc. You get to see Greg's life, his internal struggles, and some great guest cameos. After first two issues I went back and read a little information about the previous runs of this character and it helped give issue 3-5 a bit more of a push into understanding all the craziness.

Good: This series is fucking hysterical. There, I said it. This might be my favorite comedy comic since The Fix. The humor is perfect, with a lot of small jokes, and when the big ones come out, they make you laugh. On top of that I LOVE Greg. He is just Meta enough, not Deadpool Meta, and gives a great look into the reader's views on famous "insane" characters. The origin of "shit man" is probably the funnist thing I've ever read in a Marvel comic. Like hands down, it got me laughing out loud. I also loved the last issue and it's "I don't give a fuck what you think comics are suppose to be like" feel. Just great.

Bad: It ended.

I really really loved this. Max def made me fall in love with a character I've NEVER read about before. I'm really eager to see what he does for his next Moon Knight series. This is one of my favorite comics I read this year. A 5/5.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 3 out of 5]

There have been four characters calling themselves the Foolkiller, this deals with the second one, who is now out of a mental institution, gotten a degree in psychoanalysis, and is attempting to cure psychopath supervillains on behalf of what he believes is SHIELD. When he can’t cure them of their foolishness, he kills them. This is the basic plot at the beginning and it stays good for a while, but either the author became bored or sales were down and the story became very meta quickly. It was ground-breaking when Grant Morrison did it back in the ‘80s with Animal Man. Now it’s old hat, especially when you toss Deadpool in there as this comic does. I suppose it was supposed to come across as witty, but instead it seems lazy, as if the writer couldn’t come up with a serious plot, or thought they were better than the material so they decided to half-ass it with ‘witty banter” and now-dated pop culture references.

Either way, I’ve read the meta-commentary and I know this sounds stupidly fanboy, but it really bugged me that the Foolkiller presented here, Greg Salinger is brown haired rather than the blonde he has always been portrayed as - and this brown hair appears in all of his flashbacks, so it's a definite oversight. Maybe it’s stupid, but I have mad love for the Foolkiller limited series from the 1990s - which has never been collected for some weird reason - and it is easily one of the darkest and best comics Marvel has ever produced. So when the third Foolkiller shows up, not written by comic legend Steve Gerber, and a piss-poor job is done in writing this character, I have to tune it out.

As you may have guessed by now, I really didn’t enjoy this comic too much. The art by Dalibor Talajic was excellent however, stylish yet sticking to the Marvel esthetic. It was probably the only thing that kept me reading, as the story got worse and worse. The very end however wsa good and fit in with the character of the second Foolkiller, even if the third Foolkiller was really a different character than I had read before. I really wished he hadn’t been ruined like this.

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

The man who was Foolkiller has given up superheroing for a regular identity and a regular job. He is now Greg Salinger, the psychologist working for SHIELD. His latest patient tried to copy Red Skull and failed miserably. Though Greg was making headway with him, the poor guy was pushed into killing a couple of guys for his gang. Greg did the only sensible thing: he labled the guy a 'fool' and broke his neck. Just like in the good old days, all he wants now is another fix, another fool that needs killing.

Rather than punish him for murdering people (nazis, so it's ok), SHIELD embraces Gary's homicidal tendencies. He becomes their very own Punisher, but the more reliable, controllable version. He soon learns that Gary Span, the friend who helped him begin his new life, is using him to kill bad guys and collect their bounties. Also his girlfriend was involved in an accidental death which shouldn't reach the light of day. He learned all this from Kurt Gerhardt, the current Foolkiller.

Greg kills Gary, shoots his way out a window and is 'rescued' by Deadpool who also has his girlfriend. She leaves him, so all he has left is revenge on the man behind it all - Parker Robbins the Hood. Greg listens to Hood's offer to join him as he rebuilds his criminal empire. Then refuses and puts himself in the psychiatric hospital. Hood promised to send the Punisher after Greg if he refused to join. The Punisher goes for the Hood instead. Unexpectadly, Greg gets a visit from his former girlfriend. There may be hope for the guy yet.

[Grant Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foolkiller is so obscure that I can’t even find him listed as a character on Unlimited to follow. I might just be stupid and searching it up the wrong way but all I see are his runs and ones following Gerhardt (a very well-done foil here). I don’t know which one the MAX imprint follows but I think it’s probably got some canonical connection to this run, and I hate that it’s inaccessible through the app. So are all the Squadron Supreme spin-offs that fill in the gaps between the original series and Hyperion vs. Nighthawk, so I don’t even feel like reading HvN yet (even though it’s probably deconstructing/satirizing BvS waaay before it was even conceived and I think that’s great/hilarious). The app also doesn’t list Inertia as being in any of those issues, and that would really suck if it were true. Yet again, great app, but I wish there was more Rated A content on it.

As far as this goes, imagine if James Gunn fucked around with more mature writing in Marvel instead of DC and did it much better than Peacemaker. I like Bemis’ style (better than Gunn’s aside from maybe Super), and I’d totally read more of his shit if it’s anything like this.

4/5.

[Villain E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a couple issues of 1990 Foolkiller series out of a 25-cent bin and I was blown away by them. It was the first thing I'd read by Steve Gerber. It was about a guy becoming a vigilante and how dehumanizing and numb you would need to get. A more realistic take on the superpowered vigilante concept for the time period. I eventually got the whole series and it wasn't all as good as those initial issues.

So I've noticed when Foolkiller pops up here and there, but the character usually isn't handled well. But this was pretty good.

So, the original Foolkiller, after leaving the Mercs for Money, has setup shop as a psychiatrist. He's working with a sketchy SHIELD agent to rehabilitate superpowered criminals. He's trying not to kill them, but they are such fools. Things escalate from there.

The art is solid, the writing and characterization is good. It almost stands on its own. This was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book. It has fun insightful (admittedly too meta for its own good) writing. It has great art that highlights how dumb everyone looks. It has good action, it is an interesting exploration of horrible people trying to be better. The main problem it has is simply its length its way too short and so quite a few ideas feel rushed in particular its starting premise which is great and should have been an entire series on its own. But when that gets skipped over the more meta elements start to take center stage and they are just not as interesting. Its often really simplistic references or very deliberate winks to the audience and it really gets in the way of the more interesting aspects of this book.

Again it is hamstrung by its length and it does start to go off the rails towards the end but there is enough good stuff throughout to outweigh the bad 7/10

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Greg Salinger (the second individual in the Marvel Universe to take on the Foolkiller sobriquet) has settled down from a life of vigilantism and mercenary action, returned to his work as a psychiatrist, and treats low level super-criminals in an effort to turn them around.

And then he starts killing them, first as an accident, and then when he thinks they can't be redeemed. It's a compelling concept that sadly fails under the weight of additional plot elements (a girlfriend with a past, the surprising return of [supervillain name redacted], and a Deadpool appearance). If this was a twelve issue series with time for a more introspective look, I would have been more entranced. As it is, I reread this to see if I'm keeping it in my collection and I'm not.

[Christopher Mclean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Following Bemis' excellent x-men book I was very keen to get into this one, particularly as the tone here is much the same. Bemis again takes a satirical look at a corner of the comic book world, this time focusing on the vigilante hero.

Unfortunately this time around I felt it was much more hit than miss. Maybe this was a too similar, maybe it was a lack of connection to the main character, maybe it was just a less interesting sroty. Whatever the reason this didn't connect with me at all and winds up feeling like a pale imitation of worst x-men rather than a unique work.

[Adam Spanos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Foolkiller is a ride with more and more meta-wankery with a side of very generic-feeling daddy issues. The point of the series appears to be "villains are people too - but, like, murderous deadly people who can't be trusted". It's a rather mediocre series but no amount of self-aware introspection is gonna make me forget that this series introduced a poop-themed villain named ☠☠☠☠ King, though.

[Mindy Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

foolkiller takes a break from ...killing fools, and tries to rehabilitate supervillains as a therapist. this was meh. 2/5. also since when is max bemis writing comics?! is this, like, a new trend among the frontman of every moderately successful mid 2000's emo band or is it just two of them so far? is adam lazzara gonna start writing for image next?

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

A minor marvel universe anti-hero is recast as a therapist. It's not evident that the writer of this book has had much therapy experience, but it was novel for a superhero comic to depict as much therapy as this one did.

Lots of diagnostic-type terms are thrown around with little evidence of understanding (OCD, etc). Interesting idea, would have loved to see a bit more research demonstrated.

[David the Ñoldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essentially, Dexter as a psychiatrist. One of the three Marvel titles I found interesting enough to read last year. It's unfortunate that it is a single arc, for it's probably one of the most interestingly written stories that had potential to go further.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I ultimately did. But I didn't dislike it, either? It had some good bits.

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it lost it's focus in the end, I really felt like this was an interesting visit into the mind of a comic book vigilante.

[Shantal Murillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last two issues saved these 5 issues run

[Hunter Lambright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book. I'd have loved to see at least another seven issues from this creative team. I think the concept is a lot of fun and want more, darn it.

[Lainy122 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Deadpool parts were the best parts.

Mildly entertaining. Didn't blow my mind in any way, but a decent read.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember liking this.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

How did reading this make me feel?

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not good. Besides bordering on a weird mix of edgy and le random XD, the plot was overall pretty incoherent. I liked the art, though. 1.5/5.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

[Gary Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 252

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely better than I'd expected...

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy serendipity. I had no idea my favorite teenage angst lyricist wrote this until I finished it. It's a beautiful thing when you go "This was actually pretty entertaining, who tf wrote it???" and the answer is a groovy nostalgic bump like this.

Bemis is perfect for this character, and vice versa. He wrote songs that spoke to me as a kid going through really scary illness and treatment, made me laugh about it and allowed the cathartic release of singing to it in my car to the tune of off beat pop punk so popular with my peers at the time (I would not go on to remain a fan of the genre, but my heart still skips a beat when I see that Is a Real Boy font around.)

This comic as a first issue of a side character arc is interesting, it covers a sufficient mix of past and future plot and doesn't give me that "you are literally pouring it on so thick I can't breathe" feeling that Deadpool gives me sometimes.