Random Happenstance

I watched Netflix's Punisher over the weekend, and liked it; even though it feels strange that Frank doesn't seem to be at war with criminals at this point. Also, I saw someone complain that he wasn't full-on the PUNISHER yet. In the comics, if you gave the average criminal the choice between cancer or the Punisher, most would choose cancer, since you have a chance fighting it. As we see in today's book! From this year, Foolkiller #4-5, written by Max Bemis, pencils by Dalibor Talajic, inks by Jose Marzan Jr. Cover by Dave Johnson, which I should put on the GCD later!

I thought this series was part of a Deadpool push, along with Deadpool and the Mercs for Money and Solo, but I'm not sure they all came out at the same time. Honestly, it was part of way too many books hitting the racks at the same time, and I might not have noticed it if I hadn't lucked into the first four issues for a buck each. Finding the last one was a bother, though; but my local Comic Book Shop fixed me up there. There's other options these days, of course, but how annoying would it be to have four comics and have to read the conclusion digital? Still, this series was both slept on, and way better than it had to be.

Greg Salinger was the second Foolkiller in regular Marvel continuity, and was in pretty good shape after his stint with Deadpool's Mercs: he had a loving girlfriend, and a good job working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Now a psychotherapist working with super-powered villains to rehabilitate them or extract info from them, he has a bit of a relapse to his murderous vigilante days and starts killing the bad guys he can't make better. You might think S.H.I.E.L.D. would frown upon that, and they might, since Greg wasn't really working for S.H.I.E.L.D! Throw in the return of 90's Foolkiller Kurt Gerhardt and a gratuitous guest spot mental health day with Deadpool, and he's got a lot on his plate.

In the final issue--and I don't know if this was meant to be an ongoing or not; but if not I wish Marvel would just call it a limited series. Easier to go all in if it's only going to be four or five issues...anyway, after a somewhat anticlimactic fight with Gerhardt, Greg faces the man behind the curtain. Or the guy wearing a curtain, the Hood! I'm not even positive he had his titular hood, since he says it was "healing from being #@%$ up pretty much beyond repair," he may just have a curtain over his head. Still, despite having no powers and little staff, the Hood still had one card to play against Greg, and it was a doozy: either work with him as "the ultimate villain-therapist to the stars," or the Hood's snitch will drop Greg's name to the Punisher.

Greg takes a third option, "a taste of my own medicine," and checks himself into Ravencroft Asylum. While he's able to help himself and even others, he worries he still has a reckoning coming...I liked this series more than I would've expected, especially the Deadpool appearance and the Punisher cameo. Well worth flipping through, if you can get that last issue!