Wouldn't he zzzzzzt himself the first time he did something foolish?

Also this issue: Man-Thing gives a shack the what-for. From 1974, Man-Thing #3, "Day of the Killer, Night of the Fool!" Written by Steve Gerber, pencils by Val Mayerik, inks by Jack Abel.

We start with the shack, which wasn't a harmless construction shack, but was in actuality a trap set for Man-Thing by his foes, contractor F.A. Schist and Professor Wilbur Wickham. They want to kill Manny real bad, although this issue doesn't get into why. Man-Thing was usually placid and somewhat lethargic, but today he seems to remember that trap, and smashes the crap out of it, scaring off Schist and company for now.

Nearby, Richard Rory (...ugh) says goodbye to some new friends; namely some bikers that were going to kill him but now like him. Unfortunately, Richard forgot to ask them, or the cops that were also there earlier, to borrow some gas, so he and his girl Ruth are still stuck there! His biker friends are even less fortunate: they ride smack dab into the Foolkiller, who stops them with his "purification" laser pistol. FK is searching for Rory; to their credit the bikers don't give him up, and are both killed. (The fate of their girls is unclear, if they survived the bikes exploding, but Foolkiller doesn't question them or check.) Foolkiller then heads to the F.A. Schist construction camp, to give Schist his card:

Later, a familiar seeming sports car stops to help Rory and Ruth, before heading up the road: while grateful, Rory has a feeling "as though he's had a meeting with destiny--and slept through it!" Even though he's in costume again the next page, that was pretty obviously Foolkiller helping Rory out, but he misses his first target en route to his third: Dr. Theodore Sallis--the Man-Thing! Somehow, FK had accessed the secret "Serum SO-2" information, and put together what had happened to Sallis. (Which would seem obvious if you read comics, but a bit of a jump in-story!) He is distracted by a helicopter, which in another logical leap he assumes is Schist trying to escape, and shoots it down. Instead, it was innocent bystanders escaping a flood, now crashed into a swamp and surrounded by gators. This unforced error seems to jar Foolkiller, so he's slow to respond, but the Man-Thing lurches into action, throwing the gators around and saving the people.

Foolkiller says he will reconsider Manny's death, but in doing so calls him Sallis, which seems to trigger the same response that saying "Banner" to the Hulk did. Feeling the hate in FK, the Man-Thing advances on him, and is gunned down by repeated laser blasts. The second-to-last panel has a Marvel Value Stamp cut out of it, but still a good line: "And finally...when his insides are dry as chalk" the Man-Thing falls, dead. Well, 'dead,' I'm pretty sure like a large Gatorade would reconstitute him. I also know the Foolkiller gun and costume have been passed around a bit, but I had forgotten the religious crusade aspect of this one. Although he seems less 'avenging angel' than 'dangerous lunatic,' Gerber probably won't make a paladin of him. Read more!

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!
Read more!