Foolkiller is amazing. It’s intelligent, amoral, and thoughtful. It’s also more political than any comic book either of the major companies has published in years (it takes place during the first Gulf War and, wow, if it isn't just as relevant about this one). Marvel’s Punisher comics feature a lot of killing, but there’s at least some ethics to it. The titular Foolkiller goes around and kills anyone he deems is being foolish--whether they’re drug dealers or rude women. Foolkiller is a long series--ten issues--and Gerber takes his time. Each issue has a lot of content and a lot of little stuff going on. Structurally, it’s the best thing of Gerber’s I’ve read. He starts it slow, passing a lot of time, and he never gives the reader a lot of insight into his main character. We get a sense of him, but we never truly understand him. I don’t think Gerber does either.
Occasionally, when Foolkiller’s narrated with the character’s journal entries, you can see Gerber trying to get the character to some human state and he never quite manages it. He pushes the character in that direction, but he’s already established the character (and the series) in another direction. But the reader never stops caring about him. Caring might be the wrong word. It’s hard to care for him--the Foolkiller has a really dumb costume (he looks a lot like the gimp from Pulp Fiction, mask anyway), so taking him seriously is a bit of a problem. However, he truly likes the people around him, truly cares for them, and Gerber can’t reconcile the concern for the polite drug dealer and the murders of the impolite ones. Somehow the concern works, though, because the reader (and Gerber) don’t want to accept the horrifying implications of liking the character... or thinking he makes sense.
Gerber sets Foolkiller up against some truly stupid and repugnant people in Foolkiller, again foreseeing the post-9/11 United States with a Fox News type and the black and white of American politics (which probably existed back in 1990, but I was only twelve). Foolkiller’s obsession, however, is just a drug dealer, which brings the story down to a more tactile level, but also gets the character’s morality (developing and changing as it is) twisted.
I had a number of problems with J.J. Birch’s artwork. I think it was with his faces. I can’t remember. Right now, I’m just thrilled to have read Foolkiller.