The original Foolkiller was an evangelist whose only two known comics appearances faced him off against the Man-Thing; he was killed during their confrontation. His real name was never determined.

The first of the individuals who has called himself the Foolkiller was, as a boy, obsessed with the military; confined to a wheelchair when young, he could never be an active soldier himself.

The first step that led him to become the Foolkiller was his encounter with a traveling evangelist known as Reverend Mike, who enabled him to walk through immediate religious conversion. From there he traveled with Reverend Mike's caravan.

The second step towards his becoming the Foolkiller was his perception, as he grew to manhood, of the signs of his time as meaning that civilization was coming to an end. He came to blame social decay on unwitting agents of Satan, or "fools," and developed a fanatical religious philosophy whose terms required that an avenging agent of God kill them. He chose himself to be this contemporary savior and called himself the Foolkiller.

But the night he completed his Foolkiller outfit to show Reverend Mike, he discovered the latter drunk and carousing with a young girl. Enraged at this betrayal and disillusionment, he killed Mike. In possible repentance, the Foolkiller used the money from the caravan's considerable treasury to preserve Mike's body in a glass tank that became his central shrine.

The Foolkiller, as described preceding, appeared only in MAN-THING #3 and MAN-THING #4.

After the death of the original Foolkiller in conflict against Theodore Sallis, who had become the Man-Thing, Gregory Salinger assumed the Foolkiller's identity, donning the outfit, employing the weapons, and undertaking the mission of the original Foolkiller. Not quite a hero, he was as much a criminal vigilante as the original had been. Salinger was later confined to a mental hospital for treatment.

Alternate Realities

Earth-928

In 2099 A.D., Gideon was known as the last Foolkiller. He had a whole past story with Desert Ghost -- responsible for gathering a new team of X-Men at that time -- and the Lawless.

Foolkiller MAX

Michael Trace is the character that decided to carry on with the Foolkiller burden most recently.

He was the CEO of a profitable company that was dismantled after a tragedy involving Michael's

mother and a school bus. Feeling personally guilty for what happened, Michael left everything

behind in order to find a new meaning for his life.

While living on the streets for some time, Michael went through a great change of personality,

becoming a person obsessed with the idea of the fool -- that is, the man responsible for not respecting the consequences of his actions and thus, responsible for corrupting the society as well, in his own opinion.

The solution for that kind of problem was simple for him -- killing or punishing everybody he thought was a fool, hence the Foolkiller

name. That was the point in which he started his career as a vigilante, terrorizing the criminal community.