Origin: Nuclear waste was illegally dumped near the indian reservation where Barney Runningbear grew up. Barney was eight years old. The nuclear waste polluted the water and his family died. Due to a genetic anomaly, Barney mutated. He was briefly taken in by a family in Everett, Washington (Dusty, Tracy and Betty Root) but their home was destroyed due to rioting neighbors that didn't want a freak living in their neighborhood.
Barney ran away from home. Falling on hard times, Barney became a petty thief. He met a young mutant girl named Rikki Shaefer and they became friends. They were both arrested and eventually relocated to Arizona to the Mutate Manpower Management Service, a super-villain detainment and rehabilitation unit that was, in fact, a freak work camp headed up by Dr. Verlag. It was there that Barney was codenamed Barbaric and Rikki Shaefer was codenamed Ricochet. When The MMMS started to develop mind control devices to keep prisoners in line that wouldn't do their bidding, Barbaric, Ricochet and Jerry (Inhabiter) Steele made a break for it. When it appeared that Jerry had been shot dead, Barbaric and Ricochet escaped on their own, deserting Jerry.
The two found their way to Chicago where they hid out in the Chicago underground, living with other homeless freaks. It was there they met Officer Dragon who befriended them and eventually persuaded Barbaric to the Chicago Police Department and what they unofficially called, their "Freak Force" program, where he met Dart, Rapture, and Horridus. Ricochet was, at the time, too young to join the police department.
Recently, Barbaric became a member of Special Operations Strikeforce, a government-based squadron of superhuman adventurers. Soon afterwards, he married Ricochet, who gave birth to their baby daughter soon afterwards.