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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Pretty close to what I remember from the movie. Rather amazed at how similar the movie and the book are. Great artwork and a story about regular people turning into super heroes. Irreverent as all hell.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really liked the movie Kick Ass. And at a recent comicon the comic came into my hand at a discounted price I couldn't say no to. Though it did and does smell like cigarettes.
So Kick Ass is fun. It's edgy just to be edgy it seems and it revels in the cussing and violence and sexual jokes. But Kick Ass is fun. Maybe sometimes that's all I need from a comic, or really all I needed from this comic. I'll say it was good enough for me to want to read the next one but not good enough for me to really get excited about it.
I really like the movie Kick Ass and I can say now without a doubt that the movie is better. Better structured, better paced, overall the movie really goes beyond the sex, violence, and geeky awkwardness of it all. The comic does not.
John Romita Jr does a good job here. It's not his Spider-Man run but it's not All Star Batman. It lies inbetween those two. But really it was nice to look at and it was drawn very cinemaesque which works for the story and Mark Millar's writing.
Basically I had fun but I don't think it'll leave a lasting impact on me other than the times I remarked how violent it was, or how excessive it got, or how much of a typical sad one dimensional character Dave was. But I had fun, if that's all you want here you'll get it.
It reminds me a bit of bad edgy comics from the 90's.
3 stars go watch the movie.
So Kick Ass is fun. It's edgy just to be edgy it seems and it revels in the cussing and violence and sexual jokes. But Kick Ass is fun. Maybe sometimes that's all I need from a comic, or really all I needed from this comic. I'll say it was good enough for me to want to read the next one but not good enough for me to really get excited about it.
I really like the movie Kick Ass and I can say now without a doubt that the movie is better. Better structured, better paced, overall the movie really goes beyond the sex, violence, and geeky awkwardness of it all. The comic does not.
John Romita Jr does a good job here. It's not his Spider-Man run but it's not All Star Batman. It lies inbetween those two. But really it was nice to look at and it was drawn very cinemaesque which works for the story and Mark Millar's writing.
Basically I had fun but I don't think it'll leave a lasting impact on me other than the times I remarked how violent it was, or how excessive it got, or how much of a typical sad one dimensional character Dave was. But I had fun, if that's all you want here you'll get it.
It reminds me a bit of bad edgy comics from the 90's.
3 stars go watch the movie.
What always amuses me about Mark Millar is that his greatest strength as a writer is often also my greatest problem with his writing.
Kick-Ass is the only property by Millar where I watched the adaptation before reading the original, and I really should have known what was coming. When you watch a Millar comic brought to another medium, it's almost expected that some of Millar's rough edges will get sandpapered off so as not to make movie-goers uncomfortable.
Lemme give you some forinstances:
- The protagonist doesn't actually get nerve damage that functions as a superpower. He's just a creepy, more or less insane kid who's too stubborn to quit.
- Hit Girl's dad didn't actually have the Frank Castle back story, he was just a nerd who made it up and wanted his daughter to be bad ass.
- When the love interest of the protagonist finds out he was lying about being gay to get closer to her, she reacts with immense disgust and starts treating him horribly.
That's what never makes it to the big screen with Millar, his willingness to make the reader uncomfortable even while entertaining. Sometimes in his stories the characters get the real consequences of their actions. It's weird moments of logic in the otherwise logical world of super heroes.
Because really, if 1% of the population gained superpowers, I can almost guarantee less than 10% of those people would become super heroes. Many might become criminals, but most would really just prefer to go on living their lives.
Kick-Ass points out how insane this behavior is consistently. Because what's portrayed in the world of super heroes isn't really heroic at all. Real heroes step up when a situation presents itself. You don't need to patrol the streets in a costume to help people, and if you really wanted to do that, become a police officer. Otherwise they're less a hero than a power-mad vigilante. That sort of power fantasy gives us people like George Zimmerman.
Which makes me wonder how unhealthy our definition of a hero is.
What keeps Millar at three stars in this case is a combination of the unpleasantness and Romita's artwork. While generally competent, Romita draws anyone under the age of 18 like a fat-headed mutant with spindly limbs. They never look so much young as deformed. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's damn distracting at times.
His art also gives a poor sense of motion. Some of the heavy action scenes featuring Hit-Girl feel incredibly awkward because every image is more of a still frame even in shots where she's leaping across roof tops.
As with most Millar work, Kick-Ass is entertaining, but damn if it doesn't feel like a masochistic enterprise sometimes.
Kick-Ass is the only property by Millar where I watched the adaptation before reading the original, and I really should have known what was coming. When you watch a Millar comic brought to another medium, it's almost expected that some of Millar's rough edges will get sandpapered off so as not to make movie-goers uncomfortable.
Lemme give you some forinstances:
- The protagonist doesn't actually get nerve damage that functions as a superpower. He's just a creepy, more or less insane kid who's too stubborn to quit.
- Hit Girl's dad didn't actually have the Frank Castle back story, he was just a nerd who made it up and wanted his daughter to be bad ass.
- When the love interest of the protagonist finds out he was lying about being gay to get closer to her, she reacts with immense disgust and starts treating him horribly.
That's what never makes it to the big screen with Millar, his willingness to make the reader uncomfortable even while entertaining. Sometimes in his stories the characters get the real consequences of their actions. It's weird moments of logic in the otherwise logical world of super heroes.
Because really, if 1% of the population gained superpowers, I can almost guarantee less than 10% of those people would become super heroes. Many might become criminals, but most would really just prefer to go on living their lives.
Kick-Ass points out how insane this behavior is consistently. Because what's portrayed in the world of super heroes isn't really heroic at all. Real heroes step up when a situation presents itself. You don't need to patrol the streets in a costume to help people, and if you really wanted to do that, become a police officer. Otherwise they're less a hero than a power-mad vigilante. That sort of power fantasy gives us people like George Zimmerman.
Which makes me wonder how unhealthy our definition of a hero is.
What keeps Millar at three stars in this case is a combination of the unpleasantness and Romita's artwork. While generally competent, Romita draws anyone under the age of 18 like a fat-headed mutant with spindly limbs. They never look so much young as deformed. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's damn distracting at times.
His art also gives a poor sense of motion. Some of the heavy action scenes featuring Hit-Girl feel incredibly awkward because every image is more of a still frame even in shots where she's leaping across roof tops.
As with most Millar work, Kick-Ass is entertaining, but damn if it doesn't feel like a masochistic enterprise sometimes.
When asked about the creation of Kick-Ass, Mark Millar said it's "very autobiographical." That's mildly concerning at best. Think of the whiniest, most pathetic, self-proclaimed "nice guy" you know — that's Dave Lizewski , the teen protagonist determined to spice up his ho-hum life by becoming a real-life superhero.
This book came out in the late 2000s, so I expected it to have some politically incorrect elements, but to say it didn't hold up would be an understatement. It's full of casual misogyny and homophobia with a couple of r-words thrown in for flavor. Not to mention the oddly placed political commentary and blatant racism. Maybe the characters are supposed to come off as terrible but I get the feeling you're supposed to be rooting for someone, maybe even several someones.
Its only redeeming qualities are the premise and the art style. You're better off watching the movie.
This book came out in the late 2000s, so I expected it to have some politically incorrect elements, but to say it didn't hold up would be an understatement. It's full of casual misogyny and homophobia with a couple of r-words thrown in for flavor. Not to mention the oddly placed political commentary and blatant racism. Maybe the characters are supposed to come off as terrible but I get the feeling you're supposed to be rooting for someone, maybe even several someones.
Its only redeeming qualities are the premise and the art style. You're better off watching the movie.