Review of Kick-Ass the comic book
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Up front here, I am no fan of Millar. Wanted was shit with a couple of warmed over ideas, some stuff for random shock value, random racism, and buried in all that was one or two interesting things that would be good in the hands of a competent author. The artwork was also bad, in that it was drawings of various actors for some reason.
Enough about Wanted, though, this is about Kick-Ass. I went back and read the comic just out of curiosity spurred by the upcoming movie.
Premise- nerd decides to be a superhero. Not groundbreaking, but not common and a good place to start.
One of the biggest mistakes, in my opinion, is that Millar feels that being bored is enough to make someone go through all this. There is nothing further, there is no development. There’s only some narcissism, gore, and dick jokes. Even that description sounds better than it really is.
This is like trying to describe why Shoot ‘Em Up is awful. The descriptions fail to convey how shitty it all hangs together.
Throughout the 8 issue run the characters are never engaging, the action is just sort of a boring smear of blood, and nothing seems to stick, despite the premise hinging on only mild hyperbole of reality. Spinal trauma and severe blood loss? Forget about it. Testicle torture? What consequences?
The story proper doesn’t exist. The main arc consists of perhaps two key scenes, with a number of clips filling the space between without adding much.
Oh, and of course there’s some not quite racism combined with a “It’s ok, his dad is fucking a black chick” moment.
On that note for a moment, I’m of the ilk that heroes should be flawed, sometimes significantly, but that needs to be anchored to some substance worth contrasting it against.
So yeah, this crap gets a movie, while The Black Pearl is nowhere to be found.