Kick-Ass 2

Title:
Kick-Ass 2

ISBN:
9780785152460

Price:
$19.99

Publisher/Year:
Marvel, 2013

Artist: John Romita Jr.

Writer:
Mark Millar

Collects:
Kick-Ass 2 #1-7

Rating:
3/5

If
you only know Kick-Ass from the movie, you don't know Kick-Ass. The comic is a
whole other animal, and neither the relatively light mood nor feel-good ending
of the film were taken from the original pages written by Mark Millar and
illustrated by John Romita Jr. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of this sequel
book can even make it to the movie screen -- it's brutal, vicious stuff. Some
of the characters, so easy to like under those warm Hollywood lights, have
pretty awful things happen to them here, and you might walk away from this book
a little sick to your stomach.

That
said, it's a sure bet that, if ordinary people in the real world suddenly
started dressing like superheroes and tackling villains the way they do here,
then this is probably the sort of thing that would happen to them, as well as
those around them. Crooks in the real world don't play by comic-book rules.

In
Kick-Ass 2, our hero Dave (Kick-Ass) was being trained by 11-year-old Mindy
(Hit-Girl) to be a better street fighter -- until she got grounded by her
stepfather, who has an unreasonable bias against having his daughter out on the
front lines killing criminals. Now, Dave is living the dream -- a member of
Justice Forever, a group of like-minded heroes who want to help people however
they can.

But
then the former Red Mist -- I won't utter his new code name here -- comes back
with an army of thugs and a thirst for revenge, and things turn really ugly
very fast.

This
book is well written and well-drawn. It's a pleasure to read in part because
it's not like many other titles on the market -- certainly, you won't see these
sorts of developments in an Avengers or Justice League book. Be warned, though,
it's not for kids.