Well, it was inevitable, really. Kick-Ass was always going to piss off the Daily Mail. If the violence and swearing weren’t enough, the fact that it was written by Jonathan Ross’ wife meant it was probably never going to get a fair hearing. But when you consider that the Mail’s resident film reviewer is Chris Tookey – a writer who delights in self-righteous moralising – the stage was set for hand-wringing of the highest order. I don’t think anyone was prepared, however, for the slew of invective poured forth from Tookey’s keyboard in today’s paper, however – indeed, it takes “self-righteous moralising” to entirely new levels, not to mention doing the same for “talking complete and utter nonsense” and “potentially committing libel”.
As readers of a comic book review site, chances are you’re all people who are more likely to like Kick-Ass than not; ergo, you don’t particularly need to read me taking Tookey’s review paragraph by paragraph and challenging a number of his assertions. Nevertheless, there’s too much about his review that I simply couldn’t let stand without comment, so what follows is a rebuking of some of those points. Be warned that the following will contain spoilers for the film, so if you’re planning on seeing it and haven’t yet, you may want to wait until you have.
(The entire review can be read on the Mail’s site – however, if you don’t wish to click through there and thus contribute to their advertising revenues, Tookey has also posted a version on his own site – albeit one that appears to date from before the Mail’s subeditors got their hands on it, as it contains a completely irrelevant and unnecessary dig at J. Ross (who has absolutely zero involvement in the film), and curiously awards the film a rating of 3/10 rather than the “one star” given in the newspaper version. Interestingly, Tookey’s site also aggregates various positive and negative reviews from assorted sources – clearly lifted from Rotten Tomatoes, as all the same extracts are used as on that site. Funnily enough, it means that one of the reviews quoted on his site is… mine.)

It’s hard not to feel like the comic version of Kick-Ass has been overshadowed somewhat. In the time it’s taken for its eight issues to be released, a movie version has been developed, produced, prepared for released and subjected to no small amount of hype and excited anticipation. While we’re still a couple of months away from it hitting cinemas, if advance word-of-mouth is anything to go by, it seems that Millar and Romita’s great legacy in creating this property will come from a film that looks set to be a huge hit rather than a comics miniseries that has provided moments of brilliance but been, on the whole, rather patchy (not to mention having its momentum stalled by a slow publication schedule).
There are fewer more curious beasts in comics at the moment than Kick-Ass. At once a gloriously over-the-top violence fest, and yet superficially grounded in something approaching “the real world”. Covers and advertising that bombastically proclaim it the greatest comics work in history and suggest a hugely piss-taking tone, and yet the internal content has been at its best when making the reader care about the characters rather than the blood and gore. And featuring a lead character who spent the first few issues as an unlikeable prick, but whom at this point one can’t help but root for.
Quite a week for heavily-delayed, high-profile titles, isn’t it? A new Astonishing X-Men, Detective Comics #853 (more on that later in the week), and Kick-Ass. God alone knows where it’s been, mind – the story must have been written yonks ago given that they’ve nearly finished making a film of it, and Romita Jr is one of the most reliable and steady pencillers in the business, so he can’t have been holding it up. Anyway, it’s here now, and it remains one of the most talked-about books in comics whenever it shows its grubby, blood-drenched face.
This week, we’re handing out the First Annual Comics Daily awards – one per day – between Christmas and New Year. Each award has been written up by a member of the Comics Daily team after a consensus was reached, and highlights what we feel have been the best of superhero comics this year.