James is away at Reading this week, so TSP is left in my hands. Muah hah hah hah hah. It’s a quiet one as a result, but some of our favourite creators - Gillen/McKelvie and Bryan Lee O’Malley - have put excellent and/or teasing things online this week, plus there’s the rather bizarre statement by that bloke at Warner Bros. about DC movies, and some infuriating spoilers courtesy of Kick-Ass movie news…

Continue reading »

Kick-Ass #1 launched amid such a massive wave of self-aggrandising hype and viral marketing that yours truly managed to remain blissfully unaware of its existence until about three days before it was released. This, naturally, demonstrates just how perfectly qualified I am to write a comics review column. Anyway, once it had been pointed out to me, the names were of course enough to draw me in – Mark Millar may have his critics, but you simply don’t ignore the man who wrote The Ultimates; while John Romita Jr. remains, for me, one of the absolute greats of the business.

So it was pleasing all round when that first issue turned out to be such tremendous fun. Millar’s clearly working very firmly in that “obnoxious” mode of his, but as the whole thing is comparable to Nextwave in terms of a writer cutting loose and fully indulging their sense of humour, tongue wedged firmly in cheek, for once it actually fit rather well. It’s a shame, then, that the now-much-anticipated second issue has turned out to impress me rather less.

It’s not that there aren’t neat moments. It’s just that the first issue, though not as original as it thought itself, was something of a breath of fresh air, and the consequences of Dave’s first attempt at superheroism were genuinely shocking. Here, though, after being shown his rehabilitation and recovery from his injuries, we know that despite his assertions to the contrary, it’s only a matter of time before he gets back into costume. And sure enough, so he does – but despite the entire story being narrated from his point of view, we never feel like we’re really getting inside Dave’s head, to discover just why he’s persisting with this after everything that’s happened. One simple line of dialogue – “The beast was friggin’ in me, man” – isn’t really enough to explain how he suddenly goes from “Never again” to being back pounding the streets.

Once he’s back in costume, of course, it’s even easier to see exactly where things are going – and, again, so it proves, with a more successful attempt at vigilantism seemingly vindicating his decision to get back on the horse. But part of the problem with following such a straightforward set of story beats is that, so far at least, Dave isn’t really a hero you find yourself rooting for. It’s possible to empathise with his general nerdiness, and I suppose he is driven by a desire to do something of genuine worth – but on the other hand, he’s a bit of a pillock. And for all the hype about this being a “realistic” book about someone trying to be a superhero… well, the idea of a recently-recovered spinal injury victim single-handedly taking on a group of thugs and winning means that the book is still rather more rooted in comic book rules than it perhaps feels it ought to be.

It’s still a very well-made comic, of course - the writing is brazenly confident, and JRJr couldn’t do poor work if he tried. And hey, it’s hard to argue with that front page tagline. But if there aren’t going to be any further twists in the story of Dave going out and kicking the crap out of people, then I’m going to lose interest fairly quickly. It’s the expectation that Millar surely has a lot more in his pocket, though, that’ll keep me reading for now.

Kick-Ass is one of those comics that paints itself as a realistic depiction of superheroes. It’s a trend that many will argue began, and should’ve ended, with Watchmen. Still, even Watchmen’s premise was fairly forgiving - it was a realistic take on a superhero universe as much as superhero characters. Kick-Ass goes one step further, asking what happens when someone in OUR universe - the real world - tries to be a superhero.

As you can imagine, the answers are fairly simple, and they involve some poorly thought-out violence, a lot of swearing, and a teenager with too much time on his hands. It’s gloriously, painfully bleak stuff. The main character cuts a familiar figure - a comic-obsessed teenager who spends his time jacking off to internet porn and praising Joss Whedon to his friends. I feel lampooned already.

Issue #1 is, naturally, an origin story: David Lizewski is a nobody. After his mother dies of a brain aneurysm, he lives alone with his father, playing video games and reading comics. There’s nothing special about him, no unreasonable trauma in his upbringing, he just can’t understand (and if you ask me, quite reasonably so) why people want to be Paris Hilton and not Spider-Man. The thing that separates him from all of us is that he’s got exactly the right combination of time, boredom and stupidity to take it to the next level. Putting on a wetsuit with a facemask, he goes out looking for crime. For a while, he’s enjoying it, even if he finds nothing. When he eventually tackles a gang of grafitti artists, things go south pretty as fast as you’d expect - he’s beaten up, shivved and left for dead.

And let me tell you this: it’s all hilarious. Seeing Romita really go to town on the violence levels is, in itself, worth the price of entry. He’s been drawing castrated super-hero books for so long that you can practically feel the glee dripping off the page like the blood he’s drawing when David smacks a gang member in the face with his bat. Millar has his flaws as a writer, but he’s definitely managed to rein in his wilder tendencies - in David, he’s created a character who, far more than someone like Peter Parker, represents the everyman. I’m sympathetic with his directionless, entertainment-obsessed plight. The script, though, is where Millar really shines, and the last line of the book is what sells me on the next issue. I hesitate to spoil, but if you’re undecided it sums up the tone of the book perfectly: ”Two broken legs, my spine crushed, and dressed like a fucking pervert. My dad was going to kill me.”