Thursday, April 16, 2015

Teen-Hero Month: Kick-Ass 2.

.... Yeah, so I did the math, and came to the conclusion that Barbara Gordon in the N52 is NOT a teen hero.
Oops...
Let's talk some more Kick-Ass instead.
Kick-Ass 2 takes place a year after the events in the first series. The superhero community has grown large, and Kick-Ass has even formed his own superhero team; Justice Forever. Everything seems to go Dave's way.
That is, until the arrival of the world's first supervillain who calls himself the Mother Fucker. He is the son of the mob-boss that Kick-Ass and Hit Girl killed and now he seeks revenge. He gathers an army of other goth-pricks, and decides to ruin Kick-Ass' life, as well as anyone who wears a superhero outfit.
Believe it or not, but I like the sequel. It's not my favorite comic or anything, but I can appreciate it for what it is. A dark comedy. But it still has problems.
First of all, I would have preferred it if Hit Girl were out of the picture. I never really cared for her, and it seemed like the end of Kick-Ass 1 implied that this was the end of her story. But I do like the idea about her training Kick-Ass, giving him the skills necessarily for fighting crime. That was my problem with the first book, that Dave, who is suppose to be this big comic nerd never thought that taking self-defense MIGHT be a necessity for being a superhero.
But again, Hit Girl fills up too much of the story.
Another problem is the ending of the series. When two sites dress up, one as heroes, the other as villains, then a final battle is to be expected. But it just didn't seem... final battle-ish enough. With a action series like Kick-Ass, you would expect some more fighting on screen than off screen. We mostly see Hit Girl fight, but I would have preferred seeing nerds and wannabees in tights duke it out as well as they could.
But as I said, I like this series for what it is. It's over the top, dark, very violent and has a pretty good idea about how a extreme superhero-subculture works.
That's all for now. I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

5 comments:

  1. My problem with KA2 is that it basically became "The Hit-Girl Show: Part 2".
    Following the film she became such a huge phenomenon, the comic Kick Ass 2 only really works if you read the "interquel" spinoff "Hit-Girl. And then again, it only really reads like the 2nd part of the Hit-Girl solo comic, not the second Kick Ass book.

    I still have yet to read Kick Ass 3, I just hope it concludes naturally the entire thing. It was such a fun promising tale, I think its quick and early success sort of got to Mark Millar's own head.

    (I much prefer Super Crooks, Nemesis or Superior over KA to be honest)

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    1. Have you read Secret Service?

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    3. Kingsman? That is one of those few books I've missed so far. That, and Jupiter's children.
      But it sounds pretty interesting.

      Have you read the comic book version of Wanted? About a 1000 times better than the awfully generic Hollywood film!

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    4. I have. And the movie was... well... yeah, it sucked big time.
      http://comicsin5panels.blogspot.dk/2013/08/wanted-in-5-panels.html

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