Kick-Ass #1 Review

KICK-ASS #1
Written by Mark Millar
John Romita Jr

I'll refrain from the obligatory, 'this kicked ass', as I'm sure every reviewer out there that enjoyed the issue is probably saying that already. Suffice to say, this was an entertaining debut for a rather unique, in so far as I can't believe no one has written a book about this yet, way.

In case you've been asleep at the wheel, Millar and Romita Jr decided to team up and do a creator owned project together. Kick-Ass is the culmination of that union.

The premise is pretty simple. What would happen if someone in the real world decided to dress up like a super hero and go fight crime. And by real world, I mean it. This is very much set in a modern day world, with references to Whedon's Astonishing X-Men and Buffy work for example, littered throughout the book.

Story wise, the book flashes back and forth a few times before we get to the actual 'beginning' of the story. It starts out with a copy cat super hero plunging to his death as his homemade wings fail to work like the comics. This is followed up with a glimpse our future hero getting his testicles electricuted by mobsters in his wetsuit cum super hero costume.

Once that glimpse of what's to come is out of the way, we get into a typical comic fan's high school life. Millar's quite blunt and a bit over the top with the information we get about our would-be hero, Dave Lizewski, who's name comes from a charity auction, which the winner got to have his name immortalized in the comic. It does the job of making this book 'real' compared to typical super hero fare, but somethings are better left unsaid, like his masterbating habits or borderline stalker tendancies. Millar goes out of his way to make it be known this kid has no real 'super hero reasons' for becoming a costumed avenger and I found the references to no radioactive spider or alien refugee and so on a bit cliched, almost as if they were put in for the eventual movie adaption or some such, but it's a small nitpick and I digress.

In the end, the book sees young Dave hitting the gym with a high protein diet and practicing his roof top climbing until, one night, he decides to go on patrol and finds some teenagers spray painting a wall after they see him in the shadows watching. This leads to an altercation which ends quite badly for young Dave. Stabbed, bleeding and most likely dying, he stumbles out into traffic, where he is promptly run over and left for dead by the motorists who don't want to stop in that neighbourhood or face penalties for killing someone. I'm not sure how he survives this for future issues based on the ending, but it was a great first issue with an unconvential premise.

My only complaint for this book is the language. There are more F-bombs dropped in this issue than his over the top Wanted series and I can't recall so much swearing when I was in high school a few years back or even in everyday conversation. I'm no choir boy or anything nor do I shy away from harsh language, but it just seemed like a new kid finding out about a bad word and using it every second sentence.

Verdict - Must Read. Excellent premise, solid execution and some of Romita's best art in a long time. I think it might be a new inker responsible for the cleaner images, but, honestly, no one actually notices the 'tracer' (don't hate me inkers, it's a Chasing Amy joke), so it might just be a different style for a different book by JRJr.

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