Read Comics

I just caught up on Kick-Ass. This comic should be called Ass Kicked, based on how often the main character gets beat up. I didn’t really think either issue was particularly awesome, but on the other hand, I was compelled to keep reading. I have to admit that I don’t particularly empathize with the main character or anything, but I do think it’s an interesting premise.

Jason clued us in to the controversy about the use of gay labels used in a negative context, unfortunately AFTER I’d already purchased these issues. Basically, my take on it was that if “bad guys” had used the terms demeaningly, then you could at least have that as an excuse, but it’s the main character who calls some spray painters “homos”, (and then proceeds to get beat up by them, which was not, I didn’t think, supposed to feel vindicating in the context of the book). This slander doesn’t appear again in the second issue, but, in protest, I will not be buying any more Kick-Ass issues.

Written by Mark Millar, drawn by John Romita, Jr.

Awesome comic. Creator-owned, so not beholden to Marvel, although they do a lot of name-dropping of Marvel stuff in there, which makes sense since it’s an Icon book (Marvel’s creator-owned imprint–they publish Powers).

It’s about a teenager who decides to become a super-hero. He doesn’t have any powers, he doesn’t have any special training, he just has a costume and the balls to do it (although maybe not for much longer after the third page). The rest of the issue is a flashback of his “origin”, what there is of it.

I’m kind of surprised by how much I liked the comic. I’m not a huge fan of either Millar, or Romita Jr, but don’t really have anything against either of them. Romita Jr’s art really works here, although I keep picturing the main character as a cross between Sprite from the Eternals and Ken Connell from Starbrand. The first issue goes by really fast, but that seems to be the state of comics these days–everything seems to be written for the trade, or maybe that’s just the expectation that we give comics now. I finished it wanting to read more right away.

The story itself seemed very realistic to me in terms of what a teenager, what I as a teenager, might think of doing. That you might actually think it’s a good idea to put on a costume and go beat up bad guys, and how that might end up not working out so well for you. It’s pretty brutal, both in violence and in how teenagers get treated by each other.