Kick-Ass 2 #7

Next up, the finale to the second Kick Ass book... Let's see if this one has a decisive ending or if Mark Millar is planning a third book/movie...

Kick-Ass 2 #7(of 7):

Summary: The heroes and villains square off in Times Square and naturally Mother Russia squares off with Hit Girl while Kick-Ass gets his arch-nemesis, the Mother-Fucker. Mother Russia beats the HELL out of Hit Girl, until she is momentarily distracted by some random heroes, at which point Hit Girl kills and decapitates Mother Russia. Meanwhile, Kick-Ass chases the cowardly Mother-Fucker around and the two eventually face off on the rooftop of a building. The two fight for a bit and Kick-Ass ends up knocking the Mother-Fucker off the rooftop(!). Kick-Ass is horrified that he killed somebody, at least until the Mother-Fucker... um, all fucked up from the fall, begs Kick-Ass to call an ambulance for him since he was broken and probably paralyzed and all. The Mother-Fucker promises not to tell anybody that Kick-Ass dumped him off the roof, and Kick-Ass ends up calling the fuzz for help. The cops find the Mother-Fucker's broken body and also see Kick-Ass(who is an idiot) staring off the rooftop. Hit Girl manages to cause a distraction by stealing a cop car, which allows Kick-Ass to escape. As for Hit Girl, she ends up crashing the squad car after swerving to avoid an angry police detective. This series ends with the cops cuffing Hit Girl while a crowd of people cheer her on.

Thoughts: Meh. This was a surprisingly lackluster final issue here... But then, how could this one really end in a satisfying way? Honestly, I can't think of a scenario that I wouldn't dislike... The Mother-Fucker gets arrested after a beating from Kick-Ass? I guess that could have worked. As it is, the Mother-Fucker is out of the picture, the awesome Mother Russia is dead(and she really had some fantastic lines in this issue), Hit Girl is locked up and Kick-Ass is... um, with his father dead and all, I don't know what he is. There really wasn't any closure here, which makes me think that Millar IS planning a third Kick-Ass, and for the life of me I can't figure out what Kick-Ass 3 will be about...

Score: 7 out of 10.

That's gonna leave a mark...

Kick-Ass 2 #6

It's time to check out the next to last issue of the Kick-Ass 2 mini-series. I've enjoyed this mini for the most part, and with the climatic final battle on the horizon, things SHOULD get even better.

Kick-Ass 2 #6(of 7):

What Happened: After saving Kick-Ass from the Mother-Fucker's goons, Hit-Girl manages to convince Kick-Ass that he had to fight back against the Mother-Fucker. The two arrive at the Mother-Fucker's base and ambush some of the Mother-Fucker's lackeys. After some torture, Hit-Girl discovers that the Mother-Fucker was amassing his super-villain army in Times Square for a major assault. Hit-Girl calls her adoptive father(who is a cop) and warns him, so her dad has the NYPD beef up security in Times Square. As for Kick-Ass, he's putting the call out for all of the so-called super-heroes to head to Times Square in case there was any trouble. Mother-Fucker is pissed by the increased police presence in Times Square, but Mother Russia manages to draw the cops out of Times Square by setting on several explosions in other parts of the city. With most of the cops leaving Times Square to deal with the explosions, the Mother-Fucker and his crew know they have a good 10 minutes or so of total carnage before the cops realized they were misdirected. However, before their “fun” can get started in earnest, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl confront Mother-Fucker and his posse. Mother-Fucker smugly tells the duo that they were outnumbered, but is taken aback when he realizes that several super-heroes had heeded Kick-Ass's call and had come to Times Square to back Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl up.

The Good: This comic was as over-the-top gory/profane/insane as you'd expect. The Mother-Fucker is a wonderfully evil character. I mean he's the total antithesis of Kick-Ass, thus making him the perfect foil for Kick-Ass. The next issue should be fantastic as it should close out the story that started in the first Kick-Ass mini-series.

The Bad: For whatever reason I just didn't enjoy this issue as much as I did the prior few... It seemed very rushed. There really wasn't any suspense, since we knew what the entire mini-series was leading up to(it was shown in the first issue!)... We knew Kick-Ass would pull himself together, we knew Hit-Girl would go back to her costumed alter-ego again, and we knew that the super-heroes would face down the super-villains in Times Square. I usually love JRJR's work, but much like the story, the art seemed oddly rushed as well...

The Verdict: Eh, this issue was nothing but a set-up issue for the final part of this story. It was okay, and accomplished everything it needed to do(set the stage for the final battle, get the various characters where they needed to go, etc), but that was all it did. If you skipped this issue and went from issue #5 to issue #7, you really didn't miss much. Needless to say, this was my least favorite issue of this thus far highly enjoyable mini-series, but I'm expecting Mark Millar and John Romita Jr to pull out ALL the crazy stops for the next issue.

Score: 7 out of 10.It's showdown time!

Kick-Ass 2 #5

Wow, the past few issues of this series have been FLYING out! There was a time when you'd have to wait like 3-4 months between issues, now we're practically monthly! As we get closer and closer to the final issue, I'm getting more and more excited to see where Mark Millar and John Romita Jr take us.

Kick-Ass 2 #5:

Summary: Kick-Ass visits his father at Ryker's Island to apologize for all of the trouble he caused by doing the whole Kick-Ass thing. Kick-Ass's father tries not to worry his son, telling him that he'd be out of prison soon enough since Kick-Ass hadn't actually committed any crimes, and warns Kick-Ass to stay at a friend's house and keep a low profile. The Mother-Fucker is naturally pissed that Kick-Ass's dad was in the clink and that Kick-Ass himself had gone into hiding. Mother Russia points out that while Kick-Ass may currently be untouchable, his father was a different story... Cue ominous music... Anyway, the Mother-Fucker pays a few cons and they murder Kick-Ass's father and snap a picture of it, sending it first to Kick-Ass and then to the world at large. Needless to say, that pretty much breaks Kick-Ass for good, as he decides that he's done with the whole costumed hero nonsense. The Mother-Fucker, to his credit, promises not to commit any crimes nor interrupt Kick-Ass's father's funeral since he declared a three day truce to celebrate his victory. At the funeral, Hit-Girl pays her respects to Kick-Ass, as do his fellow costumed heroes. While the proceedings are underway, several bombs go off in the cemetery, and a mess of armed goons shoot at the cops, grab Kick-Ass, drag him to a nearby van and toss him inside... The fact that the Mother-Fucker promised not to interrupt the funeral and then did is four different shades of awesome just so you all know... Anyway, the goons taunt Kick-Ass a bit and prepare to dress him in his costume, since that's how the Mother-Fucker wanted him delivered. Before the goons can follow through with their plans, Hit-Girl, who was on the roof of the van, fires a gun into the van and kills all of the bad guys, declaring that the game was now on, which ends this one.

Thoughts: I hate to be repetitive, but when it comes to this series, I can't help it... This series is very polarizing... There are people who are going to absolutely hate it because of it's over-the-top violence and language. Then, there are people like me, who can overlook all of that and see the awesome story underneath it all. And that's really the bottom line here... The story here IS great. Add JRJR's artwork(I've always been a bit markish when it comes to JRJR's art) and you have a comic book that I absolutely love. This issue was no different. Kick-Ass's father getting offed in prison, while no huge surprise, was still well done and had quite an impact. The funeral scene was awesome, mainly because the Mother-Fucker had promised that he wouldn't interrupt it, and then did! That is SO a super-villain thing to do! Add Hit-Girl finally getting back in action, and this issue sets the stage for a final few issues that should be spectacular. Oh, and before I end this, Mark Millar's editorial in the back about Bryan Hitch was pretty cool, and his volcano headquarters line made me laugh out loud. You should definitely give it a read.

Score: 9 out of 10.The "We're kidnapping your ass. What does it look like?" line made me laugh because it was SO obvious!

Kick-Ass 2 #4

What the hell?! Didn't an issue of this series JUST come out last month?! I am SHOCKED to see a new issue dropping so soon! Here's hoping Millar and Romita Jr. can keep this pace up, because I do loves me some Kick-Ass!

Kick-Ass 2 #4(of 7... I think):

Summary: While Kick-Ass and his Justice Forever teammates are trying to figure out what to do about the brutal death of the leader, Colonel Stripe, the Mother-Fucker and his crew have arrived at the home of Kick-Ass's longtime crush, Katie. After gunning down some kids in the street, the MFer and company enter the house, murder Katie's father and rape her to send a message to Kick-Ass. While the MFer and his crew are brutalizing Katie, the police arrive after reports of shots fired and are gunned down by the Mother-Fucker's bodyguard, Mother Russia. Mother Russia slaughters 10 ill-prepared cops, after which time the MFer and company leave and disappear into the night. The police department, with some help from the FBI, manage to trace the IP addresses of as many costumed idiots as they could and storm out in force to detain them. While that's going on, Kick-Ass and his friends have headed to the hospital to visit the still unconscious Katie. Kick-Ass blames himself since he mentioned Katie while he was being tortured in the last mini-series, and gets a text from the MFer stating that instead of worrying about Katie, Kick-Ass should be worrying about his father. Kick-Ass races out of the hospital to get home, just as the police arrive at the apartment of Kick-Ass and his dad. Kick-Ass's dad realizes why the cops were there and turns himself in, telling the police HE was Kick-Ass in an effort to protect his son. This issue ends with Kick-Ass arriving home just in time to see his old man loaded into the back of a police cruiser.

Thoughts: I could really just cut and paste what I had to say about issue #3 and use it here, because I felt the exact same about THIS issue. As I said before, this series is NOT for everybody. I mean hell, just read the name of the main villain of the piece and you should understand that! There are people who'd say this series is too violent, too profane, too graphic, you know, unacceptable. And that's fine. But personally? I love this frigging series! Yes, it's all of the things I mentioned above, by the story, dialogue and artwork just mesh beautifully. So while this series may not be for everybody, it IS for me. The over-the-top violence did a great job of establishing just how dangerous and crazy the Mother-Fucker is. I mean this is a guy with NO redeeming qualities! He's the perfect villain. Even though this issue focused heavily on the MFer and his crew and didn't really have all that much Kick-Ass in it, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. And the twist at the end, with Kick-Ass's old man taking the fall for his son? Perfect. It made perfect sense, and it SHOULD lead to all types of trouble for Kick-Ass as his father is now a sitting duck in prison, especially in light of the MFer's threat. So yeah, I liked this one. Here's hoping JRJR and Mark Millar can keep the rest of this mini coming out monthly, because I KNOW I'll be looking forward to issue #5!

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.Damn, and I thought the Joker was an evil bastard!

Kick-Ass 2 #3

And now it's time for a little Kick-Ass! It's been a WHILE since the second issue of this series came out(April to be exact), so before I read this issue, I'm gonna take a look back at my review for Kick-Ass 2 #2, which can helpfully be found here! ......... All right, I'm all caught up, let's see what Mark Millar and John Romita Jr have up their sleeves for this issue.

Kick-Ass 2 #3:

Summary: We pick up from last issue(see, reading the review for issue #2 DID come in handy!), with Kick-Ass and his band of “superheroes” rescuing some girls from the house of a mobster. After beating the hell out of the mobster, his goons and his brother, the heroes give the girls a duffel bag full of mob money, and leave feeling fulfilled. From there, Kick-Ass and his Justice Forever teammates spend countless nights walking the streets on patrol, looking to halt any crimes they may come across. Needless to say though, when a band of costumed weirdos come walking through the neighborhood, the criminals choose other areas to do their business. So all is good in the land of Kick-Ass... Well, except for the fact that try as he might, Kick-Ass is unable to convince Hit-Girl to join his team. You see, Hit-Girl made a promise to her adopted father that she wouldn't do the whole, “costumed hero” thing anymore, and intends on sticking to that promise. Shot down by Hit-Girl yet again, Kick-Ass returns from school one day and discovers his father standing in his room holding the Kick-Ass costume... Kick-Ass is infuriated by this invasion of privacy, but his father figured his son was on drugs, and came across the costume while searching the room. In the end, Kick-Ass snatches the costume from his father and storms out of the house. From there, we head to the meeting place for Kick-Ass's team, Justice Forever. Colonel Stripe is setting up the meeting table when the Red Mist and his group of lackeys enter the room. Red Mist's goons have already killed Stripe's sidekick(his dog), and proceed to shoot him in the stomach at point-blank range. From there, Red Mist gets his inner super-villain on, taunting Stripe while he was kneeling on the floor bleeding out. Mist has his goons destroy Justice Forever's base, before decapitating both Stripe and his dog and putting the dog's head on Stripe's body. From there, Red Mist tags the wall with his new codename(The Mother Fucker), before leaving. This issue ends with the police discovering the grizzly scene, while Hit-Girl angrily watched the news reports begin to roll in from her home.

Thoughts: What do you want? It's Kick-Ass! You either love it for it's excessive violence, graphic language and awesome story, or you don't. I fall on the “love it” side of that equation. This issue had everything you'd expect out of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Great art, funny dialogue, a great story, um, great everything. This issue heralded the return of the Red Mist... Excuse me, I mean the Mother Fucker, who should have a huge hand in the final few issues of this series. Other then that, Kick-Ass's dad learned that his son was masquerading as a super-hero(which lead to the laugh out loud moment that had his father stating, “Oh my god... You've lost your mind.”), Col. Stripe, who I could have SWORN was going to be revealed as a bad guy, was brutally murdered, and the slow burn to Hit-Girl's return to action continued. No complaints from me, only compliments. Here's hoping the next issue of this series comes out before the end of the year!

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.Yes, that is indeed some fucked up shit!

Kick-Ass 2 #2 & Ultimate X #4

Hot DAMN, this past week BOTH Ultimate X #4 AND Kick-Ass 2 #2 came out! Why am I so excited by that? Well, Ultimate X #3 came out last JULY(yes, July!), while Kick-Ass 2 #1 came out back in October... For the record, I'm a HUGE fan of both series, so when I saw they were both coming out this week, I was pleased to say the least. Now the real question is this, after their respective delays, are they both going to be as good as they were? Well, let's find out!

Ultimate X #4:

Summary: This issue is narrated by Liz Allen's mother, who fills the reader in as to what Liz had been up to after Ultimatum. Not only do we learn that, we also learn that Liz's father was... wait for it... THE BLOB! Yup. Needless to say, Liz's mom decided not to tell her Liz that piece of information. After Blob's death at the conclusion of Ultimatum, Liz's mother discovers that Blob had left her a sweet life insurance policy to take care of Liz, as well as another child Blob had sired(Blob: Lady-killer?!?), a kid around Liz's age named Teddy. With the money from the life insurance, Liz finds Teddy, and moves to California with the two kids. Liz quickly fits in with the “cool” girls, while Teddy winds up falling in with the wrong crowd, most notably some dweeb named Evan, who encourages Teddy to break the rules, etc. After a hamburger throwing incident in the High School cafeteria, the principal suspends Teddy and Evan, which is fine by Liz, since she wouldn't have to worry about Teddy embarrassing her at school that week. The week passes uneventfully for Liz until Teddy and Evan are reinstated and they ask Liz for a ride home from school. Before Liz can give an answer, Liz's kinda-of boyfriend tells Teddy and his “girlfriend” to take a hike, at which point Evan pulls a gun and begins wildly pointing it around. The principal enters the cafeteria to try to defuse things but gets shot by Evan, who now feels like a big man. Teddy steps in front of Evan and tells him to stop, so Evan shoots Teddy too, and it's there we learn Teddy had inherited his father's mutant ability as the bullet harmlessly pops out of Teddy's chest. Having witnessed some of this scene on TV, Jean Grey grabs Jimmy Hudson and Derek Morgan and the trio of free mutants make their way to the school before things got any worse. The kids in the school are more panicked over the fact that there are two mutants present(Liz and Teddy), then the kid with a gun who actually shot somebody! Ah that wacky Marvel mutant logic... Anyway, Jean arrives on the scene and offers to take Liz and Teddy away from all this. Before they can agree, Quicksilver(!?!) arrives on the scene and makes a similar offer. Liz makes eye contact with Jimmy, and since he has those irresistible Hudson genes, she wants to go with Jean's group. However, Teddy is tired of all the digs Liz was always giving him behind his back and as such decides to go with Pietro. With that the two groups split up and this issue ends with Liz's mom realizing that she'd never see either of her children again.

Thoughts: Why can't this comic book come out on a regular schedule? Hell, I'd be fine with a semi-regular schedule. That's how much I love this series. This series does indeed prove that Jeph Loeb DOES still have some mad writing skills when he wants to, because this series has been top shelf from the first issue onward. I liked the story, I enjoyed the twists with Liz's mom and Blob, I liked the character development Loeb put into Teddy even though you know he's simply going to go out there and be your basic super-villain. In other words, I liked a LOT of what I read here. If I had a gripe, it would be the fact that Jimmy was pretty much an afterthought here. Other than that, good stuff. Oh, and on the back page they claim issue #5 will be out in May... I know I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!

Score: 9 out of 10.Yeah, she went there...


Kick-Ass 2 #2:

Summary: Kick-Ass gets invited to attend a meeting of like minded individuals, a bunch of costumed characters who have decided to band together to deal with the crimes the cops couldn't or wouldn't deal with. During the meet and greet, Kick-Ass realizes that Battle-Guy was his friend from High School, Marty Eisenberg. After getting the meet and greet out of the way, Colonel Stripes(who seems to have taken the leadership role) begins to set up the team's first “big” mission, busting up a mafia card game. The next day at school, Kick-Ass and Marty are feeling pretty smug about their newfound super-hero team-up thing... Or at least they are until they bump into one of the Goth kids who had signed up to join Red Mist's band of super-villains via Mist's Twitter account. That night, Kick-Ass and Battle-Guy meet up and hang out before they hook up with the rest of the heroes and walk right up to the door of the mafia card game and knock. Some goon answers, so Colonel Stripes smashes the goon in the throat and it's loosely organized chaos time! The heroes are on the mafia feebs before they know what's going on, and within moments, the mafia members are laying around groaning and holding various broken body parts. Colonel Stripes saves the best for the leader of the mafia, as he lets his dog take a bite out of the mafia boss's... Hmm, I can't think of a politically correct way to put this... Ah what the hell. The dog bites the guy square in the balls. There. While the mafia guy is convulsing on the floor, Colonel Stripes pulls out a handgun and tells the agonized man that they needed to have a talk.

Thoughts: Wow, this was a pretty quick read... But a lot actually happened. We learn that several members of Kick-Ass's “super-hero” team are mafia defectors, who found god or some such nonsense. In other words, I'm not buying that story as far as I could throw it. I get the feeling Stripes might just be looking to make a power play on the mafia(with his well-meaning, but oblivious) band of heroes backing him up. Could I be WAY off? Yes, definitely, and I probably am! Besides that, we have the Red Mist stuff quietly percolating under the surface right now... If I was wearing a hat right now, it would be off to both Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

Score: 9 out of 10.Total carnage! I love it!

Kick-Ass 2 #1

Overall: We kick off the sequel to Kick-Ass with Kick-Ass... well, getting his ass kicked by Hit-Girl, who has taken it upon herself to train Kick-Ass. After a training session, Hit-Girl returns to her adopted family and is confronted by her adopted father who asks Hit-Girl to cease the hero nonsense, since if anything were to happen to Hit-Girl it would be absolutely devastating to Hit-Girl's adopted mother. In the end, Hit-Girl promises to stop playing hero and that she would break all her ties with the other heroes, including Kick-Ass. As for Kick-Ass, his personal life still sucks, his father broke up with his girlfriend from the first series, and Kick-Ass himself has been unable to attain any of his romantic interests. However, his time as Kick-Ass has been great, as his fighting has improved(thanks in large part to Hit-Girl's training), and he's been meeting several other wannabe heroes. One of these heroes, Doctor Gravity, invites Kick-Ass to a secret underground headquarters(actually a wine cellar at a store), where Kick-Ass meets a bunch of other wannabe heroes who are calling themselves the Justice Forever. This issue ends with the overjoyed Kick-Ass getting an invitation to join Justice Forever.

Well... I've thought about this comic for two days now since I originally read it. After I put it down, my first instinct was that it was a perfect comic, deserving of a perfect score. But I've already given out two perfect scores lately, and I was loathe to hand out another perfect score. So I read this issue again, looking for any excuse to drop the score down to a 9 1/2. And you know what? I couldn't find a damn thing to complain about! THIS is the way to kick off a sequel to a story as well received as the original Kick-Ass. Mark Millar(writer)and John Romita Jr.(pencils)haven't missed a single beat from the first Kick-Ass series. Not at all. This story picked up so seamlessly from the end of the original series that it made reading it a real treat. It had everything the original had, fun characters, over the top action, crazy violence, ultra profane dialogue, everything that made Kick-Ass so popular is present here. Totally awesome stuff here. If you enjoyed the original Kick-Ass even a little, you owe it to yourself to buy and read the sequel.

Score: 10 out of 10.I sure wish I had a gravity pole...