This review may contain content that may offend peopleI will admit that I bought this comic because I wanted to see the movie, and it's always more fun to read the book first. After much deliberation with myself I decided to buy it. That was the wrong choice. I do like the Idea of a really realistic superhero but Mark Millar (who I liked because of Superman Red Son) just completely messed it up. He put so much violence and made the "romantic" scenes way to violent. It looked like he was trying to make a controversial master piece that challenged the brilliance of Watchmen. Somewhere in England Alan Moore is weeping.
This was the story about a kid named Dave Lizewski who one day decided to become a superhero, believable enough, right? So his first attempt at saving someone he gets beaten up and I mean bad, then after months of recover, everyone at his school believes who was "pimped out" and he became the gay best-friend of his crush. After that he tries the hero thing again, saves someone and then becomes really popular via the internet. Later when trying to fix someone's problem by talking to her abusive ex-boyfriend, a little girl comes in and murders everyone except Kick-A**. That is where you first meat Hit Girl, and her partner/ father Big Daddy. After words Kick A** meats the Red Mist, and they go around teaming up, and saving a cat from a burning building which made them popular. (It's true, that happened in the book) Later when all four of the heros are going to team up there is a major plot twist, which I'm not going to say because I don't want to ruin the worst book ever written for those un-fourtunout few who will read it.
I liked two things about this comic, one was the color. (as usual) Crisp blocks of color just appeal to me. The second thing was the superhero and comic references, for instance, when Kick-A** was describing the team up between himself and the Red Mist he described it like a Brave and the Bold team up. (my favorite series) I didn't like a lot of things about this comic, one: it used way to many swears, it used F**k more than a countable number of times. Two: The violence was more excessive than needed, in Watchmen the violence was gruesome yes, but short lived, it was also part of the story, most of this violence was not. Three: The "romantic scenes" were absolutely pointless, this time they were short lived (thank goodness) but unlike Top-10 or Watchmen (I'm in an Allen Moore mood) They weren't crucial to the story. He walked in a direction, saw one, walked away, he walked in on his dad, and walked away. Pointless! As I said before, Mark Millar was trying to hard to be edgy, and to be honest even though I liked Superman Red Son so much, I lost all respect for Millar.
Like I said before, I read this because I wanted to see the movie, but now I don't think I'm going to do that, I might see it, but it's not on my priority list right now. In the comic's defense I could sort of connect with the character because he was a comic geek, but that wasn't enough for me to connect fully, nor was it enough for me to like the comic. So I would not read it if I were you, if you have read it, I would like to hear your feed back, but for those of you that haven't don't if you do you are wasting money, people called it the greatest superhero comic of all time, but thats because they were shocked and didn't want to look stupid, the greatest superhero comic of all time is still Watchmen.
Grade: 2/10
I recommend not buying at: www.mycomicshop.com
of all the readers. Is this Lunatic, alcoholic, murderer, and rapist evil? Or are the people that sit by and allow him to be? (in the fallowing quote the Comedian is talking to Dr. Manhattan) "yeah. Yeah that's right. Pregnant Woman. Gunned her down. Bang. And y'know what? You watched me. You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes! You coulda teleported either of us to Goddamn Australia... But you didn't lift a finger." The Comedian is a remarkable (which by definition means: worthy of attention) character. The Comedian is arguably the most interesting character in the book. His physiological profile is more complex and fascinating than Rorschach's which many comic fans have studied.
