Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Kick-Ass 2 #7Kick-Ass 2 #7 of 7
Icon Comics (Marvel)
Millar & Romita Jr

The big finale to the second Kick-Ass story is a bit of a downer. The hallmark for this book has been bloodshed done creatively and shockingly. However, this book has a very tame amount of death and ends things in a bit of a strange fashion as the book switches focus from Kick-Ass to Hit-Girl, which seems to serve Millar’s next mini-series and not ending this one properly. This was a rare miss for Millar as the book just didn’t deliver a satisfactory ending to this story and didn’t come close to matching the original series.

Everything was set up perfectly from the previous issue. The cops were out chasing distractions, while the group of heroes take up arms to fight off the gang of misfits led by the former Red Mist. Red Mist and Kick-Ass confront each other and then the issue slides downhill from there. Red Mist regresses into child-like behavior, as much of his toughness seems to melt away. This pulls Kick-Ass out of his mode of anger and revenge. The fight becomes a joke. This seems to serve the purpose of building up Hit-Girl.

Hit-Girl takes on a worthy opponent. This battle is bloody and ends with a satisfactory and very Millar-like ending. However, the oddity here is the execution. Are we really to believe that a piece of glass can be used to cut off a human head?

This leads me into the art. Romita Jr only provides the layouts, which at least makes the art appear to be in the house style of Kick-Ass. However, some of the panels and layouts just can’t be reconciled with the story. For example, on page five, the bottom panel has a piece of dialogue that is surely meant to originate from Hit Girl. However, the art focuses on the character’s legs that are clearly not the characters from the previous panels or any other recognizable character. The book has quite a few of these types of strange angles or focus points.

This issue contains just over thirty pages of story, but for five dollars. This is another problem with the book when in just the previous issue Millar bragged on the cover that his book was still just $3 when most others were $4. This book is simply not worth five bucks.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsFinally, the book ends with the caption that this ends book three. If that is the case then why is this issue seven of the Kick-Ass 2? Is this because the Hit-Girl mini-series is meant to take place between the two Kick-Ass stories? Or was this an editorial mistake? This was a bizarre way to end a strange comic book.

I loved the first Kick-Ass series. It was magic. This series was too long and ended with a very unsatisfactory finish. You have a character whispering up five stories while a riot is going on and someone on the roof is supposed to hear him? That’s odd. I wish I could recommend the book for the violence, but I simply can’t. This was a big disappointment.

2 out of 5 Geek Goggles