Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Kick-Ass #2
Marvel Comics
Millar & Romita Jr

A very strong second issue for this new series. The hero does some rehabbing, some soul searching and some fighting. This issue isn’t perfect and leaves two nagging questions from my perspective. In short, I enjoyed this issue a lot for a wide variety of reasons.

I wasn’t able to review this issue because my LCS didn’t receive their shipment of Kick-Ass, so here I am a week late and a dollar short. Or something like that. You may remember Kick-Ass got stabbed and was then run over by a car. A mangled, bloody mess lay in the street. This issue picks up with him in the hospital.

His father is there with him. We watch him go through surgery after surgery, counseling, rehab and a revelation that he doesn’t want to be a hero. He burns his comic books and destroys his costume designs.

He promptly puts on the mask again and goes out patrolling. Beyond the immediate questions about where he got his costume from are the nagging questions about his reversal he pulls with little explanation. We spend nine pages learning exactly how stupid he feels about what he has done and in one panel he changes his mind. This just didn’t sit too well with me. You can also nitpick about the costume, but I’ll let that go. I just want to know what forced him back into his costume is all.

The remainder of the issue is Kick-Ass finding trouble and confronting it. The battle that goes on for seven pages is fantastic. It’s got tons of blood and up-close smashing. It’s a real highlight that isn’t to be missed. The crowd reactions also add such life to this whole sequence. Much like Rocky, Kick-Ass wins his second time out.

The artwork is really outstanding. The battle really illustrates a painful fight for both the men and Kick-Ass. Mix in the faces in the crowd and the general reactions and the art sparkles. Even the scenes in the hospital have a level of cringe added to this story that only gets topped with the blood in the end.

As you can tell I did love this issue, but one other problem arose that some might consider minor. Is this issue part of the same flashback as last issue? It would have to be, but I would have wanted that re-established in this issue. It’s a minor item, but I would think there are new readers who missed the first issue and shutting them out of the main story in the second issue doesn’t fly.

Since I didn’t get this issue until this week I did read other online reviews of this issue and many of them felt this issue was a letdown. For me, personally I felt this issue is right on par with the first issue. It still feels fresh and it still has infinite possibilities before it needs to have a Final Crisis or a Skrull invasion. I want more.

4 out of 5 geek goggles.


Kick Ass #2