Kick-Ass
I don’t know what’s up with the buzzing. I thought I’d gotten rid of the noise, but it came back in editing and I couldn’t get rid of it without making the audio completely obsolete, so I apologize in advance for that. And no, I still haven’t seen the movie.
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I think you’re missing the point.
Kick-Ass is realistic in the same way that Watchmen was realistic. Meaning that it was realistic not so much in the actions or abilities of superheroes, but in their reasons for becoming superheroes.
That’s why Dave is such a pathetic loser and Big Daddy and Hit Girl are right wing extremists. Only those with insanely shallow and meaningless lives would ever dare put on a costume and try to fight crime, and only those brainwashed with the most violent of political/moral philosophies would continue on with their crusade against crime.
Kick-Ass is probably the best deconstruction of the superhero since Watchmen.
Actually, Word of God (Mark Millar himself) has it that this is supposed to take place in the real world. When it’s set in the real world, the realism bar goes right up to what is plausible in reality. Millar wants to deal in reality, I get to point out where things that happen in his book don’t match up.
Like her eyes turning blue. Really, that part still gets me.
Your putting it on par with Watchmen pains me, though. Watchmen’s story and characters hold up beyond the fight scenes.
Mark Millar says a lot of stuff.
I love the man’s work, but he’s all about the hype and is not above lying if he thinks it will get people interested in one of his projects.
That whole, “it’s set in the real world!” was just something to get people interested in the book. It was just hype.
If you ignore the hype and judge the book by its own merits, you will find that it is a masterpiece of cynicism and meanness. Definitely one of the greatest comics of its genre and generation.
Sigh. I’m really going to have to do this, aren’t I?
If you take the book seriously, the book only has the hype it’s not living up to. The characters are pretty flat and move like cardboard cutouts through the plot as opposed to by their own actions.
Dave is the loser comic geek who dons a costume and gains confidence by the end because he’s beaten up people. He’s never really had any reason for doing the hero thing. Bored curiosity and nothing more. Which is a theme that makes him going back to costume after injury and threat of jail completely nonsensical. He goes back, essentially, because the plot would stand still without him going back. His reasons in canon for going back are “Just because” and “He’s more popular than me!” He’s never given enough drive as a character for the motivations to make sense and he’s moving more, it seems, as the plot demands.
Red Mist gets throw away development. A line explaining things which would have made more sense as a scene so that we could see a character to him because he doesn’t actually do anything to show that he has a personality. He has a car and smokes pot and ends up being a traitor! But what he’s like as a person? Nothing. Still, the throwaway development probably made him a better character than any of them for one main reason. Motivation!
Bid Daddy. Bad ass who turns out to be an accountant in a scene that could have revealed just about anything. But they needed to keep the cynicism up so they really couldn’t have a sympathetic character to create a juxtaposition but instead went for a psychopath. His motivation is honestly pretty paper thin.
And then there’s Hit Girl. Cute thing that kills things. That’s all there is to her. See, swearing isn’t character development. She’s the closest we get to sympathetic and a juxtaposition because technically she’s a brainwashed child, but that doesn’t make her a well rounded character. She doesn’t really do anything else. Granted, she’s actually got reasons for her actions, which is nice, but it doesn’t make her a good character.
And then there’s the plot, which shoves it’s lead out of the way after contriving so many ways to keep him in the book. Violence and swearing and the “realism” were all this book had.
It’s a fun read when you don’t take it seriously and don’t look too much into it. Seeing a swearing eleven year old cutting up people? A lesson in what would actually happen if you actually became a super hero, some violence and beautiful blood splatters? Amazingly fun. On that level, no one cares about character or plot. It’s about getting to the next fun bit through the other mundane scenes.
If you take it seriously and really look into it, though, the cracks start to show. The characters don’t do anything beyond their one or two traits and there is little to no driving force behind half of the main cast’s actions. And then there’s the whole matter of being able to relate to these characters, but if they aren’t good characters in the first place, that’s a bit of a moot point.
I once again disagree.
Dave’s reasons for constantly going back to the costume were very well explained. He had nothing else to live for. In his normal life he was a loser, who was not special or interesting in any way. As Kick-Ass he actually felt alive, and that’s why he was willing to put up with grievous injury and the threat of jail. His drive, his motivation was just to feel alive.
Millar used Dave’s relationship with Katie to highlight this part of the character’s personality. Dave was willing to pretend to be gay and have his masculinity completely obliterated, because being Katie’s gay best friend was infinitely more rewarding than not interacting with her at all. He became a super hero for exactly the same reason. The threat of jail, and even death, were nothing compared to the fame and excitement he got from being a super hero.
In a lot of ways, Dave is similar to those poor souls whose lives were so empty that they became depressed after seeing Avatar and realized that Pandora wasn’t real. Dave just led an empty, soulless, boring life.
Now, whether or not you find the character to be sympathetic, that is entirely up to you. I found Dave to a be a very sympathetic character. I felt sorry for him and although I laughed at all the problems he had, I also cheered at his triumphs.
As far as the other characters go, they were all minor characters and only existed to interact with Dave and be fun house mirror versions of him.
I found the relationship with Katie to do little more than remind us that Dave is pathetic in real life and we shouldn’t forget that. The interactions felt more like he was going through the motions because I did not get that sense of… depression? Alienation? There’s a word I’m looking for but it escapes me. It just doesn’t seem from his inner monologue that he’s quite at that level internally. Maybe if they’d spent more time on it instead of montaging through the sequences I could see your point. As it stands, I didn’t see any actual development. It might have been told, but I never saw it shown.
When I didn’t look at it closely, I was with you on the cheers and sympathy. It’s just now that I have that I’m cheering his getting beaten up instead.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this comic. You enjoy this comic a lot more than I do and see things in it that I don’t.
I won’t be reading Kick-Ass again, personally. Four times was enough. Faker and Watchmen both give me a more rewarding experience for the two reasons I might read this book: Horrible people getting what’s coming to them and not really superheroes respectively.
Can’t we all just get a long?
Aw, I thought it was surprisingly civil for a disagreement that happened online.
I haven’t read the comic or seen the movie but from the review it seems the characters may be undeveloped but at least also unpredictable. I could not predict what they were going to do next in the story. They are not what you’d expect for the protagonist of a good story. Was there a protagonist? Everyone seems to have just been getting the beatings they deserved for either being bad people or just not smart enough to stop.
Mark Millar says a lot of stuff.
I love the man’s work, but he’s all about the hype and is not above lying if he thinks it will get people interested in one of his projects.
That whole, “it’s set in the real world!” was just something to get people interested in the book. It was just hype.
If you ignore the hype and judge the book by its own merits, you will find that it is a masterpiece of cynicism and meanness. Definitely one of the greatest comics of its genre and generation.
Hi Emily!
Please refer to my previous statements about why I think this book falls flat when you look beyond the hype.
Thanks for watching!