Kick Ass 2 #2 – Review

By: Mark Millar (writer/creator), John Romita, Jr. (breakdowns/creator), Tom Palmer (inks), Dean White (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters) & Aubrey Sitterson & Cory Levine (editors)

Millar & Romita, Jr. are kinda sticking with some of the formula elements that were featured in the first miniseries.  In this issue, we see Kick Ass getting to join a group of “super” heroes.  Neat concept!  Of course, this is the “real world,” so none of these folks have superpowers and they don’t meet in a base on the moon. They’re all just dudes and girls like Dave– folks who have an axe to grind and that are willing to put on costumes for some reason and dole out vigilante justice.

But there are twists…  Probably the coolest is when Dave recognizes one of his new team members when he lifts his mask to take a drink.  Not only does it turn out to be another kid from Dave/Kick Ass’s school, but this kid had made up this horrid story about why he had become a vigilante and Dave calls him out on it.  It is enough to make you wonder about the “origin stories” of all of the other team members.  Probably some (all?) of them are complete BS and this is just Millar’s way of poking fun at how not every hero has to be “summoned” into action by a horrific incident.  Sometimes you just decide to be a hero; like Dave, who has no grand origin. He’s just an earnest kid who wanted to make a difference.

The other cool thing was when the heroes go out on their first mission, real life intrudes and a few of the team members can’t make it due to things like exams or failure to get away from work.  Again, this is Millar having a little fun with how silly some aspects of superhero lore are.  Sure, it works well if you’re Bruce Wayne, but if you’re a normal person, you’re still going to be expected to show up for work. Mix in a neat little action scene and the story in this issue was enjoyable.

If you enjoyed the art in the first Kick Ass miniseries, there isn’t too much new to say because this is more of the same.  Not everyone loves JR Jr.’s current style, but it works well for me.  One thing that you can’t deny is the man’s storytelling ability.  In every panel, it is crystal clear what is going on and you never look at a panel and think that it might work better if it was framed differently.  Kinda helps to have been drawing comics for over 30 years, huh?  Romita (and Tom Palmer) also thrives by knowing what lines are important when they draw something.  Again, this is experience showing, since these guys never toss in OCD detail.

Superior #4 – Review

 

By: Mark Millar (writer/creator), Leinil Yu (pencils/creator), Gerry Alanguilan, Jason Paz & Jeff Huet (inks), Sunny Gho & Javier Tartaglia (colors), Clayton Cowles (letters) & Cory Levine (editor)

The Story: The cute reporter gets into the Superior game and the big bad villain is revealed (kinda).

What’s Good: I’ve enjoyed Superior and this is issue 4 out of 6, so it is naturally going to be a transitional issue.  If you understand that going in, you’ll be fine with the story as Millar and Yu are mostly moving the pieces around so that they can wrap up the story.  It is enlightening to see who and what the creators think are important.  There is a huge focus on the reporter, Maddie, who goes to great lengths to finally meet Superior.  But, I was a little surprised that our focus also drifted towards Simon/Superior’s parents and the actor who played Superior in the movies.  I honestly don’t know what role those folks are going to play, but I’m sure that Millar has something up his sleeve.

One very cool moment in this issue revolved around a role reversal between Simon/Superior and his buddy Chris.  If you remember back to the first issue of the series, Chris was the ONLY friend who stuck by Simon when he was wheelchair bound by disease and actively took up for Simon when the other kids teased him.  Here we get to see Simon/Superior return the favor when Chris runs into the neighborhood bullies.  One thing that I love about Simon/Superior is that he is super NICE.  Most stories where a young person gets power/fame/money have an obligatory portion of the story where they crap all over their friends and fall in with a bad crowd.  Sooooo glad that we aren’t forced to see that, but Millar is too good of a storyteller to go down that path.

And, the kinda shocking part of this issue happens right at the end when the space monkey shows back up.  Last issue there was an allusion that Simon may have unwittingly made a Faustian bargain to get his powers.  Here the monkey makes an offer to the head bully and it just reinforces that notion.  Of course, in true Millar fashion, he doesn’t beat around the bush by calling the source of power some vague “supreme evil” or anything like that.  He just goes for the “S”-word and in so doing will get his comic banned from Sunday School.  That’s kinda what I love about Millar: He is willing to push the envelope in his stories.  It doesn’t always work, but you don’t do new and exciting things by playing it safe.

The art is mostly a plus for me.  I love Yu’s layouts.  He always manages to put the viewer’s eye right where they need to be to appreciate that scene.  That’s really a gift that you appreciate when you see other comics doing it wrong.  Put this skill in the category of “harder than it looks” and “underappreciated”.  There are also huge kudos for the design of Superior himself.  I love that he’s drawn as a big, muscular dude who is wearing a uniform versus a nude man without genitals who just has a costume added by the colorist.  It’s also more work to do it that way because I’m sure that the rough layout had a basic human form onto which the costume is drawn.

Superior #3 – Review

By: Mark Millar (writer/creator), Leinil Yu (penciler/creator), Gerry Alanguilan, Jason Paz & Jeff Huet (inkers), Sunny Gho & Javier Tartaglia (colors), Clayton Cowles (letters) & Cory Levine (editor)

The Story: Now that Simon Pooni has been transformed into Superior and kinda gotten a hold of his powers, it’s time for him to start getting into some heroic action.

What’s Good: This comic really has a big heart and I think it accurately depicts what would happen if a ~11 year old paraplegic boy suddenly did get super powers: He wouldn’t immediately just start proclaiming himself as Superior, puff out his chest and save the day while stopping to pose for the cameras.  He’d probably fix things and then hide from the resultant attention out of fear that he’d possibly done something wrong or that his parents would find out.  So, as we go though this issue, which is really an exploration of Simon’s coming to grips with his ability to save lives, it was a neat choice by Millar to not have it readily apparent how the space station was saved except for some blurry images on camera phones and the random eyewitness report.  I really enjoyed this approach much more than if Simon had posed at the scene of his heroic act and announced himself because it emphasizes that this is really a little boy in a superhero’s body.

Of course, this cannot simply be a comic about a little boy becoming a superhero…  There must be some conflict and drama!  For that we return to the mysterious Space Monkey who granted Simon’s wish to become Superior in the first place.  I don’t want to give away the very cool twist on the final page, but it looks like Simon might have gotten himself into a bigger situation than he originally bargained for.  Can’t wait to see how that shakes out.

The art in this issue is pretty strong.  One of the things I like about Yu’s pencils is that he draws Superior as a guy wearing a tight uniform as opposed to drawing a nude man who happens to get colored red later.  Superior still has bulgy muscles that show off anatomy, but he also has fabric bunching in all the right places.  Nice to see a little more realism in that regard that we usually do.  Yu also has a couple of scenes that allow him to just go crazy drawing architecture, space stations, submarines, etc.  Some of this looks like it might have been sampled from photos, but I don’t really care.  It is just nice to see an artist show commitment to excellent art extending beyond the main characters in the scene (although sometimes the “main character” is a submarine).  I’m unsure what Yu’s background is, but this is always something you see from artists who were trained as professional illustrators and it is sometimes missing in comics.