CBR: Kicking Ass with Millar

[CBR News]

Mark Millar shares some 'wee facts' from Titan Books' upcoming "Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie," including who else was up for playing Big Daddy and the working title for the second volume of the creator-owned series.


Full article here.

[apoehler]

Ugh. The more I see about this film, the less I want to see about this film.

[Thad]

Going to preface my criticism with a note that I actually quite like the Kick-Ass comic, though I think there are things that don't work about it. And nothing I say below is meant to apply to the movie, because I of course haven't seen it; I'm looking forward to it, though.

I should also note that there are some spoilers below, for those who haven't read the comic.

Aaron's got the most difficult role, in a way, because he's got to be the most real because he's surrounded by cartoon characters. Hit Girl is a very extreme character, and so is Big Daddy. Red Mist is too, obviously with his car and his costume and all of that kind of thing.

This is a bit of an interesting insight in what Millar had in mind in writing the comic. For me, the introduction of Big Daddy and Hit Girl was jarring; prior to that, Kick-Ass was a (relatively) realistic book skewering superhero conventions, but from that point on it was absurd and over-the-top and embraced the very cliches it had previously made fun of.

Red Mist was a real breath of fresh air after that, and really the most realistic character in the book, moreso than Dave -- up until the big twist at the end of #6; then he just became one more cliche. If he switches sides in #8 and saves Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, that'll pretty much complete the transofrmation.

Again, I like the book, I just preferred the earlier issues and I think the later ones are working from a different concept. This interview is enlightening as to why: if Big Daddy and Hit-Girl were originally supposed to be the main characters, then that explains why their vibe is so different from Kick-Ass's, and if the concept is more "Dave's a normal guy in a comic-book world" than "this is what superheroes would be like in the real world", that makes a whole lot more sense.

Anyhow, thanks for the peek behind the curtain; it's a good read.