Piece of Crap

Kick-Ass 2: written by Mark Millar; illustrated by John Romita Jr. and Tom Palmer (2010-2012/Collected 2012): This is a dreadfully written comic book. The movie adaptation was bad, but its source material is much worse. One page may be a parody of super-hero comics, thud-footed in that parody though it is. Then there might be a moment of reflection on how real life isn't like comic books. But then we're back to tiny, 12-year-old Hit Girl beating up or killing everyone she fights, or a former Russian security officer killing 10 cops with no problem whatsoever because she and Hit Girl really do operate pretty much exactly like R-rated super-heroes and super-villains. 

So much for life not being like a comic book. 

We also get the gang rape of a high-school student. Ha ha, what larks, Pip! What larks! 

The 'super-villain' keeps a shark in a tank as he tries to create the lair of a Silver Age comic-book villain! And the rape's just one lesson the titular Kick-Ass gets taught about how life isn't like a superhero comic, except for those sections of the comic when it's exactly like the sort of super-hero comic Mark Millar writes, over and over again, ad nauseum. 

John Romita Jr. does his usual professional job, though he struggles to draw realistic teenagers and really, really, really struggles with the depiction of Hit-Girl, a 12-year-old girl whose head is the same size as her torso. Actually, this may not be a struggle -- there's clearly an ironic depiction of Hit Girl as a Keane-Kid moppet who's also a killing machine, sort of like Funzo, which is not what I had while reading this piece of crap. I paid a dollar for this collected edition. It was too much. Not recommended.