Abandon Strip! Part Eight

A Mark Millar special from Gallows drummer Lee Barratt, including the much-anticipated sequel to the massive Kick-Ass. Get involved.

Posted Tuesday, 26 October 2010 by Lee Barratt in

Blog

Hello and welcome back again if you've been reading my blogs frequently. Apologies for the lack of anything in the last few weeks, I've been busy getting married and taking a break on my honeymoon in Disney World!

Thankfully, I've still been reading some of the best new comics on the racks and this week I'm going to focus solely on one author - Mr Mark Millar. Some of you may remember me praising Millar's Nemesis a few weeks ago and that high profile title is still burning up the shelves as I type. Casual comic readers may be more familiar with Millar because of the success of his comic Kick-Ass, which was translated on to the big screen this year to phenomenal praise from fans and critics alike. With that much attention lavished on Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl and co, it was only going to be a matter of time before "Kick-Ass 2" (Marvel/Icon) arrived. So how do Millar and co-creator/artist John Romita Jr. follow up the brutal and bloody first offering?

In fairness, Kick-Ass 2 definitely has a far more restrained opening issue than I would have presumed. There are still some bone-crunching scenes but blood and gore is kept at a minimum. Instead we get to see what has happened to little Mindy (Hit-Girl) and Dave Lizewski (Kick-Ass) in the weeks and months since the end of the first book. Millar's focus definitely seems to be on expanding the characters beyond what made them so successful in the first place whilst maintaining the familiarity that made them so popular to begin with. By the end of issue 1, the premise for Kick-Ass 2 looks like it has been truly set. The question on most people's lips would have been 'Where do you go from a regular guy being a superhero?' And Millar gives us the only logical answer… a whole team of regular guys being superheroes! Millar's comic timing is on form as usual and JRJr's art is as good as always. The scene has been set and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for Kick-Ass 2.

So with Kick-Ass, Wanted and Nemesis all being big, bloodthirsty offerings, you'd expect Millar's newest title Superior (Marvel/Icon) to follow suit right? Wrong. With Superior, Millar has thrown his avid readers a bit of a curveball with a story based around a boy who has multiple sclerosis. Sounds depressing right? Again, you're wrong. Millar tells the story of young Simon Pooni, a talented basketball player now confined to a wheelchair with just his comics and his friend Chris for company. After being visited by a comic space monkey and granted a wish, Simon transforms in to the idealistic superhero known as Superior and is told to show the world what he can really do. The plot already sounds destined for Hollywood and there's no denying that Superior bears a few similarities to the Tom Hanks classic comedy Big. It's nice to see Millar go off on an unfamiliar tangent and welcome a little sensitivity in to his writing. There's still the customary filthy language that would probably not see someone like Spielberg touch this with a barge pole but it's probably my favourite first issue I've ever read from Millar, and Leinil Yu's artwork is big, broad and explosive to further compliment this title even more. My only problem with it is I think there could have been a better way for Simon to have been granted his wish. Visited by a space monkey? Come on! But I'm sure a ton of people will lap up that quirky sense of humour. I'd even go as far as recommending this above Kick-Ass 2 if you're only looking for one new title to pick up...

Finally, I've got round to reading the first two issues of Ultimate Avengers 3: Blade vs. The Avengers (Marvel) which sees Millar going back to writing superheroes with a more realistic, human tone. The concept is basically vampires wanting to turn superheroes in to vampires and it's something that's already being done at the moment by the X-Men 'Curse of the Mutants' storyline which I've reviewed previously. Not as serious as the previously mentioned X-Men story line and packing more of a visceral punch (within the first few pages of issue 1, Blade is hacking up vamps and throwing out one liners like they're going out of fashion) but this definitely isn't classic Millar. Not bad by any means but I feel he's at his best when concentrating on creator-owned characters who he can mould into his own.

Check in next time where I'll be talking about Mike Mignola's "Baltimore, The Plague Ships" and more!

Thanks to Forbidden Planet, your one-stop shop for all things comic-related.

© Rock Sound 2011 | Terms & Conditions | Advertise with us