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[Punchy]

Hopefully they at least give temporary help a good discount?

You only get a discount if you're full-time and have been working there for 3 months.

But I don't mind, I just want the money and the experience.

[BlueStreak]

Just working in WH Smiths, a bookshop/newsagents/stationers.

It's only Christmas contract at first, but if I do well, it could become full-time.

Excellent. As a former bookstore employee, I approve.

[guitarsmashley]

yeah let's do Incognito.

[Eli Katz]

yeah let's do Incognito.

[Punchy]

The RG has gone Icon crazy!

[guitarsmashley]

It was about time you had a book to like.

[Eli Katz]

It was about time you had a book to like.

Thanks!

[Zero]

Is this the first review?

Kick-Ass 2 #1

Well that was certainly a sequel to Kick-Ass.

Mark Millar has written a comic without any particularly obviously shitty jokes, and for this he gets credit. He does however squeeze in a 'look how cool and awesome my characters are' moment with Hit Girl's little arsenal as well as a spot of gratuitous swearing for the little girl. Hit Girl is probably the easiest way to sum up of of Millar's worst writing flaws in one character by being sort of shocking, very good at violence and very very flat. Anyway what we have here is a hero not enjoying retirement, a group of wannabe idiots heading for a fall and oooh foreshadowing of dark moments to come. It's every sequel ever. More biggerer in every respect except originality.

John Romita jr is a great artist when he wants to be, and Tom Palmer doing finishes and ink washes here really brings out the best of the old pro. I just wish he'd been given something interesting to draw. Credit where credit is due though, he really does excel at selling us on the air of delusion and inherently pathetic nature of the super team.

I didn't like Kick-Ass, I didn't expect to like Kick-Ass 2. As ever, Millar delivers.

2

[Eli Katz]

I read the first three issues of KICK-ASS and enjoyed the awkward geekiness of Dave, the wannabe superhero. I thought Mark Millar had done a good job of introducing a set of interesting, mostly realistic characters and showed with compelling simplicity what the consequences of gaudy vigilantism would inevitably be: Dave getting the snot beaten out of him. But I dropped the series, in disgust, when Hit Girl showed up and started slicing apart hulking men with ease. To me, the idea of a nine-year-old girl cutting apart goons defied all logic and upended the realism that Millar had established in the early issues.

Thankfully, the opening issue of KICK ASS Vol. 2 is similar in tone and style to the opening issues of the first series: a limited amount of mostly realistic violence and a greater focus on characters. Dave, now a recognized hero in tights, patrols the New York streets with a guy who calls himself Dr. Gravity. They talk about being superheroes in a humorous but mostly believable way: Gravity is concerned that he's treading on Dave's turf, and Dave’s just grateful to have a partner in the street. This exchange is not only fun and well-written, but it also reveals the basic rationale behind superhero team-ups: it's very scary patrolling the streets and so any hero, but especially one without any real superpowers, should seek out strength in numbers. Millar interrupts this conversation with a nasty street brawl and, quite amusingly, shows the perils of superhero team-ups: one guy, in this case Gravity, fails to pull his weight and leaves all the fighting for his partner, Dave.

John Romita Jr. and Tom Palmer do an excellent job on art. Romita is as good at laying out domestic scenes -- a conversation in a living room or a birthday party in the park -- as he is at portraying a wild, fist-pounding, crotch-smashing street battle. And Tom Palmer, who has been one of Marvel's top inkers since the late 1960s, does an outstanding job at cleaning up Romita's pencils and producing crisp, clean illustrations. Looking at the back pages of this issue, which show Romita's pencils and Palmer's inks separately, it's clear that Palmer is a major artistic force behind this book. He transforms incredibly rough pages and turns them into some of the best art that we’ve seen by Romita in at least five or six years. Based on this issue alone, Palmer should be Romita's number one collaborator at Marvel, not Klaus Janson.

KICK-ASS Vol. 2 #1 is a solid opening issue. I imagine fans of the original series will find it particularly satisfying. And even I, a vocal Millar-skeptic, might continue to read this book to see where the story goes. My only fear is that Millar will do what Millar always does: ruin a very good opening few issues by concluding the story with pointless, over-the-top, guts-splattering-in-all-directions violence. Let's hope not.

STORY: 7.75
ART: 8.25
OVERALL: 8

[Victorian Squid]

I won't have this book in time for a review.

[Starlord]

Kick-Ass 2 #1

Wow was I pleasantly surprised. I didn't dislike this half as much as I thought I would. If it wasn't for the mediocre art with the boxed chins and way to angular lines, I could have actually enjoyed this. Millar is obviously writing this in the same way Stephen King wrote many of his novels in the mid-eighties... for the movie. That can be as much a weakness as it is a strength, and most of the flaws that are here prove just that.

Still it's a pretty strong opening from a writer that I'm usually not that interested in. My biggest problem with this book is that I don't like the art... at all.

Story: 6
Art: 1
My Score: 5

[guitarsmashley]

It was a pretty ok issue but the set up is starting to get ridiculous.

7

[GHERU]

Ever since Ultimates 2 I have become less and less interested in Millar's work. That being said, never before has one of his comics bored me. Disgusted me / pissed me off / annoyed me yes, bored me; no. That is until now. Kick-Ass 2 #1 was completely uninteresting and tried too hard to be hip and current.

Story 3
Art 5

Overall 4

[S.F. Jude Terror]

I didn't read the first Kick-Ass series, though I did see the movie. I wasn't exactly surprised to see that the comic storyline was different in a lot of ways from the movie, but it was a little bit jarring. Thankfully, as a comic fan, I'm used to that sort of thing, and Millar did a good job of laying out the basics in this issue to get moviegoers up to speed. The thing about Kick-Ass, as a concept, is that it really was great for a movie, and I'm not sure that it was really necessary to have a sequel, as things were wrapped up nicely in that original story. Still, more of a good thing is more gooder, I guess, so I'll be following this at least for the time being.

What really stood out to me here is John Romita Jr.'s art. It's not fantastic by any means, but this is the first work of his I've seen in a long, long time that didn't fill me with disgust. His Avengers, World War Hulk, and anything else he's done recently is just complete and utter garbage, with the boxy figures and amateur sense of incompleteness. Here, he polished his style up a bit, and it shows that he could be a decent, if stylistic, artist, if he would put a little effort into his work.

Better than Nemesis, for sure.

Story: 6
Art: 5
Overall: 5.5

[Eli Katz]

I can't believe I'm the enthusiastic one this week.