‘Kick-Ass’: Mark Millar knows exactly how it will all end

Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s “Kick-Ass” comic continues with the saga of high school geek Dave Lizewski and his transformation into the violent vigilante in the current seven-issue miniseries “Kick-Ass 2,” the second portion of the trilogy. The comic is nearly halfway through its run (No. 3 came out Aug. 24) and is still as popular as ever with five reprintings of issue No. 1 of the series alone. Hero Complex contributor Jevon Phillips caught up with writer Millar to find out what’s going on with the title and to get some answers about a movie sequel.



In "Kick Ass 2," the vigilante joins up with Justice Forever

JP: OK, first let’s get two things out of the way before we get to “Kick-Ass 2″ and “Kick-Ass 3.” What did you think about “Super”? It came after “Kick-Ass” and was pretty similar in tone… MM: “Super” was an amazing movie. One of the best things I’ve seen this year. Because it was released a year after “Kick-Ass” and dealt with similar themes, a lot of people thought we’d been ripped off, but I can say without a shred of doubt that the story was being worked on at the same time I was writing “Kick-Ass” and we weren’t ripped off in any way. The writer and director, James Gunn, is an email mate of mine, and it was genuinely just a coincidence. This happens all the time, and the movies are so different in execution I actually think they really complement each other. James is a brilliant writer, by the way. He wrote Zack Snyder’s best movie so far, “Dawn of the Dead,” and in my view actually managed to improve upon the classic. He also directed a brilliant flick called “Slither,” which I would urge people to see.

JP: And the second thing that’s on people’s minds: How do you feel about the DC relaunch?
MM: I’m delighted to see DC getting back in the game with their reboot. Making characters who are as old as Donald Duck relevant to a modern audience isn’t easy. I joked about how they were Botoxing these old dudes and squeezing them back into their tights, but in all seriousness it’s been good for retailers and after a long time of soft sales on the bulk of their characters they’ve really got people’s attention again. I love a lot of the guys over there and grew up with these characters. Creatively, it’s not where my head’s at, because I think we need to do what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did in the ’60s and move forward, creating a new generation of characters and concepts for a 21st century readership. But I like the fact they’ve done something ballsy like this and it’s put money in the pockets of retailers. I don’t know how long it’s going to last in the medium term, but a nice little boost in the meantime.
JP: So now, the “Kick-Ass 2″ miniseries is on shelves. Can you give us an overview?

MM: Sure. “Kick-Ass 2″ picks up immediately after the credits of the first movie, and we see that Red Mist has turned his back on being an amateur superhero and wants to become the world’s first supervillain. At the same time, we take the “Kick-Ass” idea to the next level to where all the amateur superheroes out there in New York start to form a gang and, essentially, a real-life version of the Justice League or the Avengers. It’s a very ground-level view of what a super-team would be like, their headquarters below a pub and these guys all having collections every week to pay for coffee and biscuits at their meetings, but it builds up quickly into something not unlike the classic “The Warriors” movie from the ’70s. You basically have a gang of good guys and a gang of villains out there trying to take out the other and Red Mist becomes the leader of the bad guys, finding out the heroes’ secret identities and pulling their lives apart. The cops are caught in the middle of all this and Hit-Girl, of course, is a major player. She basically retired in the first book and is now living with her stepfather, being a good girl and going to girl guides and so on. She’s like Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven,” except instead of tending a farm when she hangs up her gun she’s hanging out with 12-year-olds and watching “Glee,” desperate to pick up a knife and a machine gun again but promising her stepfather she won’t.
JP: With supervillains (can they be called super?) gathering and Red Mist’s evil transition, the series, though always kind of dark and brutal, seems to have taken an even more violent turn. Is this just a product of the times?
MM: The idea of “Kick-Ass” is what would happen if a kid put on a costume and tried to fight crime. As I realized on Page 15, this was going to get very violent because very quickly, if he was effective, he’d start making enemies. He’s running into bad people and this escalates in the sequel because something Darwinian has happened. The emergence of the superhero has created, in essence, a supervillain fashion and to make themselves stand out from regular criminals these guys need to go to the next level. It’s got nods to everything from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” to modern-day shootings where alienated teenagers, spoiled and disassociated from normal life, turn their frustrations upon innocent people. “Kick-Ass” was about a boy trying to be Batman or Spider-Man. “Kick-Ass 2″ is about his enemies trying to be Heath Ledger’s Joker.

JP: Hit-Girl was obviously a breakout fave for comic book and movie fans. With her struggling to be “normal,” what can fans expect from her in this series and beyond?


Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit-Girl in the film "Kick-Ass."

MM: Sure. “Kick-Ass 2″ picks up immediately after the credits of the first movie, and we see that Red Mist has turned his back on being an amateur superhero and wants to become the world’s first supervillain. At the same time, we take the “Kick-Ass” idea to the next level to where all the amateur superheroes out there in New York start to form a gang and, essentially, a real-life version of the Justice League or the Avengers. It’s a very ground-level view of what a super-team would be like, their headquarters below a pub and these guys all having collections every week to pay for coffee and biscuits at their meetings, but it builds up quickly into something not unlike the classic “The Warriors” movie from the ’70s. You basically have a gang of good guys and a gang of villains out there trying to take out the other and Red Mist becomes the leader of the bad guys, finding out the heroes’ secret identities and pulling their lives apart. The cops are caught in the middle of all this and Hit-Girl, of course, is a major player. She basically retired in the first book and is now living with her stepfather, being a good girl and going to girl guides and so on. She’s like Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven,” except instead of tending a farm when she hangs up her gun she’s hanging out with 12-year-olds and watching “Glee,” desperate to pick up a knife and a machine gun again but promising her stepfather she won’t. JP: With supervillains (can they be called super?) gathering and Red Mist’s evil transition, the series, though always kind of dark and brutal, seems to have taken an even more violent turn. Is this just a product of the times?
MM: The idea of “Kick-Ass” is what would happen if a kid put on a costume and tried to fight crime. As I realized on Page 15, this was going to get very violent because very quickly, if he was effective, he’d start making enemies. He’s running into bad people and this escalates in the sequel because something Darwinian has happened. The emergence of the superhero has created, in essence, a supervillain fashion and to make themselves stand out from regular criminals these guys need to go to the next level. It’s got nods to everything from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” to modern-day shootings where alienated teenagers, spoiled and disassociated from normal life, turn their frustrations upon innocent people. “Kick-Ass” was about a boy trying to be Batman or Spider-Man. “Kick-Ass 2″ is about his enemies trying to be Heath Ledger’s Joker.
JP: Hit-Girl was obviously a breakout fave for comic book and movie fans. With her struggling to be “normal,” what can fans expect from her in this series and beyond?

MM: Sure. “Kick-Ass 2″ picks up immediately after the credits of the first movie, and we see that Red Mist has turned his back on being an amateur superhero and wants to become the world’s first supervillain. At the same time, we take the “Kick-Ass” idea to the next level to where all the amateur superheroes out there in New York start to form a gang and, essentially, a real-life version of the Justice League or the Avengers. It’s a very ground-level view of what a super-team would be like, their headquarters below a pub and these guys all having collections every week to pay for coffee and biscuits at their meetings, but it builds up quickly into something not unlike the classic “The Warriors” movie from the ’70s. You basically have a gang of good guys and a gang of villains out there trying to take out the other and Red Mist becomes the leader of the bad guys, finding out the heroes’ secret identities and pulling their lives apart. The cops are caught in the middle of all this and Hit-Girl, of course, is a major player. She basically retired in the first book and is now living with her stepfather, being a good girl and going to girl guides and so on. She’s like Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven,” except instead of tending a farm when she hangs up her gun she’s hanging out with 12-year-olds and watching “Glee,” desperate to pick up a knife and a machine gun again but promising her stepfather she won’t.
JP: With supervillains (can they be called super?) gathering and Red Mist’s evil transition, the series, though always kind of dark and brutal, seems to have taken an even more violent turn. Is this just a product of the times?
MM: The idea of “Kick-Ass” is what would happen if a kid put on a costume and tried to fight crime. As I realized on Page 15, this was going to get very violent because very quickly, if he was effective, he’d start making enemies. He’s running into bad people and this escalates in the sequel because something Darwinian has happened. The emergence of the superhero has created, in essence, a supervillain fashion and to make themselves stand out from regular criminals these guys need to go to the next level. It’s got nods to everything from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” to modern-day shootings where alienated teenagers, spoiled and disassociated from normal life, turn their frustrations upon innocent people. “Kick-Ass” was about a boy trying to be Batman or Spider-Man. “Kick-Ass 2″ is about his enemies trying to be Heath Ledger’s Joker.
JP: Hit-Girl was obviously a breakout fave for comic book and movie fans. With her struggling to be “normal,” what can fans expect from her in this series and beyond?