This has been, for the most part, a series of diminishing returns. [b:Hit-Girl|15984355|Hit-Girl|Mark Millar|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1370817554s/15984355.jpg|21738672] and [b:Kick-Ass 2|10871925|Kick-Ass 2|Mark Millar|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338335209s/10871925.jpg|15787215] weren't very good, going for gore over story.

So, I was pleased to see some additional characterization in this last KA story. It's still dumb, over-the-top, and excessively, gratuitously violent. But it does, for the most part, wrap up the story of Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, which is what it was supposed to do.

Millar has developed into one of those guys that can't issue a statement without some sort of personal PR, a trait that has become more and more irritating as the years pass. And he couldn't resist it in the final pages of this comic either, shamelessly plugging either directly or indirectly, something like five of his other works. He then goes on to plug them again a few pages later in his Thank You sign-off. He's becoming that annoying author on Twitter who's only tweets are variations of "Buy my books!"

And John Romita Jr., the artist. I'll leave it as this: I'm not a fan, never have been, have never understood what all the hoopla is about.

Overall, I only picked this up because I knew it was the end. I'm glad I did, because it was better than the last two volumes, but still, not worth all the hype that Millar foists upon it. He's capable of so much better. ( )

Reading ‘Kick-Ass 3’ only took a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve seen the original film and missed the second but this was my first encounter with the comic book source material. I’m sure it will be a film, too. ‘Kick-Ass’, in case you didn’t know, is Dave Lizewski, a teenage geek who decided that he could wear a wet suit and fight crime but got beat up instead. Things improved when he met Hit-Girl and her father, Big Daddy, a far more professional team who really knew how to kick ass. Hit-Girl is a foul-mouthed, murderous pre-adolescent, a sort of anti-Pollyanna. Clearly, there is an element of black comedy to the series.


Missing ‘Kick-Ass 2’ didn’t affect reading ‘Kick-Ass 3’, as the story is easy to pick up on. Hit-Girl is in a high-security jail and Kick-Ass plans to get her out. In this, he will be aided by some other ineffective super-heroes in a team known as Justice Forever. The plan doesn’t go well. They need more training. Hit-Girl is stuck in jail for a while.

Meanwhile, Rocco Genovese plans to take over the gangs all along the east coast of the USA, aided by the corrupt cops he owns. As things fall apart, Kick-Ass gets a girlfriend, a sexy nurse, who takes up most of his time. His best friend has decided that as girls his own age don’t want geeks like him, he will go on-line and pick up single older women. This works out very well for him. Young geeks take note.

The super-heroics get a bit forgotten. The luxurious top-secret HQ of Justice Forever is mostly occupied by The Juicer, an older man who is laying up there, he says, just until he can save up enough cash to get a place of his own. He moves his girlfriend in and they spend their days watching super-hero box sets which are bought on expenses as ‘research‘. Then the Skull and Bones Gang hit the town and things get worse.

The story by Mark Millar is pretty good and the script is clever with several references to well known comic books. The basic joke of adolescent notions of super-heroics coming up against the real live nastiness of criminals still works. It’s hard to imagine a better art team than John Romita Jr. and Tom Palmer. JRJR, as he signs himself, can undoubtedly draw and Tom Palmer is one of the best inkers in the business. He bought the pencils of talents like Gene Colan and John Buscema to a new level of excellence. Strange, then, that I didn’t much like the art. The figures and faces are crude. As these guys know what they are doing, I guess it was meant to look this way. The storytelling is perfect, though, and that’s the main thing.

The violence is astonishing to an old man bought up on Silver Age comics but I won’t go on about it. There is sex, too, so this one is not suitable for younger viewers. Older readers and fans of the series will probably love it and eagerly anticipate the film. Me, too. I wonder who they’ll cast as the hot nurse.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
( )

Following the trend that each one is half as good as the previous this is 25% as good as Kickass. Still not bad, but nothing special. ( )

Kick-Ass 3 is the final sequel to Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass 2.

Plot [with SPOILERS for Kick-Ass 2]:
After the events of Kick-Ass 2, things aren’t very good. Mindy is still in jail. Justice Forever is severely reduced. Dave still wants to fight the good fight, but he can’t bring the rest of Justice Forever to break Mindy out of prison, and without Hit-Girl they are all a little aimless. It also doesn’t help that Dave meets a woman, Valerie, who he really likes. But when the Motherfucker’s uncle Don Rocco comes to town to take over the legacy of his brother and to clean the mess up, starting with the masked heroes, they are facing a challenge on a whole new scale.

Kick-Ass 3 is not only on the same level as the other books (warts and all), it provides a very satisfying end to the story that makes it okay that there isn’t any more to this series.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.com/2015/04/11/kick-ass-3-mark-millar-john-romita-jr/ ( )