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Kick-Ass

I'm a very casual comic fan and don't know any of the personalities involved. What's the story with Millar and what did he do wrong?
"Wrong" is a rather strong word. Since success is ultimately derived from the audience, you have to accept that somebody wants him to keep doing what he's doing. Millar's just another guy whose success has gone to his head. Not everyone minds that.

Back in the late eighties/early nineties, DC noticed that Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman were from the U.K, and concluded that geography must have something to do with their talent. So they headhunted a bunch of U.K. writers, including Millar, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, and a few others. They call it the British Invasion. Turns out most of them thought American comics were rubbish, but didn't mind the paychecks coming from the publishers of those comics. The end result was a lot of tedious gritty, dark, deconstruction of superheroes. Some folks just can't get enough of that nastyness (basically, people who haven't had enough nastyness in their real life, so they think it's cool), and others had more than enough and left.

Millar was always trying to top everyone else with how mean-spirited his stuff could be. His protagonists tend to be unremittingly smug and sadistic. He was one of the guys who wrote The Authority, essentially a pastiche of teams like the Avengers and JLA, where the members are remorseless killers who work against the machinations of the evil G7 world governments, led by the supremely vile United States (as much as the British Invasion writers detest traditional superheroes, they also have a crackpot conspiracy theorist's passion for the demonization of the U.S. government).

He also got to re-envision the Avengers in the ultimate version of the comic. His Captain America is a jack-booted thug who loves to use his shield to send teeth flying and blood spurting from broken faces. His Hulk doesn't just kill people during his rampages, he eats them. His Wasp is this sexy lady who, unbeknownst to most, is a mutant that eats bugs and issues eggs during her menstrual cycle. Her husband, Giant-Man, beats her up.

Hopefully, you get the general idea by now. It's superheroics devoid of any heart. And that'd be no biggie--like I said, I've enjoyed some of his stuff--except that these kind of comics have to some degree shoved other kinds of comics off the shelves, and in turn burned out a lot of readers. Supposedly, Marvel is gearing up for a new "heroic age", which I'm interested in seeing.

He also likes to drum up attention by getting people's goats. For instance, did you ever hear about the Orson Welles Batman movie that almost was?
 
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I liked it. Maybe I was a little surprised because the trailer didn't really do anything for me. Acting and story were decent, action scenes were well done. 3 out of 4 stars!
 


My youngest son and I are going to go see this on Saturday, on the strong recommendations of my oldest son (who now lives several states away). We're also bringing all but one of our normal gaming group.

Johnathan
 


Into the Woods

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