Was Kickass 2 Worth the Wait?

October 2010. It was a good time. I was just starting my journey to try to get into nursing school. To put the time into perspective for the rest of you, this was the month Jackass 3D and Secretariat came out in theaters. It was in this month that I picked up the first issue of Kickass 2. I just picked up the last issue of the mini-series last week. It was a 7 issue mini-series. The hell? With a book that was plagued by delays and push backs, it really left me wondering if it was all worth it?

And the comic dates itself.

It depends on how you look at it. Please, just saying: spoilers.

When comparing the complete series to the first, it’s no contest. The first Kickass was much better. It was much more fast paced and the characters were much more fleshed out. Kickass 2’s overall plot was about Dave finding a Justice Leaguesque team of heroes to align himself with. Paralleling this, Red Mist is forming a criminal organization, complete with his own version of Hit Girl named Mother Russia.

Big Daddy and Hit Girl were so developed in the original series. Against this, a majority of the characters of Justice Forever aren’t really developed at all! Some of their origins are told (with Remembering Tommy being the best) but that was only for a few. A good deal of them didn’t even have lines. I really wanted to know more about Night Bitch and Rocket-Man (a man with a jetpack made of Balsa wood. Because, of course.). But, ultimately this was JUST Kickass’s story. I mean that.

Hit Girl was NOT there. For the first five issues of this series, Mindy is listening to her foster father and keeping her nose out of the events happening. She’ll be on a page max. That sucks. While she may or may not be the most memorable character of the series (depending on who you ask), she is definitely the most badass. That was something that was missing from the overall story. While it still had its gore and action, it was missing the pure, balls to the wall insanity that Hit Girl brought to the heroes SO amazingly.

So, if you’re comparing the series as a whole, it really wasn’t worth the wait.

Holy freaking Patrick Swayze’s ghost, was the ending of this mini-series absolutely excellent. Ignoring the existence of the first series, the ending of this series made the waiting through all the delays truly worthwhile. The final issue involves a final showdown between the villains and heroes in Time Squares. Kickass VS Red Mist, Mother Russia vs Hit Girl. It was beyond glorious and really, really assuaged my belief that Millar might be losing his touch.

With the storm of delays that were occurring through Kick Ass 2, I’d told myself I wasn’t going to go for his nextKickass related series until the trade came out. But with the new series due out in June, entitled Hit Girl, there is no way that it’s that’s happening. The ending of Kickass 2 was both too amazing and ended way too well for me to wait a year and half for the entire series. I’d rather crawl through it, feeding my need of having these excellent characters in my life little by little. Of course, I’d rather have a monthly series with these characters but it was Mick Jagger that said we can’t always get what we want.

So do yourself some good and grab the trade of Kickass 2 when it comes out in paperback. I encourage you to check out Hit Girl’s solo series in June.  I imagine it’s going to be pure, canned awesomeness that no comic fan should miss.