Kick-Ass 3 Issue No. 1 Review: Millar Falls Flat with Possibly Worst Issue in the Series

by Damon Martin – Editor/Lead Writer
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(With all reviews be forewarned spoilers ahead!!)

The third and final volume of Kick-Ass is now in comic book stores as Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. wrap up their tale of real life superheroes once and for all.

The first two installments of Kick-Ass were a fresh, new take on the comic book genre as Millar created characters that almost seemed like they could be people we’ve known in life and even took jabs at the superhero genre, while mixing in some good old fashioned pop culture humor along the way.

Oh and of course there was violence—a lot of violence. So much in fact that your senses were almost dulled by the end of the final book for Kick-Ass 2 that you probably forgot Mindy/Hit-Girl was supposed to be a pre-teen as she was spouting four letter words better than Richard Pryor.

Kick-Ass 3 picks up just where Kick-Ass 2 left off with Hit-Girl headed to jail after she and the rest of the crew took down the Motherfucker and his band of villains.

Unfortunately, Millar falls flat on his face with this first issue in the final series of books following Dave Lizewski and his pal Mindy, along with his island of misfit toys do-gooders.

The opening book of this series was really Millar’s attempt at staying true to the original source material, making some cracks and jokes here and there (and succeeding in at least one or two of them including the way he noted how all action heroes in movies tend to have the same names), but overall it felt forced and like he was trying to relive the same formula over and over again.

The most disturbing part of the book comes when Dave and his friend visit the graveyard where he’s seeing his dad’s tombstone and proceeds to make jokes about how he now resembles Bruce Wayne so much that they have to take a few somber pictures to capture the moment. It really turns Dave from a likeable loser to someone you kind of hope gets smashed by the final page.

Maybe this book is the ultimate set up for how the rest of the series will go because Millar essentially paints a bleak and boring world where the heroes’ lair has turned into a dive apartment where one particular vigilante now stays full time along with his girlfriend, while Dave and his cohorts can do nothing to get rid of him.

The final showdown in issue one was about as surprising as finding out that Ned Stark dies in Game of Thrones after already reading the books before the television show aired. In other words everybody saw this coming.

Maybe Millar went to the well one too many times with the Kick-Ass series. Maybe he just ran out of ideas and tried to resurrect some parts of the first series (which was brilliant). Or maybe he’s just setting us all up to hate this first book so we will fall in love with the other issues.

Whatever the case may be, it’s safe to say Kick-Ass 3 No. 1 was by far my least favorite issue in this ongoing series—so much so that if the story keeps going down this path for issue two, there may not be reviews for the rest of the books.

It might be best to pretend that the Kick-Ass saga ended one book earlier.