r/kickass

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I think I'd say Its mixed for me. There were some parts I liked, and parts I didn't, mostly it was anything to do with "the mother fucker" because anytime he was on screen there'd be the most brutal, tasteless use violence. Which says something because this is fucking kick ass. If the idea was to give one physical form to all the evilness online, the tasteless jokes and bigotry, and the over abundance of hurt. Then I'd say they did a bang up job with condensing all that into one person. The problem is, they don't commit to him being an online troll or an actual villain. If everything he did was related to Dave, doxing him, his family, his friends and address. And left actually harming him in whatever way to his goons, then he would've been (I think) a really good antigonistic force, and that would've been in line whith how he was written before as a snot-nosed kid that can't do much on his own, which I think is what they were going for considering how he went out. Or, if they did want to use him as an outright villain, maybe showing some restraint would've been a better choice. As it is written, he's tastlessly evil for the fun of it and that could've been something if they dialed back on what he does. Or if he had to shoot some kids in the face to get to Dave because he hates him so much (that's another thing they don't do enough with) maybe have him shoot up his school. It's not like he can't find out where it is. And doing that would've been a much more concentrated and effective way of either killing him, or trying to screw with him, (it's never made clear what he's actually trying to accomplish) and it would've made for a great opportunity for interaction between the two, which is sorely missing from the book imo.

The last book's theme was following one's dream framed through loneliness' obsession. This time around it's kinda muddled. I think it's "be proud of your dream, no matter what." because it feels like that's what they were leaning to with entire premise of the book, with people following along Dave's footsteps after seeing it's possible. And I think it's explicitly told with the conversation between Dave and his dad, (a scene that's criminally short) where he states he's proud of what he's doing, and people around just as. But it doesn't lean into that idea far enough. Mf could've been an example of following you're dreams in the wrong way, or his doxing could've been framed not only as terrifying breach of privacy, but also as a way of stripping Dave of his dream. And the police could've been this too. But as it is the idea is underbaked.

The idea of kick-ass as a whole is bring superheroes into our world, and how scarey and messy that would actually be. And the fist book I feel like does this well, because it uses Dave's thoughts to relate this to a realistic perspective. The magic and horror and pain associated. But I feel like we don't get enough of that. There's the funeral and when he thought he actually killed, and those were honestly great. Along with the first introduction to jf, even though I feel that's weaker than the others, was also good. But I simply wish we could've gotten more.

I feel like my knee-jerk reaction to a lot of these is "oh it's a pacing problem" but i don't think so, because they did it well enough in the first book, so they clearly know how to work with less. Maybe it could be they're trying to jam too much, but realistically it's the same number of perspectives as the first, Dave, Mf, and Mindy. So I'm lead to think that it's a problem with how the story is fundementally told, what scenes they decided to write and not. Which I went into before.

Overall kinda weaker than the last one, with some of the problems carrying over. But with some of its strengths too, like the art, and some pieces of writing.