Mark Millar and John Romita Jr give the most popular character from the Kickass franchise with her own mini series in this strange prequel / sequel series.

Set after the events of Kickass vol. 1 but before volume 2, the book opens with the remaining members of the Genovese family hunting and murdering members of the real life superhero movement in search of Kickass and Hitgirl.

Meanwhile we find Hitgirl living as a normal girl with her mom and step father Marcus.  Mindy (Hitgirl’s secret identity as she refers to it) reflects on everything her father did to mold her into a superhero, but despite all this training she was never taught to be a normal kid. Struggling with everyday life Hitgirl decides it’s time to dust off her costume and train Kickass and turn him into a real superhero to continue her father’s mission.

Romita’s layouts and gritty character designs and fight sequences really shows where the artist shines. After his recent stint on Avengers vs X-men it’s nice to see Romita back into hardboiled series again.

The prequel approach for this series is interesting because anyone who has read Kickass vol. 2 (KA2) knows the end result of the journey our heroes are taking in HitGirl #1. Like any good prequel Millar does a fair job showing readers the events that lead to the conclusion for KA2 while at the same time setting up questions on how certain characters got to where they were in the second volume.

To be honest though I was actually looking forward to this mini series when I thought it was a sequel. The way KA2 ended, especially where Hitgirl ended up, left with the promise of a great idea and game changing story. Although this series does add a lot to KA2, it does feel like back to basics.

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