Review: Hit-Girl #1 (of 4)
With a new Kick Ass on the block, it seems now is a good time to go in a new direction with his ex-partner in crime fighting, Hit-Girl right? Well actually, thats not the case here as with a couple of minor alterations, things are pretty much as would expect from the pint sized pocket pouch of violence and swearing!
Mindy is missing having her people around, with Dave having retired and of course Big Daddy being dead and all. With that in mind, she sets herself a new goal in acquiring a new pal to murder and massacre around with. Of course, this being Hit-Girl things aren’t always as simple as it sounds.
Mark Millar’s writing in this book is as ultra violent, as you may well expect, which is a brave way to go with the way that guns in the US are currently (and correctly) under the microscope. The fact that the oxymoronic contrast of young girl doling out the pain is still quite a shock, especially with the foul mouth that she possesses.  Reading the book is a little uncomfortable if I am honest and I am not quite sure why, after all it’s not like we haven’t seen all of this before. Maybe, it’s because Hit-Girl needs a foil to rattle against, a sort of non combatant to normalize her life the way that the assistant humanizes the Doctor in Doctor Who. The plot at the moment seems quite simple; why certain people have found themselves on a hit list I don’t know, but am hoping that Millar adds a level of explanation down the line.
Ricardo Lopez Ortiz provides the art in a very stylised fashion. Big teeth, queer angles and skewed perceptions all vie for your eyes attention. It may not be as polished as Romita Jr. over on Kick Ass but it does kind of work within the archaic structure of the story. It’s not really my cup of tea; I don’t want to say its bad as beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. As such, inconsistencies in framework and faces are to be expected. There are almost comedy elements with the size of the guns set against Hit-Girl’s smaller frame. Colors are by Sunny Gho who gives the book an urban feel, on which at times, larges amounts of foreground colors are used, in part to convey some of the emotions that the distorted faces seem unable to do.
I am sure that Mindy has a huge fan base; I am not one of them. For me, I would rather read about a fallible wanna be hero than an infallible almost villain. In the book , there is a small nod to Mindy’s long gone innocence, which may well turn out to be a weakness, which shows that Millar still believes that in the chest of a brutal killer, there beats a heart of a girl that we almost didn’t get to know and is almost certainly moving away from us.
Writing -3 Stars
Art – 3.5 Stars
Colors – 3.5 Stars
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Written by, Mark Millar
Art by; Ricardo Lopez Ortiz
Colors by; Sunny Gho
Published by; Image Comics
Author Profile
- I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow
Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network
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