HitGirl5-1[Ed. note – Attention any vigilantes whose crime fetish is knocking out rampant spoiler bombs: I have a taser, a panic room, and a crate of whiskey. Do your worst.]
I have to admit that, although I was a big fan of Mark Millar’s Wanted, when the original Kick-Ass dropped back dropped back in 2008, I didn’t scramble to read it. In fact, it took renting the movie version, or possibly stumbling across it on cable, I don’t know – I drink, what can I say, and ChloĆ« Moretz’s star turn as Hit-Girl, to really draw me in. Sure, the put upon nerd who turns vigilante thing had been done to death, but the little girl who just wanted to please her dad to the point of psychosis? That was new. That wasn’t a sulky teenager with a vainglorious mom like Silk Spectre, involved in the family business because it was expected. This was a young child who’d developed an amazing – and terrifying – skill set. Hit-Girl worshiped her father and he seemed to love the hell out of her right back, with both parties oblivious – in this story about serving justice to criminals – that dad was a perpetrator of systematic, pervasive child abuse.

Don’t believe me? Read Hit-Girl #5.