Kick-Ass (4½ Stars)

I finally watched this film again after reviewing it on November 5th. Rather than say too much about the film itself, which I think is great and has my full recommendation, I want to say something about the comic books that acted as the inspiration for the film.

I'm a big comic book fan. I'm especially enthusiastic about 1960's Marvel Comics. Before anyone laughs at me for being old-fashioned, let me point out that the recent Marvel films about Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Iron Man are all based on the 1960's comics. Daredevil and the X-Men are comics that started in the 1960's, but the films are based on 1970's versions of the stories.

Traditionally comic fans talk about the gold, silver, bronze and modern eras of comic books. There are some differences in definition of these eras, since they're a matter of opinion rather than fact. But let me give you my defintion:

Golden Era: 1938-1960
Silver Era: 1961-1969
Bronze Era: 1970-1984
Modern Era: 1985 onwards

These eras have different characteristics. The golden era started with the invention of Superman in Action Comics #1. In the golden era a character was introduced, such as Superman or Batman, and his comic was a standalone item. If you read Superman comics you didn't need to know that Batman even existed. They lived in different cities, they had different enemies, and they never met. Even the Justice League of America, a group that contained Batman, Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, had no relationship to the individual comics of the heroes. The JLA existed neither in Superman's Metropolis or Batman's Gotham City, but in an undefined city, and it seemed that the characters lived there all the time. In fact, it could be argued that the JLA's members weren't even the same characters as the ones with the same names in their individual comics. They were alternate versions.

The golden age is considered by many to have ended in 1950, when there was an industry slump and relatively few comics were sold. I'll accept that argument. In that case I would call the 1950's the Sleeping Era.

The silver era began with the appearance of the Fantastic Four in 1961. In fact, the whole silver era was driven by one man, the legendary Stan Lee. Although he had been writing comics since 1941, mainly monster stories and romance comics, he had a period of sensational inspiration in the 1960's. He said himself that he didn't know how he was doing it, but everything he did turned to gold. Stan Lee invented in quick succession a series of characters who are still popular 50 years later, such as Spider-Man, Daredevil, Thor, the Hulk and Iron Man, to name just a few.

The only way to describe the success of his comics is by showing the difference to what had gone before. The stories no longer took place in fictional cities. Almost all of the heroes lived in New York City. Only the Hulk was isolated in New Mexico. This resulted in the biggest single difference: the comics were all interlocked in one big story. The heroes met each other on occasions. They often shared the same enemies. They lived in the same world. Later on the expression "Marvel Universe" was used, but to be fair this expression wasn't coined until the bronze era. As far as the silver age writers were concerned, their comics were taking place in our universe. The buzz word that they used to describe their concept was "continuity". None of their comics contradicted one another.

Another of the differences of the silver era comics was that the heroes weren't shown as flawless. Just because they were superheroes it didn't mean their private lives were super successful. Spider-Man was Peter Parker, a shy teenager with a sick aunt. Daredevil was Matt Murdock, a blind man. Thor was Donald Blake, a weak man who needed a walking stick. Iron Man was Tony Stark, a man who needed a heart machine to stay alive. The readers could relate to the heroes in their weaknesses.

The bronze era of comics doesn't have a clear starting point. The landmark occurrence is Silver Surfer #18 in 1969, which marked the end of the silver era. This was the last comic written on a regular basis by Stan Lee. It's fair to say that he had burned himself out. After eight years of writing the best comics the world has ever known -- and I refuse to be contradicted on that statement -- he turned more and more to corporate responsibility. Apart from occasional stories, his only regular writing in the 1970's was his Spider-Man newspaper strip.

The bronze era is marked by proliferation. In the silver era a relatively small number of comics were published monthly, and they sold millions of copies each. In the bronze era many, many new comics were created, new heroes appearing every year, all battling for the market. The new heroes were mostly very two-dimensional characters, like the golden era flawless heroes. Apart from a few notable exceptions, such as Steve Englehart's body of work, this was a very forgettable era. In fact, Englehart's success was because he attempted to revive the spirit of the silver era. He was also instrumental in returning Batman to his gritty golden era personality, after Batman had spent the silver era as a camp, comical character.

The modern era started, in my opinion, with "Crisis on Infinite Earths", published by DC Comics in 1985. This was primarily a "universe reboot", since DC's lack of continuity had led to hundreds of ridiculous contradictions between their comics. It was also a super-crossover like Marvel's "Secret Wars" in 1984, in which just about all the heroes published by the respective comic companies teamed up. The modern era is marked by several different factors:

Artwork was becoming more important than the storytelling. There were bigger pictures and less speech bubbles.

New companies were growing important. There had always been small comic companies in America, but now some of them were selling a lot of comics.

Anti-heroes became popular. There were a lot of heroes, such as Wolverine and Elektra, who would rather kill a villain than hand him over to the police.

The main difference in the modern era came through the break-up of the bullpen, due to the advance of computers and the Internet. In the previous eras the writers and artists had all sat together in the same building, working and socialising together. Stan Lee affectionately said that the Marvel bullpen used to talk about comics at lunch, and after work they would sit in bars drinking and talking about comics. They lived comics 24 hours a day. Today most writers and artists work from home, scattered across the USA. Only the colouring and final production of comics is done under one roof.

Another change in the modern era -- and I'm finally getting back to "Kick Ass" -- is the abandoning of continuity. DC made several attempts to introduce continuity and finally gave up. Marvel's continuity just faded away. "Kick Ass" is a Marvel comic that isn't just outside of the Marvel continuity, it rejects it. Dave Lizewski is a teenager who reads Spider-Man comics and wants to be like him. This is the author's way of saying that the character Kick Ass doesn't live in the Marvel universe, he lives in the same world as you and I do.

(Incidentally, in early stories of the Fantastic Four it's made clear that Marvel characters really lived in our universe. Reed Richards said that he sent summaries of the group's adventures to comic book companies to be written about. Johnny Storm is shown reading Fantastic Four comics. Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby appear as guests at the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm).

My preferences lie with the silver era, as I've stated above. I'm happy that many of the silver era comic characters have been filmed in recent years. My main criticism of the X-Men films is that they skipped the silver era and started with bronze era characters. I have big hopes for the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers films. (Before anyone comments, yes, I know that Captain America was a golden era hero, but his silver era stories were much better). 2011 and 2012 will be big years for Marvel films.