KICK-ASS #7 REVIEW
Summary: Patience is the boss now.
5
Welcome back Patience!
Welcome back Patience. I missed you.
With writer Steve Niles now at the helm, and Marcelo Frusin taking over as artist, Kick-Ass has come back feeling fresh, new and of course, brutal as fuck!
We begin this issue with Patience and her new gang of loyal criminal cohorts staging a surprise attack on a drug processing plant. The whole dodgy operation is controlled by the notorious gang lord, Hector Santos, the new target on the top of Patience’s hit list. After the events that unfolded in the previous arc, which saw Patience take down Hoops Lucero and numerous other underworld figures, we now see her calling the shots as she runs her own criminal empire…you can pretty much call her a crime lord now. Anyway, after successfully pulling off this raid, Patience takes off the yellow and green spandex and surprisingly heads over to her other job, working as a waitress. Yep, Patience is still slogging away at the diner even though her other “business” is racking in millions each month. She does this as she wants to stay “grounded”, so she decides to take a soldier’s salary of $800 a week, whilst using the remainder of the money for good, as she pours it back into the community to help others. All is doing fine and dandy, however, this business has a habit of attracting the wrong kind of unsavoury and dangerous attention. Let’s just say, Hector Santos is really, really pissed and wanting to take-down Kick-Ass once and for all.
Oh yeah, I’m one happy chappy. I absolutely love Patience and I’m a huge fan of Steve Niles, so I was rather chuffed when I found out that he was taking over Kick-Ass for Mark Millar…still love ya Mark! I like how we see Patience’s internal monologue constantly running throughout the issue, revealing her true thoughts and intentions. It is through this that we learn more about her internal conflict and the struggles she is personally experiencing, as she grapples with the guilt over putting Maurice in a coma and also her new role as a crime lord. She tells herself that she is “keeping the peace” so to speak, but at what cost? Patience needs to remind herself why and who she is doing this for, which is weighing heavily on her conscience and causing her a lot of guilt. The many complex layers of Patience once again shining through.
I also really enjoyed how Niles doesn’t keep us waiting for chaos, mayhem and brutal violence. The reality is that if you’re reading a Kick-Ass comic, you know that it’s going to get nasty, and Niles certainly doesn’t hold back in this issue. It’s a bad business and Patience and her fellow thugs do bad things. They don’t even hesitate to take out a whole building of enemies…just don’t shoot at the good guys, OK!
We also see Marcelo Frusin take over from John Romita Jr as artist, brining an interesting and more realistic style of art to the Kick-Ass franchise. I rather liked his art, believing that her captures such honest and believable expressions in an effortless and totally convincing way. There was one particular face of a man being shot in the head that both made me laugh-out-loud whilst also recoil in horror. It was excellent and I love faces like that in all their grotesque glory. The inking and linework is both heavy and detailed, giving everything a somewhat graphic and gritty quality, which works well with the overall tone of the narrative. Colourist, Sunny Gho, brings a lovely and subtle colour palette that I thought helped to make this world feel soiled, lived in and dirty. The palette during the action scenes is atmospheric and shifts to match the change in intensity and pace.
Overall, I thought this was a killer introduction to the new arc. Steve Niles and Marcelo Frusin are a great team, and I love the direction that they are taking the story. I can see a lot of exciting things on the horizon for Patience, and I’m looking forward to when the next issue comes out.
I’m giving this issue 5 out of 5 stars!
COMIC DETAILS
CREATIVE TEAM: Steve Niles, Marcelo Frusin and Sunny Gho
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PUBLICATION DATE: September 19, 2018
REVIEWER: Dana Folkard
About the Author
Dana Folkard An absolute nerd with a passion for all things sci-fi! Lover of comics, coffee and Geralt of Rivia. Mother of Dragons!
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