Ah, Kick-Ass. Never have the words “fun” and “stupid” been used in conjunction so often.

On the surface, Kick-Ass should be everything I hate. If you wrote out descriptions of what happens in this series and pointed out all of the painful one-liners, then on that basis I’d think it would have to go down as my least favorite comic series ever, or Exhibit A in the trial of why Western civilization might deserve to perish.

But it’s not really that bad. Like other comics reviewers whose views I really respect (Dan Phillips and Tim Callahan, for example), I’m drawn to Kick-Ass despite its stupidity. It’s still definitely “worth it”. Yes, there’s the gorgeous art of JRJR. And there’s the overall concept, which shouldn’t seem that original…but does actually prove itself to be fairly original. There’s no other book out there quite like Kick-Ass, that’s for sure. It’s a reach to see it as just the latest incarnation of the “plucky young hero” archetype. This isn’t “Peter Parker for a new generation”, or anything like that. It’s its own thing, and it reads enjoyably. It’s well plotted. And, most important to me, it really gives you an insight into “where we’re at” as a culture, particularly in terms of where the comics community is at.

Because Mark Millar is definitely catering/prostituting himself to fandom here, in shamefully obvious ways. He makes no bones about it. With Kick-Ass he’s actively/obnoxiously trying to be as relevant as possible.

We get a “joke” about Rhianna getting beat up. We get “characterization” by way of a teenager saying that he thinks Aunt May is hot. You’re not supposed to think about these things too much. They’re there for shock value. That’s fine. But, with lines like those, I can’t help but noticing how psychologically false it all rings. It’s not that I’m offended by any of this, but…Would Kick-Ass the character actually be ready to say a domestic abuse joke, and say it so casually? On some level these characters and this story are supposed to be “realistic”. This story is supposed to be happening in a world that’s more realistic than the comic book worlds these characters (and we) read about. It’s supposed to be happening in a world almost exactly like ours. Yet Millar’s characterizations are impossibly incoherent, self-contradictive, and shallow. And that’s unrealistic.

Or is it?

Maybe we in the real world are being made this shallow ourselves. We’d HAVE to be, for a property like Kick-Ass to find so much success. Right? And I myself am not above this. I’m buying this crap too. I’m justifying its sheer stupidity and moronic nature to myself by changing mantras like “Yeah, it’s stupid but it’s FUN” and “Ah, but the art is GREAT” and “It reads well” (whatever that means).

What struck me most about Kick-Ass 2 #1 was how much more devoted the characters are to simulacra than to reality. They basically live their lives based on how their actions will be REpresented on computer screens. Millar makes sure to name-check Myspace AND Facebook AND Twitter (it must be some kind of checklist, for him to reliably mention all three). The characters are shown watching television and texting incessantly.

Perhaps most tellingly, Kick-Ass describes the girl he “loves” in terms of fictional characters. To Kick-Ass, the girl isn’t so much a real human being (Millar never gave her much of a personality anyway), rather she’s “his Mary Jane” or “his Lois Lane”. Or his Scarlett Witch as drawn by Adam Hughes. It’s ridiculous to think of things this way. I don’t think I’m making too big a deal of this. I think it really says something about our psychology these days that such references pass through with instant rubber stamps of approval from all of us. If you think of human beings in terms of what fictional characters and/or actors they resemble, then what you’re really saying is that you view reality through the prism of fantasy. It’s one thing to JOKE about people you know kinda being kinda like Peter Parker, or Han Solo, or Will Farrell in Anchorman or whatever. But to describe a girl you supposedly LOVE as if she were a comic book character? That’s impossibly shallow. But that’s what Kick-Ass does here in his inner monologue. In other words, in his most personal, private thoughts, he understands people in terms of fictional characters.

Simulacra trumps reality; reality is understood in terms of how it may resemble simulacra.

The super-heroes Millar shows us here all seem to hold to that doctrine in other ways as well. They don’t seem to want to fight crime in order to make the world better. No, what they’re much more interested in is getting attention–specifically attention they can check up on and track via the Internet. Throughout all the issues of Kick-Ass so far, I can’t think of many (any?) instances where the aspiring heroes have talked about wanting to clean up their community. But they’ve sure talked a LOT about how many “followers” they have on social networking sites, because that’s what they’re really interested in.

It’s similar to how Mark Millar himself has behaved lately. Does he want to make good comics, or does he want to make comics so that people think he’s cool, hip and controversial? It’s clearly the latter…and if he happens to produce decent comics along the way, I guess that’s fine with him (and me).

But I’m not sure if this process is really healthy, or sustainable, or good. There has to be a breaking point. Whenever someone is doing something just so people will like them or talk about them, that seems to belie a lot of insecurity, and at some point the person will snap, or their “followers” will get tired of them. Why not try to do the best job you can, whether your job is writing (in the case of Millar) or being a hero (in the case of the character Kick-Ass and his friends)? If you’re bending over backwards, saying or doing every ridiculous or trendy thing you can think of, just to get people to like you, then you’re really not focusing on doing a quality job. You’re focusing on getting people to believe your hype, rather than creating something with worthwhile substance behind it (good, deep writing; or a good, heroic career).

In this issue Kick-Ass says that all he “ever wanted to be [was] in the Justice League”. No personage outside of the DCU should ever think that. Any personage who does is genuinely delusional. Now, would I want to be in the Justice League? Uh, sure, sounds cool, albeit totally unrealistic. But Kick-Ass says that’s “ALL I EVER WANTED”. That’s the height of his ambition in life? Not being a good person, not getting a good job, not being a good partner to someone someday, not changing the world for the better somehow, not being a father. No, the height of his ambition in life is being in a FICTITIOUS group of super-humans? I know that line’s just supposed to be a cute phrase, but if you devote one iota of real thinking to it, you can’t help but come to the conclusion that Kick-Ass is genuinely delusional. I would say he’s more insane within his world than Batman is within the DCU. Yet this isn’t really acknowledged by the story.

I know most people won’t have that view, but when you really examine things in context, I think it’s a valid conclusion. It’s kind of the same thing as looking back at certain WWII-era comics. In that case you’re basically reading comics about characters who are racist against the Japanese. The characters themselves didn’t realize this, and neither did their authors. Well, today, in the case of Kick-Ass, you’re reading about characters who are insanely delusional in their slavish devotion to media and fictional simulacra, yet that aspect isn’t quite clear to the author or the readership. Possibly because we’re a little too much like Kick-Ass ourselves, so we don’t notice his insanity. No, we don’t dress up and fight crime. But we are pretty much hooked on media and psychologically devoted to fiction in much the same way he is. Often we think of aspects of our reality in terms of its resemblance to fiction, without realizing how our hierarchy of priorities sometimes seems inverted in the process.

Towards the end of the issue, Hit-Girl’s mom tells her child to get off her trendy texting toy, because “Debbie’s getting her birthday cake and you don’t want to miss the photos”. Think about that. It’s not that Hit-Girl should get off the phone because it’s rude, or so she can have fun with her friend. No, it’s that she needs to be sure to get in the PHOTOS. So, AGAIN, simulacra trumps reality.

Don’t worry about interacting with life on a genuine, honest, thoughtful basis. Nah, worry instead about not getting your image transferred onto a photo that’s going to be posted on Facebook later. Worry about that even when you’re a little girl at a birthday party. Come on, honey, it’s time to put the texting down…so you can get in a Facebook photo.

And I’m not saying “technology is bad” or anything like that. It’s just that oblivious obsession with anything (technology, or cheap fame and people “liking” you) can serve as an awful distraction. It evidently leads to life that’s superficial. If this sort of mindless life is at times enjoyable, at times it’s also dysfunctional. We see this on full display in Kick-Ass, though it’s probably not the author’s intention.

Because if Mark Millar actually knew the psychology he was showing here, I’d think that maybe he should become a professor of postmodern theory or something. Sadly, I think it’s much more likely that he’s not consciously aware at all of the stuff I’ve said above. He’s just looking for ways to seem trendy in his writing. And, in all honestly, I don’t think the writing’s “bad” at all. It’s par for the course. It’s totally what I would expect from an attention-sycophant whose mind is fairly submerged and distracted by media all day. No thoughtful reflection at all. No weighing of words. But it’s “fun”.

It still “reads well”.

But you’re not supposed to think about it. At all. Ever. Just go with it. Just let things slide.

Oh well.

Still, it’s not like I hate it. Not even close. (Look how much I wrote about it. I think it’s worth reading, if only to get some troubling insights into our society.) And the art is great. JRJR only did breakdowns, but it didn’t suffer because of that.