A comic by Mark Miller and John Romita Jr, Kick Ass tells the story of some teens who actually try to become real, actual super heroes.  Sure, they’re just kids, and yeah, they don’t have any super powers, but somehow (mostly with sheer bravado), they manage to pull this off.

Kick Ass is published by Icon Comics, and is something of an underground cult hit.  It started with a viral campaign (a video of the teen vigilante named ‘Kick Ass’ doing his thing on a city street), which got uploaded to the interwebz.  Here’s the vid:

Kick Ass himself posted the following message to accompany the vid, “The youtube video you can see copied here was taken in a supermarket car park after I helped someone who was being mugged. Someone recorded this on their phone and one of my new fans turned this into what looks like a trailer. I hope you like this too. If anyone has any more footage of me please link it here. But I am not doing this to be famous. I accept no money for helping people. I am a comic-book fan just trying to make a difference.”

Then, Kick Ass himself started his own Myspace page, where he chronicles his own adventures.  He also chronicles the comic book that, in turn, chronicles him.    The comic book took off.

Here’s a grab of his MySpace page:

And here’s a gallery of the comics and associated pics:

It’s no surprise this is a hit.  The whole series has a very over the top, tongue in cheek feel to it.  The character names illustrate this best: the characters aren’t named something noble or catchy.  Instead, the characters are named Hit Girl, Big Daddy, and the gun wielding (how’s that for a super power?) Red Mist.  Like very early comic books, these characters don’t battle other supervillains, but instead large numbers of street thugs, drug dealers, and other mortal miscreants.

And now it seems that rumors of a Kiss Ass movie are true.  The original rumor was that the film was ‘in production’ nearly two years ago.  Mark Miller recently revealed that this was true, and that the budget exceeded $60 million dollars, and that several big name stars had signed on, transforming Kick Ass into a grade A production.  Suddenly, late yesterday, a trailer appeared on the ol tubez, and it looks like a winner.  Have a peek:

As you can see from the trailer, the film appears to have the same tone and feel as the comics.  That, my friends, is sweet, sweet music, as Kick Ass was never your mainstream comic book fare.  It’s edgy, funny, quirky, and over the top, and it looks like the upcoming film will retain those qualities.  Let’s hope so.

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