In Review: Kick-Ass #8

Synopsis: Kick-Ass is building her own army in New Mexico. But now her men are being captured and tortured for information, and Hector Santos will stop at nothing until Kick-Ass is unmasked. Can Patience keep her identity—and her family—safe?

Review: The story picks up from where we left off last month. Patience is cornered in a building and penned in on all sides. But there’s is nothing more dangerous than a trained soldier when cornered.

The Story

Steve Niles waste absolutely no time in getting the story going. He picks things up mere moments from where the story left off and provides some awesome action beats for artist Marcelo Frusin to play with.

The brief flashback to when Patience was in the army and in a similar situation was a nice touch, but even better was the way in which she makes her escape.

This iteration of Kick-Ass is as much about the day to day stuff than it is the action and comic book stuff. There are consequences for the decisions that Patience has made and a big one of those is how it will impact her family.

It seems that her family could well be in danger in more ways than one. Santos has one of Kick-Ass’s gang and is not beyond removing a few fingers and teeth to get information.

The Artwork

Marcelo Frusin gets a lot to do this issue and I loved the action beats that he does at the start of the issue as Kick-Ass is trying to escape from the building.

But this issue. Frusin has a few more subtle beats to play around with and one of those is to do with Patience and her guilt at having put her sister’s husband in a coma. The work Frusin does in regards to the various facial expressions in this issue is really solid and sells the moments really well. Especially when it comes to the panels concerning the hospital.

Overall

This is another solid issue, which has set things in motion that are going to make for some epic battles in the months to come. While the cliffhanger is not as exciting as last month, it does have you gasping and wondering if the game is up for Patience.