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Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass 3 Vol 1 1 Textless
General Information
Real name: David Lizewski
First Appearance: Kick-Ass #1 - April 2008
Created by: Mark Millar
John Romita, Jr.
Affiliations: Lizewski Family
Macready Family
Justice Forever
NYPD (Epilogue)
Abilities: High tolerance of pain from damaged nerve endings
Portrayed by: Aaron Johnson
Status: Alive
"I was just an ordinary guy. There was nothing in my history to suggest the typical hero's journey. No radioactive spiders or refugee status from a doomed alien world."
―Dave Lizewski[src]

Kick-Ass is the main protagonist of the comic book series of the same name. He was created by artist John Romita, Jr. and writer Mark Millar and published by Marvel Comics under the company's Icon imprint. Kick-Ass is the secret identity of teenager Dave Lizewski, who decides to become a superhero.

Biography[]

Origin[]

Kick-ass-4

Dave Lizewski.

Dave Lizewski is an ordinary New York teenager who decides to become a superhero out of his love of comics. He buys a wetsuit off eBay & begins his career.

When trying to stop a group of vandals he is beaten, stabbed and hit by a car, breaking most of his bones. Lying to his father by saying he was mugged.

After 6 months of recovery he becomes a superhero yet again, he finds a man

Telling his father he was mugged, he undergoes intense physical rehabilitation, including four operations. He is released weeks later, with metal plates all over his body and with his nerve endings having delayed reactions to pain, making him almost immune to conventional beatings. In spite of considering giving up crime fighting, he soon goes back onto the streets. When he saves a man from a beating and fights off the attacking thugs, an onlooker records the incident and uploads it on YouTube, turning Lizewski into an overnight sensation dubbed with the name Kick-Ass.

Genovese conflict[]

Kick-Ass later becomes the inspiration to hundreds of others, most of which are content to simply make web pages and costumes but with some actually going out and effectively kicking-ass. Other superheroes Kick-Ass encounters are Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, whose level of professionalism intimidates Kick-Ass and also serves to remind him just how serious crime fighting can be. He retires for a little while until he becomes aware of another hero, Red Mist, who has become a sensation, even stealing the credit for being the first ever superhero. Kick-Ass subsequently leaves retirement, initially to challenge Red Mist, but instead they team up.

Kickassredmist

Kick-Ass bashes Chris's face with a chair leg.

Red Mist, however, turns out to be the son of mob boss John Genovese and this leads to the death of Big Daddy and the torture of Kick-Ass at the hands of various gangsters. Before long, Kick-Ass is rescued by Hit-Girl and the two get their revenge on John Genovese, together bringing down his entire organization. Kick-Ass threatens John Genovese with a gun, and shoots off his genitals through pure fluke, giving Hit-Girl an opening to kill John Genovese with a cleaver.

Training[]

Six months later after the fight at Genovese's Penthouse and Big Daddy's death, Mindy informed Dave that John Genovese's brother Ralphie has taken over the family business and that they have to take him and his crew down before more heroes are killed. Dave has a bad feeling about this, but agreed to meet Mindy at the safe house later. Kick-Ass heads for the safe house (wearing a coat and a scarf) and, on his way, lends a homeless man some money since he kept begging. Once Kick-Ass reaches the safe house, Hit-Girl tells him to wear layers next time because it's cold and because his clothes could be a big disadvantage when it's time to fight. Hit-Girl then gives Kick-Ass a tour of the safehouse and talks about her first mission with her father. Hit-Girl also tells Kick-Ass he needs some training, but she will only train him if he agrees to help train her on how to be a normal girl, Kick-Ass agrees, with that, Kick-Ass officially becomes Hit Girl's sidekick, taking an Oath of Truth and Justice.

Kick-Ass's first training session has him and Mindy dressing up in rich fancy clothes to lure in thugs. Mindy times Kick-Ass seeing how long it would take for him to beat up the thugs. Next, Kick-Ass had to swing through a window into a building, but Kick-Ass says that it was too high so he starts off on a lower floor and has to swing through a window fifteen times. After the training, Dave showed Mindy all the clothes, songs and shows girls her age were wearing and talking about.

Later, while Dave is writing an article for CBR, Mindy calls him and tells him to get ready for their first mission. Before Dave leaves his apartment, his Dad tells him to take out the garbage, Once Dave is in his costume, he meets Hit Girl at the Hit Mobile and asks her if she has been practicing her lines for school. Kick-Ass then asks Hit Girl why he is her sidekick when he's five years older then her, Hit Girl just counters by saying "They might as well call you Hit Boy."

Their first mission is at a resturant called Trotskis, where Hit Girl set up a meeting for Ralphies men to meet & talk. Kick-Ass makes his entrance by swinging on a rope, breaking through a window, and saying his Entrance line "Did Somebody Order a Fucking Sandwich?"  Kick-Ass begins to beat up the goons with his batons and does well until he punches one of the guys the wrong way and breaks his own hand. Hit Girl enters the resturant and guns down all the henchmen, leaving Kick-Ass in shock because Hit Girl agreed not to kill anybody.  After Hit Girl kills one more goon, Kick-Ass leaves with her & and heads for the Hospital.

Justice Forever[]

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Kick-Ass with Justice Forever.

Following this, Hit-Girl retires to lead a normal childhood, although she does train Kick-Ass to fight more effectively. A team-up with new hero Doctor Gravity leads to Kick-Ass joining superhero team Justice Forever, where he meets numerous new heroes, including Battle Guy, who turns out to be Kick-Ass' best friend, Marty. Both Kick-Ass and Battle Guy unmask in front of the rest of the team, which was probably not a clever idea, considering Red Mist had announced over the internet that he was recruiting supervillains to get revenge on Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. They later encourage their friend, Todd, to become a superhero too.

Kick-Ass goes on a mission with Justice Forever, taking down a human trafficking organization. He continues to work alongside Justice Forever, his reputation growing, until his father, worried that he is doing drugs, finds his Kick-Ass costume amongst various newspaper clippings of the group's success. Initially, he is angry at his son for what he is doing and this prompts Kick-Ass to run away from home. Later, Kick-Ass and his two best friends go to Justice Forever's new HQ until they find a new spot and they all mourn the loss of Colonel Stars and Kick-ass tells them that Red Mist changed his Twitter name to The Mother Fucker and that they should all stay in pairs.

Mother Fucker attacks[]

Davemartytoddinhospital

Dave with Todd and Marty visiting Katie in the hospital.

Dave, Marty, and Todd are later seen at the Hospital visting a badly beaten Katie and Dave tells his friends that when he was captured and tortured by Red Mist's father's henchmen, he said anything in order for them to stop frying his balls. Then Dave gets a text from The Mother Fucker saying, "Forget the bitch; it's your 'old man' you should be worried about, you prick." Dave then runs to his apartment only to see his father being arrested by the cops since they came looking for Dave but his father told the cops that he was Kick-Ass and is put into a police car, leaving Dave in shock and crying out his name as the cops take him away.

Later, Dave goes to visit his father in prison and tells him he is sorry he got him involved, but Dave's father tells him that everything is going to be fine. However, Mother Fucker's men kill him in prison. Dave later goes to his father's funeral and tells Mindy she was right about everything until Dave's father's coffin blows up and Mother Fucker's Henchmen kidnap him but he is saved by Mindy who tells him to suit up (since the henchmen had Dave's costume). They both arrive at Mother Fucker's hide-out; while Mindy kills everyone else, Kick-Ass beats up one of the super-villains with his batons (now equipped with spikes). Kick-Ass recognizes the super-villain who raped Katie and continues to beat him until he falls into the shark tank. Mindy then gets some information out of the villain and finds out that The Mother Fucker is going to attack Times Square at 8pm. Dave then sends a message to all the heroes to help stop the super-villains.

Battle of Times Square[]

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Kick-Ass during the Times Square brawl.

Later, when Mother Fucker and his army are destroying Times Square, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl show up and Mother Fucker mocks them for showing up until he sees the army of super-heroes ready to fight with Kick-Ass. Then Kick-Ass says, "What's the Matter, Chris, you shitting yourself? You should be." After Kick-Ass and Motherfucker throw insults at each other, Kick-Ass punches Motherfucker in the face and the fight begins.

While Hit-Girl is fighting Mother Russia, Kick-Ass pins Mother Fucker on the ground and begins to punch him in the face, even knocking his mask off. The other Heroes tell Kick-Ass to finish him off but Kick-Ass wants to put Chris in jail. When the cops start arresting everyone wearing a costume, Chris makes a run for it but Kick-Ass follows him into a building.

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Kick-Ass punching Chris.

When he reaches the roof, Chris attacks him with paint buckets. Chris tells Kick-Ass that the cops are everywhere and that they have to lay low but Kick-Ass refuses to listen and kicks Chris in the testicles. He then grabs his stick and beats Chris up until he tells Kick-Ass he will pay him to leave him alone but Kick-Ass refuses and says he is going to jail. Chris then grabs some nails and throws them at Kick-Ass' face. Kick-Ass hits Chris in the face and in anger, Kick-Ass yells at him, "Just fucking die!" Then he hits Chris in the face with his stick , which knocks him off the building.

Dave is shocked over what he has just done, thinking he killed Chris but he then hears him begging for help. Dave then calls the cops, who arrive to arrest Chris but they see Dave on the Building and were going to arrest him too until Hit Girl showed up and made a distraction for Dave to get away. Dave then finds Marty and Todd and tells them that they will meet Hit Girl in the safe house.

With Hit-Girl in custody, Dave receives a letter from Mindy and learns that he has inherited $2-million in cash along with all of McCready's "weaponry, vehicles, and crime-fighting equipment," along with instructions on how to break her out of jail. Six weeks later, he reassembles the remnants of Justice Forever and attempts to lead them in a cover operation to liberate Hit-Girl; the team is spotted outside the prison walls, however, and flees, leaving mindy in the prison cell.

Life after High School[]

Six months later, Dave graduates from high school and moves into an apartment in Hoboken with Todd, and the two go to work part-time at both a fast food restaurant and a comic book store. Believing that he completely screwed up his personal life, Dave feels that all he has left is Kick-Ass.

While on patrol, Kick-Ass and Ass-Kicker investigated a series of burglaries that occurred in the area. Kick-Ass attempted to interrogated a group of people in a bar for information, but a man named Moscow revealed the burglar as Tay Weez and gave out his address just to get back at him for not paying the money he owes. Kick-Ass and Ass-Kicker then broke into Tay Weez's house and found him passed out drunk in his bedroom. They tied him up and called the cops to arrest him. At the Justice Forever headquarters, tensions were rising since no one has made an arrest in seven weeks. Kick-Ass and Ass-Kicker were really upset with the new superhero called The Juicer, who was treating the headquarters like it was his apartment.

Mindy's Escape and the Return of Hit-Girl[]

Lizewski finishes high school and gets a job working at a fast food restaurant (and part-time at a comic shop) with his friend Todd, who he shares an apartment with. After a fight with a gang, Kick-Ass meets a woman named Valerie and starts dating her. At the party being held to celebrate Chris's release, Kick-Ass arranges to get the members of Justice Forever to help him raid the party and send a warning to the mob. The plan fails, but Kick-Ass is rescued by his friends who abandon him at the first sign of mob retaliation at the party.

At the mercy of Chris, Mindy is saved when he, out of guilt for how his actions turned his mother into a pariah, turns and kills the corrupt guards, getting mortally wounded during the gunfight. Helping Mindy escape in a van, Chris accidentally crashes due to his injuries, and dies of his wounds. The police, also working for Rocco, find his body later. Mindy is caught by a police officer but is saved by Dave, who kills the police officer by bashing him in the back of the head repeatedly. The duo return to Justice Forever HQ after having learned from Chris that all the gang leaders will be gathering in a boathouse, and go their separate ways; Mindy goes to Rocco's meeting in a speedboat, intending to kill all the gang leaders assembled there, while Dave goes to save Todd in Big Daddy's monster truck.

Kick Ass manages to kill the two kidnappers; blowing the first one up with explosives and driving a chainsaw through the head of the other, only for Todd to reveal that there are four others downstairs. They promptly show up and proceed to beat Dave to pulp, who consciously regrets the idea of ever becoming a hero in the first place. However in that moment, Dave is reminded of his mother and father telling him that superheroes make people believe that any situation, regardless of how daunting, is possible to overcome. Rejuvenated by this memory, Kick Ass realizes that his suit is insulated and jams the extension cord into the spilled alcohol, fatally electrifying all the thugs, instantaneously.

Dave brings Todd back to the Hospital where Valerie reveals that all the other gang leaders where murdered via a series of explosions (courtesy of Hit Girl) and declares she cannot continue dating him if he continues fighting crime. However Dave reminds Valerie that promised her it was his last time and that a superhero never breaks his promise. When a relieved Valerie asks Dave who will stop the bad guys, Dave half-jokingly points out: "The bad guys are all dead."

A few months later, Dave is shown to have retired from his super-hero career and become a police officer, while giving Todd all of his inheritance from Mindy, including the luxurious mansion. In spite of ending his crime-fighting, Dave continues to be an every-day hero, helping out others in trouble and remains confident that the new heroes will do fine without him.

Successor[]

Patience Lee took on the mantle of Kick-Ass after Dave's retirement.

Personality[]

Dave is known to have some sense of cowardice, but is also known for his courage and perseverance. However, his bravery, more often than not, ends up getting either him or those close to him in danger. He refuses to kill people, but is not hesitant to seriously injure them. Over the course of the story, Dave evolves into a more cold-blooded and dangerous character, but maintains his moral values to some extent. Dave is a nice guy and very loyal.

Skills and Abilities[]

Abilities[]

  • Hand-to-Hand Combatant: When Dave first started out, he possessed no fighting skills whatsoever. However, after extensive training from Mindy, Dave has become a skilled fighter, capable of defeating opponents much larger than himself and even taking on multiple people at a time. Coupled with his nerve damage he has proven to be a resilient combatant and can catch people off guard even when held at gunpoint.
  • High Tolerance of Pain: The premise for Kick-Ass is what would happen if someone with no powers were to try to be a superhero. This still is that case but when Dave is stabbed and hit by a car, he has several metal plates and braces within his body along with damaged nerve endings. This provides him with the ability to be almost immune to pain, giving him an edge while fighting. He uses this in the comic to get out of the torture room by taunting the henchmen into hitting him hard enough to knock the chair over and allowing him to get the ropes off.
  • Regenerative Healing Factor: Dave's body is capable of healing injuries and wounds at a much faster rate then other normal people can.
  • Baton Swinging and Flailing: He has no fighting abilities whatsoever. He usually attacks his enemies by flailing his batons at them. However, in the movie, he becomes adept at handling firearms.
  • In Kick-Ass 2 comics, Kick Ass is being trained to fight by Hit-Girl. He is shown fighting a two man group with ease but runs when a larger group comes to fight.

Equipment[]

Costume[]

  • The costume he​ wears is bought off eBay and is a wet suit. In the movie, the costume is slightly variated with a section cut out for his mouth to breathe through. The costume is made of "regular" material and isn't any different from regular clothes. However, his body can absorb more resistance after the stab wound.

Weapons[]

  • Kick-Ass carries two batons which are most likely mop handles wrapped in green electrical tape.
  • Later on in the comic, after he gets out of the torture room, he replaces the batons with the legs of the chair he was on. He later breaks them on Chris Genovese's face and ditches them for a hand gun he took from Chris. He then uses this to shoot Chris's father in the testicles or "Tunk" as he put it.
  • In the sixth issue of Kick-Ass 2, Dave upgrades his batons by adding nails through the ends.

Gallery[]

In Other Media[]

Film[]

Notes[]

  • In the comics Kick-Ass kills at least two people, one corrupt cop by impaling his baton on the cop's back and a criminal with a chainsaw to the head.
  • Millar said that Kick-Ass "is probably as related to me as George Costanza was to Larry David, which is that all the worst aspects I remember from my memory I have taken and shoved into the story and then exaggerated them." Millar explained "the core is definitely there. Our backgrounds are really similar. The family setup is similar. All that is exactly the same. The only thing I didn't do was make the costume. I planned to. I went to karate and bodybuilding. My friend and I were absolutely going to do it. The one big difference between us is that Dave had the balls to put on the suit, and I didn't."

Trivia[]

  • Dave's name was chosen at a charity auction held to name him. The winner of the auction chose his own name, Dave Lizewski.
  • A real life Myspace page was created, supposedly by Dave himself, with the written words, "Mark Millar [...] is doing a comic-book about me with [...] John Romita Jr."
  • In the film adaption of "Kick-Ass", Kick-Ass is the only character whose costume remains relatively unchanged from his comic book costume. The costumes of Hit-Girl, Big Daddy, and Red Mist are different than their comic book versions.
  • The age difference between Dave and Mindy was said to be 5-6 years at the start of Kick-Ass 1.  However, they attend the same school in Kick-Ass 2. This implies that their school contains both middle school, and high school students. Assuming Mindy starts high school at age 14 or 15, this would place Dave at 20 or 21 years old; despite this, still appears at school in the cafeteria with Mindy. Mark Millar has never explicity defined the details regarding this phenomenon. The only explanation is that Dave failed academically and was kept back severals years until he graduated. However, Kick-Ass 3 would seem to point otherwise, as he graduates on time with the rest of his friends to start a new life and live with his friend Todd.
  • According to Dave from Kick-Ass 3 #4, the three golden rules of being a superhero are.
  • 1) always keep your costume clean.
  • 2) tell nobody your secret identity.
  • 3) and never ignore a cry for help.
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