Fans of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s first ultra-violent kid-superhero romp, Kick-Ass will have something special in store for them at the comic store today. Kick-Ass 2, the second volume of the popular comic arrives in stores today.

In the new story-arc, Hit-Girl is adopted by a cop following the death of her father and is no longer allowed to engage in hero activity. While Hit-Girl lays low, the story’s main villain, Red Mist hires a bad-ass girl from Russia to help him exact revenge for his family’s death at the hands of Kick-Ass and company. He goes online and influences a new bunch of young villains to take up his fight.

Soon enough, gangs from across New York are filming their atrocities and putting them on the internet in an attempt to out-do each other. All in all, it sounds like more of the same ultra-violent and foul-mouthed comic goodness we’ve come to expect from Millar and Romita Jr. And of course, the question now is what about the second flick?

While IMDB already has an entry for the flick, Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall, and is showing a 2012 release, Millar talked with MTV and outlined what would need to happen to make that release on-time.

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This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are recovering from Comic-Con in San Diego but are still managing to do a show this week. Some of the topics they cover this time around include thoughts on several NBC pilots like Outsourced, The Event, Undercovers and Chase. Also, the boys discuss the new Sucker Punch trailer and director Zack Snyder, potential X-Men First Class casting and a bit more about the fun and some issues with Comic-Con.

They also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of Blazing Saddles on Blu-ray and Chris’ pick of the Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

After many years of happily reading John Romita Jr.’s work on Wolverine’s “Enemy of the State” Arc, Spider-Man and Kick-Ass, I was thrilled to be able to interview John Romita, Jr. (or JR. Jr.) for Marvel’s return to a bright, new day with the “Heroic Age.”

I caught up with the delightful John while he was working hard on the Avengers.  It seems this is one man who can draw and answer in-depth questions at the same time.

As always he was humorous, insightful, and well…in need of a nap.  Read on, true believers, and enjoy the latest from the desk of the modest legend himself.

The Flickcast: Marvel takes the entire Avengers line of titles into “The Heroic Age.” You’ve been paired up with Brian Michael Bendis on the core “Avengers” title; is your opening run contained to the first arc or two, or do you plan on being involved for the foreseeable future?

John Romita, Jr: In the first year I’m doing it [Avengers] for a minimum of 2 arcs and I’m enjoying myself.  If the book is still doing well, I’ll do it for a second year.  It’s so difficult, though, that I may not survive the first year— it’s intense work.

I have to finish 25 pages in the next 17 days.  So, after doing Avengers, I may want to sleep for a year.  But doing the Avengers with Bendis is an amazing experience.  If I get through the year and I’m still healthy enough, I will do another one.

TF: What are the benefits and challenges of drawing iconic characters like Thor, Spidey, Iron Man, Wolverine, and Captain America vs. drawing characters you create?

JR: Oh, that’s on a strictly selfish scale, it’s much more fun to do a character you create because you create them and there’s a lot of gratification for that, but working on iconic characters is like driving your father’s classic car, it’s spectacular and fantastic, but it’s better off when it’s your own.

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As I was reading all about the controversy surrounding Hit-Girl in the movie Kick-Ass, I wondered why all this hullabaloo? There have been a ton of sidekicks in the past that no one has said boo about. My favorite sidekick of all time, is also the first in comics: Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Robin was a sweet, acrobatic kid until he was trained to be a super-soldier by his caring and crazed “parental guardian” Batman. Albeit, he didn’t kill, but he still had bullets whizzing by his head. He was captured every other week and the Joker even killed one version of him.

Where was the parental outcry for my beloved Boy Wonder then? Instead of my dad decrying the shoddy parenting skills of Batty, he crafted a bat cave out of our sewing room, devised numerous bat-inspired gadgets for our utility belts, and together we trolled the streets of the cul-de-sac in search of evil.

In between ridding the streets of crime by returning a lost cat back to our neighbor, I read copious comic book adventures and looked forward to seeing a kid thwart crime on the mean streets of Gotham. It’s a wonder Robin has survived at all. His mentor, old Bats is a little Batty himself. He’s either sleeping at the office, obsessing in his bat cave over the latest baddie, or being all angsty, dark, and solemn.

The only time he does pay attention to Robin is when he trains him as a soldier to fight crime in grungy alleys. Not exactly, a nice afternoon in the park. Especially since the “superhero” by Robin’s side refuses to carry a gun against super-villains who have many distinct plans on how to torture and kill them. If I was Robin facing a coo coo for CoCo Puffs super-villain, I would certainly be packing a boatload of ammo and not be afraid to use it.

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Many months ago, I was strolling past the movie theater on one particularly beautiful morning in downtown Burbank when I happened upon one of those annoying movie ticket barkers.  I was about to ignore him when I saw the following letters in big, black type: KICK-ASS. Exuberant, I ran over and as he started to explain what the movie was about, I told him I’d take 6 flyers.

That night at the plushy and sometimes snooty Hollywood Arclight I sat with a few of my very geeky friends in the front row and watched a test print of the most Kick-Ass film of the year.  Below is my review….from a gal’s pov of course.

TO ANYONE WHO HASN’T READ THE COMIC, SPOILERS FOLLOW:

The film begins with a shot of who you think is the lead character.  He is dressed in superhero tights and leaps from a tall building to his death.  The voice-over then aptly tells the audience that this is the real world and crazy men in tights don’t have super powers.

The next opening scenes are extremely reminiscent of the very first Spider-man film. Here’s the thing. I get how in any new comic book movie there is usually a very long and very slow opening arc where some normal guy has something horrible or great happen and he gets turned into a superhero– but it’s been done.  I hear it’s even going to be re-done again in a new Spider-man flick.

I know how Spider-man gets his powers, my mom even knows how Spidey gets his powers, his name implies that maybe a spider was involved.  I don’t need an hour of exposition to get to the good part.

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Thanks to the cool guys and gals at Yahoo Movies, we can bring you the latest theatrical trailer for Matthew Vaugh’s highly anticipated (especially in Geek circles) film Kick-Ass. As you might be aware, the film is based on the comic series by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., tells the story of teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the moniker “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

The first trailer and the clips looked pretty cool and left us all hungry for more. And I don’t mind saying that this new trailer only increases our level of excitement adding much more to the action and character mix. This movie looks great and hopefully we’ll get to see it once SXSW rolls around.

Check it out after the jump. Kick-Ass, starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage, hits theaters on April 16th, 2010.

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The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in Austin has chosen the film that will open its 2010 festival and its one that will surely please fanboys (and girls) alike: Matthew Vaughn’s highly anticipated Kick-Ass. The film, based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., tells the story of teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the moniker “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

In addition to Kick-Ass, the SXSW festival, which runs from March 12-20, announced five other film titles making an appearance at the fest this year including Electra Luxx, from director Sebastian Gutierrez, Cold Weather, the latest from SXSW alum Aaron Katz, and the first public screening of the IMAX space film Hubble 3D. In addition, actor-turned-director James Franco’s Saturday Night, a documentary that takes you behind the scenes during the production of an episode of Saturday Night Live, will also screen at the fest.

Kick-Ass will be released by Lionsgate on April 16. More of the festival’s approximately 125 features will be announced in early February.

Be sure to check back right here for all your SXSW news.

The marketing for April’s Kick-Ass has been in full force as of late. Since the release of the trailer over a month ago, the posters have been rolling out on a regular basis, with a new twist to the marketing plan. That new angle is giving focus to each of the other crime fighters in the film, who may or may not actually be all that good.

This is an interesting take on the film, seeing as how the titular character, Kick-Ass, is the main protagonist in the original comic series by Mark Millar. Either way, in the newest red band trailer, we get a few new scenes with Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl, Nic Cage as Big Daddy, and of course Aaron Johnson.

Check out the new NSFW trailer after the jump, which only makes this movie look even better, and expect to see more new footage from Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass before it hits theaters on April 16.

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Well, now we have character posters for what are the four main characters of the upcoming film Kick-Ass, which is based, of course, on the Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. comic book. Chloe Moretz plays ten year old Hit Girl, child who is trained to be a professional and merciless vigilante by her father, Big Daddy (played by Nicolas Cage).

In the new poster, we see Hit Girl on a rooftop, with the tagline, “I can’t see through walls. But I can kick your ass.” We’ve previously shown you the posters for Big Daddy, Red Mist (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and Kick-Ass himself, played by Aaron Johnson. The posters, I have to say, are pretty blase’, considering the extreme nature that the comic, and seemingly the movie, has.

I guess you can’t really have an 11 year-old on a poster swearing and killing people, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t quite the correct way to promote  the movie. Cick through to see all four character posters, for your viewing pleasure, starting with Hit Girl.

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When we brought you the last bits of information on Matthew Vaughn’s highly anticipated action/comedy Kick-Ass, the film, although one of the highlights of Comic-Con, was still looking for a distributor. Well, fortunately for fans of the comic and new fans excited for the film after viewing the bootleg trailer, its search for a distributor has ended with Lionsgate.

According to Variety, Lionsgate got its first look at the film on July 28th and has picked up domestic rights to it in a deal that’s described in the trade as “big.” This also means Lionsgate plans a wide release for the action/comedy sometime in 2010. As a reminder for those of you just joining us, Kick-Ass is based on a comic written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr. and features Nicholas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz and Aaron Johnson.

It follows the adventures of teenager Dave Lizewski, a New York City high school student, who takes his interest in comic books as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. When his exploits are recorded by an onlooker with a cell phone and posted to the Internets, he becomes a sensation and is given the moniker Kick-Ass. This is good news. Lionsgate knows how to release films like this. Glad it found a home.

I don’t always like to post bootleg copies of trailers and other things of “dubious” origin here at the site. However, this one is just too cool to pass up and has already popped up at other sites so there’s no use it holding back now. So, in that spirit, here’s the trailer — via Trailer Addict –  they showed at Comic-Con in San Diego for Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Kick-Ass, the comic written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita, Jr.

In case you’re not familiar with the comic or the movie, it follows the adventures of young Dave Lizewski, a regular New York City high school student, who takes his interest in comic books as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. When his exploits are recorded by an onlooker with a cell phone and posted to the Internets, he becomes a sensation and is given the moniker Kick-Ass.

Along the way, he fights injustices found through his MySpace page and eventually team up with other like-minded wanna-be heroes including Hit Girl, Big Daddy and The Red Mist, to take down a local drug kingpin. The film, which is currently seeking distribution, stars Nicholas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz and Aaron Johnson.

Check out all the bloody fun after the jump. But you better hurry, seeing as this is a bootleg, it might not last long on the Internets.

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