Publisher: Image Comics (Paperback – 19 June 2019)

Series: Hit-Girl – Volume 4

Writer: Kevin Smith

Artist: Pernille Ørum

Colourist: Sunny Gho

Letterer: Clem Robins

Length: 112 pages

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Amazon     Book Depository

Lights, camera, bloodshed and mayhem! The world’s most dangerous pre-teen assassin, Hit-Girl, travels to Hollywood in the fourth instalment of the brilliant and exciting Hit-Girl series.

This current Hit-Girl series has been a lot of fun, as it follows Hit-Girl on her world tour of destruction and vigilante justice, with a new creative team at the helm of each volume (which are each made up of four issues). I have been really getting into this series, and I loved the first three volumes, having previously reviewed the first and third volumes, Hit-Girl in Columbia and Hit-Girl in Rome. This fourth volume, Hit-Girl in Hollywood, is another interesting addition to the series, featuring the intriguing creative team of Hollywood screenwriter Kevin Smith and artist Pernille Ørum, and contains Season 2, Issues #1-4 of the Hit-Girl series.

I have to say that I was rather looking forward to this fourth volume. Not only does it have a cool-sounding premise but it also features the writing talents of Kevin Smith, who has written and directed some rather entertaining and distinctive comedy movies (my favourite is Dogma). Smith has also written several comics over the years, which have ranged from the good to the controversial. I am a massive fan of several of his comics, including the incredible Daredevil: Guardian Devil, and his run on Green Arrow back in the early 2000s, which brought back the titular character and set up one of my favourite comic book series of all time. Some of his other work has been a little less well received, such as Batman: The Widening Gyre (which featured the infamous “bladder” spasm incident), but Smith has always been able to create an entertaining story. As a result, I was rather intrigued to see his take on the character of Hit-Girl, and the result was a rather unique and memorable tale.

Mindy McCready, the pre-teen vigilante known as Hit-Girl, is living her best life, killing bad guys and distributing her lethal brand of justice across the world. However, during her most recent mission she becomes aware of something truly terrible: someone is making a big Hollywood movie of her life and it is going to feature a dramatic re-enactment of her father’s death. Determined to stop the movie from being made, Mindy travels to Hollywood to crack some heads and put the fear of Hit-Girl into the movie makers. Deciding to strike at the very top, Mindy breaks into the set to have a “talk” with the studio boss, however, she instead comes across a rather disturbing scene that she was not expecting.

It turns out that there is another vigilante running around Hollywood, and she has in her sights the most evil and vicious predators there are: Hollywood executives who prey on young women. Her latest vicious attack on the studio boss behind the Hit-Girl movie has garnered a large amount of attention, and Hit-Girl is now the main suspect. Hit-Girl needs to find this new vigilante and get out of town fast. But with both the FBI and the remnants of the Genovese mob family gunning for her, can Hit-Girl survive, and what happens when she meets up with a vigilante who has even more issues than she does?

Wow, now that was something! I have to admit that I did have a suspicion that Hit-Girl in Hollywood was going to be a rather weird entry in the series, but I was not expecting just how crazy Smith and the artistic team ended up making it. I honestly think the best way to describe this comic is with the phrase “over-the-top”, as this comic features some rather extreme examples of violence and vengeance that a lot of people are going to find rather uncomfortable. I personally found the comic to be quite entertaining, and I liked seeing the crazy character of Hit-Girl in a whole new setting, especially one that makes fun of the Hollywood elite and dramatic method actors who fall deep for their beloved craft. However, even I had to admit that this comic had some issues which made it just a little too insane to completely enjoy.

The comic actually starts by displaying a graphic and somewhat unexplained school shooting, which is probably going to turn away a bunch of potential readers right off the bat. Hit-Girl brutally intervenes to stop the shooting (graphically killing the two teen killers), but becomes more concerned when she discovers she has an unauthorised biography which is being adapted into a movie, and she travels to Hollywood to put an end to it. Once there she discovers that another teen girl is running around town in a Hit-Girl inspired costume, castrating predatorial Hollywood executives as “Dick-Taker”, whose introduction made me crack up and stop taking this comic seriously. While I could maybe overlook the portrayal of a school shooting at the start of the comic, Dick-Taker officially made this story way too over-the-top for me, especially as Dick-Taker wears a very disturbing and artistic cape that appears to made up of the stitched together skins of the male extremities she has removed (I kid you not!).

All of this is way too crazy, and it does not help that Hit-Girl in Hollywood’s story is a bit weak in places. The big shoot-out in the fourth issue is cool, but it all happens rather suddenly, and all the key players are in the same place at the same time, prompting Hit-Girl and Dick-Taker to team up, which happened just a little too easily for my taste. I wasn’t a big fan of seeing Hit-Girl fighting the FBI either, as she has a “no killing cops” mindset which was a big part of the end of Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall. I also thought that it was a bit of a waste to use the remnants of the Genovese mob in this story, and the manner in which the final member of the family that has been the main antagonists of Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass was taken down is a tad odd.

Now, despite the flaws and over-the-top extreme nature of much of the comic, I did like parts of Hit-Girl in Hollywood, which made it a mostly fun read. This comic is chock full of gratuitous violence, expertly brought to life by the artistic team, which, let us be honest, is one of the main reasons that you would buy a Hit-Girl comic. I also really liked how the entire first issue was told completely without any dialogue, except for in the final scene. This first issue turns out to be rather cool, as watching Hit-Girl’s outrage grow as she finds out that not only did someone write a book about her but it’s being turned into a movie is pretty entertaining, and showing her sitting on the Hollywood sign saying “I see dead people” in the very last panel is a great way to foreshadow the death and destruction that is bound to follow. I also liked Smith’s take on the crazy, fake town of Hollywood, and it definitely made for an interesting setting, filled with several entertaining characters, quotes from popular movies and a relevant storyline about sexual predators in Hollywood getting what’s coming to them. The whole storyline around the origin story of Dick-Taker is also a rather intriguing version of extreme method actors, and I thought it was interesting to see how inspiring someone like Hit-Girl could potentially be to other disenfranchised young women. My favourite part of this comic had to be the emotional scenes where Hit-Girl visits the set of the Hit-Girl movie and sees them recreate the moment her father died. The combination of anger, fear, regret and sadness that is shown on Hit-Girl’s face and in her thoughts is pretty intense, and it makes for a rather great scene.

Overall, I’d say that Hit-Girl in Hollywood is an interesting addition to the series that dials up the action and excitement but which is probably not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. I personally liked most of it, but I have to admit that parts of it were off-putting and the whole comic is a bit too crazy for its own good. Still, people looking for an extreme and explosive comic with some memorable moments to it could do a lot worse than Hit-Girl in Hollywood, and you are guaranteed to have a few laughs with this one. I am giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars, although I can imagine that a lot of other people will not be as generous with their ratings as I am. I am looking forward to seeing where the next volumes of this series go, and I cannot wait to get my next Hit-Girl fix.

Amazon     Book Depository