scene is configured as a revenge mission conceived, planned, and executed by Mindy. She says to Kick-Ass, who is urging her to give up the superhero life and return to a normal girlhood, “My Mom already died for nothing, so I’m sure as hell not going to let my Dad die for nothing, too.” This is in contrast to the comic version, in which Hit-Girl continues to wreak mayhem like an automaton set in motion:
Hit-Girl: Now C’mon. We gotta finish this.
Kick-Ass: But your Dad. He said he made the whole thing up. Oh God! Have you seen what they did to him?
Hit-Girl: Finish the job, mourn later. Right now we’ve got work to do. (7.23; original emphasis)
This exchange makes the comic book’s Hit-Girl seem like a cold, hard carica- ture of a “good soldier”; in contrast, the film’s version empowers Hit-Girl by showing that once her father is gone, she makes her own choices. Furthermore, at this point in the film we see her motive for committing acts of violence evolve from obedience to revenge; this allows her to leave behind her role as her father’s puppet/enabler and to become an action hero motivated by one of the most time-honored film plot devices: seeking revenge for the wrongful death of a loved one.
The outcome of this final mission in the film is significantly different from the reinscription into childhood which the comic presents. In the penultimate fight scene of both the film and the comic, Hit-Girl finds herself in need of rescue by Kick-Ass, but in the film, the fight that has preceded this state is pre- sented as an encounter between two well-trained martial artists rather than an incidence of an adult mastering a child and sadistically beating her. Following her rescue, the film character does not dissolve into tears and ask for a hug; she stands up straight, tells Kick-Ass that “My dad would have been proud of both of us,” and then they both take off their masks and shake hands as equals. Mindy/Hit-Girl ends the film with her dignity intact, and the audience feels that she has a good chance of being able to begin to live a normal, age-appropriate life. Whereas the anime version of Gunslinger Girl enhances the pathos of the girls’ situation, the film version of Kick-Ass allows the audience to feel that they have been watching two young people on a grand adventure, rather than a sick fantasy featuring brainwashing and militaristic child abuse.
Another way in which the film varies from the comic is in its presentation of violence. In the comic, all of Hit-Girl’s kills are shown in hypergraphic detail. In a postproduction interview, the comic’s artistic team talked about their impressions of the project:
Tom Palmer (inker): She [Hit-Girl] takes off the top of the guy’s head like a soft- boiled egg. It was easy enough in the line drawing, but when Dean got done, it was over the top.