The Spiralling
Bonus Feature: Writer's Commentary Part 3
Michael/ Apprentice: Michael makes his first appearance at the same time as Grandmaster, convincing him to bring him along by virtue of the fact that he knows more of the outside world than him. Michael is one of the many apprentices of Aldan, perhaps one of his closest. He is loyal to him- a typical disciple of sorts that plays at the fantasy theme of Grandmaster's side of the story.
The apprentice is a minor character, having a small role in the story, but serves to expose the many good sides of Aldan Bonitus, making him very important. For example, in disallowing him to participate in his journey to find his family, Aldan was showing concern of Michael's well-being and education in swordsmanship. Just talking to him shows Aldan to be very wise and philosophical. When Michael died, Aldan was shown to appreciate people, giving him a quick 'burial' before leaving the body to the police.
Michael is a typical young character- foolhardy, not too skilled, unwitting, which unfortunately lead to his death, when he underestimated Mindy and went on ahead to engage her. He was quickly overwhelmed and killed.
Marcus Williams/ Sergeant Marcus Williams: In the original, he was a former colleague and partner to Damon Macready, and remains a friend throughout, though he was intentionally cut off from the family after Damon came out of prison. Being a former guardian of Mindy, he was responsible for taking care of her for the first five years of her life, and was probably a protective and loving parent judging from his disagreement with what Damon felt was right for Mindy, and how he still wanted so much to see her even after his role as a guardian was over.
By the end of the movie (and in the comic book where he was featured as the investigating officer) he became the stepfather of Mindy, as Damon Macready was killed by savage beatings and fire after being betrayed by Red Mist. He was shown as a normal, loving parent in the final scene.
In 'The Spiralling', he resumes the same role and takes a small part, though I've decided to make him oblivious to everything in part due to his apparent single-parent status, meaning he won't have time to fully parent Mindy and could easily have been manipulated by her (manipulate in this case means to lie to, to mislead and take advantage of).
Also, other than the reason that his is a minor role, why he appeared infrequently is because by the time the story started, the police were already planning a big hit on the D'Amico empire- By the climax of the story, the police was throwing everything it has on the D'Amico headquarters, a skyscraper probably loaded with the D'Amico family's secrets. Another obvious reason was because he was shot at several times over by his own stepdaughter (though he wouldn't know Demoness was Mindy), and incapacitated as a result.
He was put in ICU for a day and even after that he was unresponsive. The attack on him rouses the good, but unknowing Mindy into action. That was his main role in the story.
Christopher D'Amico/ Red Mist: Support villain of the original movie and comics, a major character in both. His role was diminished to that of a minor character as the focus of the story is not on him. In the original, Christ is shown to be an over-sheltered teenager with his own bodyguard, a pampering mobster for a father whose mother totally agrees to whatever he does like a sheep and everything he could ever want within his hand's reach.
Christopher is similar to Dave in many ways, a comic book enthusiast (street terms would include geek and nerd) and a wannabe. The latter similarity though, has a different focus. Dave wants to try his hand at being a superhero, but Christ wants to be like his dad, and secondarily a superhero (it was a part of his conceived plot to capture Dave and impress his dad, so its secondary). This is further reinforced by the fact that he would rather side with his father in the end than defect to Mindy and Dave's side.
Like Dave, this character's transformation has a growing up theme to it, except it was probably corrupted. He managed to get involved in his father's business when initially he was rejected flat out, and he lost his father- which probably should add to his learning process as this would mean he would have to take matters into his own hands as a fledgling mastermind if he wants revenge against Kick-Ass.
In the story, I took this one step further by portraying him as being next in line to the D'Amico business, and he was actually taking charge, rebuilding what was lost, and actually getting his hands dirty to do so. Had it not been for the major villain, who is also a minor supporting character, he would have gone out of hand and present an impossible target to Kick-Ass, not that Demoness is anymore possible to dispatch. This is actually quite fitting for a noir, as it seems to prove that doing what is morally wrong is the ticket to success. One silver lining though in this case was of course, he was killed off, but not to the glee of New York's finest and her citizens, as someone worse decided to terrorize the city.
Angie D'Amico: Another very minor character who had some screentime in 'The Spiralling'. Her presence serves as something of a main target for Demoness in the final scene. In the movie, she was depicted as a submissive wife to Frank D'Amico.
In this story, I portrayed her as more of a survivor who had endured the lost of her entire family, rather than the fragile homemaker that the movie seems to depict her as (though with the very limited exposure the character has to the camera I cannot be sure). Angie and her bodyguards, along with the remains of the D'Amico soldiers, were pretty much there to show just how powerful Demoness was- they were annihilated by her (though to be fair, she's insane beyond comprehension, but she's still 10-years-old).
Mindy Macready/ Hit-Girl/ Demoness: The young arch-villain of the story, though it won't be apparent until the twilight of the story. In 'The Spiralling', she was what would either make or break the story, depending on the reader's taste, just like how it was like for the original movie and comic series, and just like how it was like in the original, it won't be apparent at first.
Dave of course, takes the lead for the story at first, similar to how it was like originally, although, this time, I had tried my best not to allow Mindy to overshadow him. This, of course, I may have failed in, as this Little Miss Badass is a remarkably special character, and the augmentations I made to her may have made her even more overpowering as a fictional character. In other ways, it may be inevitable that she may steal the limelight sooner or later.
This brings to mind her original adventures in the canon, which we must understand and infer from if we are to fully comprehend the going-ons of 'The Spiralling'. So... Based on both comic and movie canon, with all characters following the standard movie framework (Damon Macready being a real cop and stuff...), we know that Mindy's childhoos was tumultuous and tough at best, though by virtue of an adaptive child's mind, she took it to her stride (this, I can't be sure).
In the movie, she was born from a dead mother after his father was framed as a crooked cop dealing in drugs and was sentenced to five years in prison. The girl then was saved from the orphanage by Damon Macready's former partner, Marcus Williams. The latter spent five years taking care of her, and was responsible for her early development.
Most likely, he has absolutely nothing to do with her later development, as he was portrayed as being a normal and protective guardian and a loving one at that.
Mindy was reunited with her real father after that, who probably, after that, alienates his former colleague from the family and started training her. Based on what I can see, her training would most likely include secret weapons training on every available firearms Damon may or may not be able to procure, classes on each firearms, how to maintain them, how to strip and assemble them... Among many other things which I probably should list for fear of this paragraph never ending.
She would certainly be trained physically (weights, cardiac exercises, stretching...), leading to martial arts, use of all sorts of conventional and unconventional killing instruments. Damon would most likely have one or two masters on his side.
Based on the comic, she would have fought on several occasions, possibly in a restaurant owned by the D'Amico business used as a base of operations at one point, for example.
Cutting to the chase, she continued operating with her father after that, working up the D'Amico hierarchy tree, met Kick-Ass, tried to recruit him but fails, tried to help him but lost her father, and promptly avenges him, nearly getting herself killed in the process. At the end, Marcus reunites with her and became her stepfather.
What I would like to focus on are the mental traumas she suffered (or could possibly have suffered from)- despite being a Sailor-mouthed, cold-blooded mass killer, she is entirely capable of that, simply because there are people she loved and paid attention to. Mindy had plenty to lose.
Let us analyse her traumas, let us start from the beginning. She was born out of a dead mother and was taken into a family friend's home. Marcus was a protective, normal quardian, so the first five years of her life must be full of love, toys and fun- in other words, she was sheltered.
So if you are a child living an idealistic life, how would you feel upon finding out that your real mother died giving birth to you? Worst still, what if you found out your mother died by overhosing herself with drugs after getting too stressed up over financial and emotional issues? The problem can become bigger if Mindy knew having a mother is a norm, and if she had any peers she may have suffered peer rejection, taunting and ostracising. And this is just a single issue.
What if you were having a happy life for the past five year, and you found out one fine day that your real father was in prison because of 'the bad people'? If the mother was dead but the father was still around there was still a chance for Mindy to emerge relatively fine, but of course, Mindy isn't exactly lucky... Same thing applies regarding norm, peer rejection and the likes. In fact, having these multiple issues compounds the problem for Mindy.
Then, five years after birth, you reunite with your dad, all is well right? Far from it in Mindy's case. She would've most likely lose the only father she knew in her life upon gaining back her rightful one. Then, throw in the adjustments she would have to make. In Mindy's case, these adjustments would be about the size of Manhattan itself.
The girl who had a sheltered existence would suddenly need to think about killing, taking revenge, handling firearms, enduring endless high intensity training, regimentation and God forbid, probably forced mental growth (in terms of maturity) which resulted in her endless cussing. These are all obviously too hardcore for a little sheltered girl, so imagine the pressure and emotional turmoil. The fact that she enjoyed killing drug dealers was chilling. It shows adaptation, but a form of adaptation that shouldn't be found on any young girls, or any sane normal human being for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, there is indeed love between Mindy and Damon, but this is just another thing she has to lose, and lose it she did. Months into their revenge missions, Mindy watched her real father BURN slowly to death. We can only be thankful that she may have missed watching her father get beaten nearly to death. Well, she MAY have. Chances are probably though, trained as she was in the art of military tactics and intelligence, she would have had to, to monitor the situation, if she wasn't crawling somewhere in the first place during Dave and Damon's savage beatings.
What we have here is a child who's royally messed up in the head by the epilogue of Kick-Ass. This forms the basis of 'The Spiralling'- A side of Mindy that I feel was left out almost entirely, both in the movie and comic series, but was explored a bit more in the second, albeit in a very incomplete fashion.
The canon Mindy we are all familiar with is the tough one-girl army sort who treats death as a joke and destruction as fun. To my point of view, this is incomplete as what we were presented with was just the action- the flesh. We haven't gone deeper to gaze at the soul yet, but understandably so; My source media is afterall a superhero action film, not a drama. There was tragedy, but the comedy and explosions overpowered it, forcing drama into a few scenes that were, in fact, beautiful- that goes for both the movie and comic versions. 'The Spiralling' explores these previously almost virgin places.
The start of 'The Spiralling' was placed 3 months after the events of the movie/comic. By this time, Mindy was a dominating bully who monopolised the school's bully market- she was remarkably successful at intimidating everyone, even her seniors. From this depiction, I was trying to show that she was buckling under the pressure of her emotional grief, and she started her round of bullying and bad behaviour in a vain effort to alleviate her pain by gaining pleasure from power-playing and coercing others, in other words, anti-socialism and sadism.
Her many mental problems at the start were already present, including clinical depression and the main reason why the story happened, Dissociative Identity Disorder. The Demoness had already existed before 'The Spiralling' started, but she doesn't have much power in the beginning, being only capable of forcing certain simple actions on Mindy, such as writing a threatening email to Dave and forcing her to take a 'vacation' (which was supposed to hinted as a time when she operated as Demoness).
In subsequent chapters, she became much stronger as Mindy's mind started breaking at the seams. The way Dave slapped her, and how things have become between them did not help either. By midnight on day 1, she was able to manifest herself, as in taking over as the dominant personality, and fight Kick-Ass. In a way. Chapter 1-3 serves as a gateway between the original and my story, in which Mindy has finally lost the war in her mind and allowed the other personality to take over for lengthy periods at a time.
With every evil deed Demoness does, Mindy, who was reduced to being a spectator, was forced to watch her own body severely wounding Dave, killing innocents and indulge in masochism. The more she watch, the more she became distraught, which shifts the power of control towards Demoness more. Of course, being a sufferer of DID, she couldn't remember everything that happened when Demoness took over, but the feeling of helplessness, depression and anxiety were still real, and so was the shift of power and control towards Demoness.
One interesting thing of note though is that as Demoness tries to take over, all those bad memories would come back to her as well, as the other personality merges with the original to wrestle the control over the body before expelling the Mindy/Hit-Girl personality into a helpless corner of the mind. The above dynamics explains why Mindy acted pretty normal and thought Demoness was an actual villain when she was Demoness after all.
This went on for the duration of the story, to cut to the chase. Mindy became weaker, and could only intervene once in a while as Demoness was in control, the same way the Demoness could compel Mindy to do but a few certain simple tasks. This is actually the reason why Marcus wasn't killed and Demoness could not execute Kick-Ass/Dave when she very much wanted to.
Despite these small triumphs, Mindy's end was the most tragic- having been brutally injured by her own God-brother and partner, with many broken bones and getting sent to a mental institution with little hope for recovery. Oh, and Demoness had, by then, monopolised Mindy's mind. Even if she recovers, so much damage had already been done to her.