When Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass returns next year, the series will see a couple of changes. Along with the comic switching publishers from Marvel's Icon imprint to Image Comics, series star Dave Lizewski will pass the mantle of Kick-Ass to a black female army veteran named Patience Lee, who is also the mother of young children.

What prompted Millar to create a new character to headline the comic was his interest in legacy characters and the type of inspiration that comes with passing the torch from one generation to another. “The original four volumes of Kick-Ass, the Dave Lizewski story, got tied up a couple of years ago and this is a brand new character," he explained to Entertainment Weekly. "I’d always wanted to do what Doctor Who or The Flash does and create a legacy character, Kick-Ass being designed for that. The idea is that he inspires other people to do what he did, just putting on a costume and cleaning up their neighborhood, and that’s what happens here.”

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With a change in character comes a change in location, taking the central story from New York to New Mexico. “I wanted to shake up the setting a little and shifted the whole thing to New Mexico," he revealed. "The lead is a woman this time, a mother in her early 30s with two young kids. She’s also a military vet who came home to find her life in a completely different setting from the way it was when she went to Afghanistan so the actual dynamic of the book is really different, but at the same time the flavor is identical.”

Netflix recently acquired Millarworld, the comics imprint founded in 2013 by Millar, the co-creator of Kick-Ass, Kingsman and Wanted. Under the terms of the deal, Millar will develop properties for television and film and publish new comics under the Netflix banner. Kick-Ass and Kingsman were not a part of the Netflix deal.

Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass #1 will go on sale February 24, 2018, marking the 10-year anniversary of the series.