The star of Kick-Ass may not actually have superpowers, but Maple Pictures is putting a heroic effort into promoting the new film.

Promotion started this week on the April 16 release with a rollout of eye-catching oversized decals in 12 transit stations across Toronto. Each station was selected because of its proximity to a mall, to better hit the campaign’s 18-to-34 target demographic, says Joanna Miles, Maple’s marketing VP.

The campaign will include an installation in an empty storefront on Queen Street West, set up to look like the title character’s bedroom, complete with authentic props. Maple has also secured the storefront next to it as the film’s comic book store, Atomic. To top it all off, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl doppelgangers will be on location and in costume on April 15.

The film is also being promoted via two unique partnerships. A contest partnership with MTV offers viewers the chance to win a trip to Comic-Con in Chicago to cover the event for the channel as an MTV correspondent.

‘MTV has the perfect target demo for this film,’ Miles explains. ‘They’re young and edgy, and the film is edgy — it’s rated R in the States — so it’s a perfect match. We want people to know it’s a big film, so you have to treat it as such.’

The second partnership is a first with the film’s American distributor, Lionsgate, built around iwillkickass.com. Visitors to the site can turn themselves into a Kick-Ass villain by connecting via Facebook and uploading their profile picture to the site, modifying it and giving themselves a costume and name.

‘It’s the first time we’ve ever done a North American-wide contest,’ Miles says, adding that the contest will be promoted on Twitter, Facebook, IGN.com and with a YouTube homepage roadblock ad.

From Media in Canada