The Boys - An Amazon Prime adaptation of the Ennis comic series

[Mayoush]

It never gets old to be lectured about "corporations bad" by people that are on the payroll of the biggest corporations on the planet, living lives of wealth and privilege on the company's dime, that the average prole can only dream about.

For real they will keep selling out until AI or robots replaces them

I think the show is worse since the creator is furious that people like homelander that's why he doesn't want to do the comic twist of black noir, there is not much depth to the comic either , what if superman was evil and ate kids alive and raped women and all of the characters are former nazi and also sexual deviants the show toned down all these themes and made it about the evil orange man instead not counting the countless gender and race swaps

 

[regalterry]

what if superman was evil and ate kids alive and raped women and all of the characters are former nazi and also sexual deviants

Which had already been done in Wanted from 2003, and it was just as crass and cringe there as it was in the Boys.

We also already had "Superman, but evil" with Miracleman from the 1980s by resident demon cocksleve Alan Moore.

I have no clue what the Boys had to offer that was so novel besides the explicit and in-your-face shock value.

 

[Not A Bunny]

It never gets old to be lectured about "corporations bad" by people that are on the payroll of the biggest corporations on the planet, living lives of wealth and privilege on the company's dime, that the average prole can only dream about.

Art reflects life. We've kind a reached a point where everyone's been trained to believe that whatever corporations tell us is good, so much so that nobody questions it when the message they put out is "corporations bad", and yet somehow, we accept that message without keeling over from the cognitive dissonance.

It thoroughly astounds me how often people cheer it when someone more obscenely wealthy than they are falls in line with the social agenda they were fed, yet it somehow never occurs to them that the same obscenely wealthy motherfuckers have no real motivation to adhere to that agenda except that it keeps the audience in their corner.

I actually had a point here, and that is, this is the reason that it doesn't astound me that Eric Kripke hasn't been called out for the sick motherfucker he is. He says the right words and pisses off all the right people, so whatever perverse idea he has for putting things onscreen (I'm not a prude, I just lost my taste for shock-value shit when I burned myself out on True Crime) is that same shit that's going to get amped up on social media.

Which had already been done in Wanted from 2003, and it was just as crass and cringe there as it was in the Boys.

And that's another thing that pisses me off about modern media. It's like everyone thinks they have an original idea. I suppose corporations will exploit this when all of their new-agey ideas get thrown out just to jangle the keys at consumers.

 

[BubbaRobot887]

So the guy sitting next to me on the plane was watching this show and it just seems to be a crass meanspirited show made by people who hate life and it's only message seems to be "Corporations and Christians are bad, M'Kay", I can't understand how this got five seasons or how anything it does is seen as original.

 

[RSU 1741]

We also already had "Superman, but evil" with Miracleman from the 1980s by resident demon cocksleve Alan Moore.

I have no clue what the Boys had to offer that was so novel besides the explicit and in-your-face shock value.

Again I find myself attracted to this thread by Moore.

Miracleman is indeed in some weird sense a predecessor to The Boys, but not for the "Superman is Evil" approach (Miracleman's supers are more of the otherwordly horror type of supes, distinct and alien from human experience) but for the gore. Bates/Kid Miracleman was the kind of psychotic, deranged edgelord fond of hyper-graphic violence so dear to Ennis. On other regards, they're clearly opposite: superpowered beings in Miracleman quickly go beyond humanity (leaving always though the little sore note that for all their powers and supposed enlightenment the end result is .... unsatisfactory) while supes in The Boys are deranged thugs enslaved to their basest desires. I don't think there's much of MM in The Boys.

Thematically and often-repeated, the real predecessors to Ennis' work are The Brat Pack (personally I find it mediocre, but the combo of corrupting the innocent, sex&violence is here) and of course Pat Mill's Marshal Law. Law may be flawed (the parody becomes excessive, the political bent predictable, the developments silly and the crossovers ridicolous) but the basic narrative gist? It's already there. Bar of course O'Neill's phenomenal art that makes re-reading Marshal Law decades later a joy. I wonder, why The Boys is so badly drawn? Bad writing calling for awful art, maybe?

 

[Overly Serious]

I don't watch The Boys. I watched some of Season 1 and dropped. If I could summarise my view it would something I don't like done very well. (At least up to the points I watched).

But the constant exposure has nudged me into reading a little of this thread out of curiousity for how the show has gone. And regards the below:

Which had already been done in Wanted from 2003, and it was just as crass and cringe there as it was in the Boys.

I think the Amazon show The Tick did an interesting and subversive take on all of this. You had a Superman figure (Superian) who was fantastically powerful but also flawed. You had a powerful organisation that commercialised superheroes. You had villains who it hinted weren't so much villains exactly as much as on the opposing team. It was very like The Boys in many elements, actually. Only, funny and heart-warming.

I suspect that The Boys is one of the reasons for The Tick's cancellation. I liked that show.

 

[Not A Bunny]

I suspect that The Boys is one of the reasons for The Tick's cancellation. I liked that show.

What the hell ever happened to subversive media that didn't feel like it was supposed to be part of the crusade to save the world or something?

Like, when I see old SNL clips from the 70s and 80s (people forget that the first ever host of SNL was George Carlin), it makes me so mad that we can't have that anymore. It's not subverted if the messages are owned by the corporations. Amazon is practically gleeful at the anti-authoritarian message of The Boys (if not gleeful, we don't hear any backroom chatter that says "Gasp! We can't put this out there!").

Hell, I remember "Married...with Children" where they had the most fun poking at feminists (granted, NO MA'AM wasn't exactly the Illuminati; nobody really got off scot-free on that show). The odd part is, if you watch the evolution of the Marcy character, you see the exact same feminism today. It was a parody back then.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Art reflects life. We've kind a reached a point where everyone's been trained to believe that whatever corporations tell us is good, so much so that nobody questions it when the message they put out is "corporations bad", and yet somehow, we accept that message without keeling over from the cognitive dissonance.

It thoroughly astounds me how often people cheer it when someone more obscenely wealthy than they are falls in line with the social agenda they were fed, yet it somehow never occurs to them that the same obscenely wealthy motherfuckers have no real motivation to adhere to that agenda except that it keeps the audience in their corner.

I actually had a point here, and that is, this is the reason that it doesn't astound me that Eric Kripke hasn't been called out for the sick motherfucker he is. He says the right words and pisses off all the right people, so whatever perverse idea he has for putting things onscreen (I'm not a prude, I just lost my taste for shock-value shit when I burned myself out on True Crime) is that same shit that's going to get amped up on social media.

And that's another thing that pisses me off about modern media. It's like everyone thinks they have an original idea. I suppose corporations will exploit this when all of their new-agey ideas get thrown out just to jangle the keys at consumers.

Brat Pack was revenge porn from Veitch, both for his moral disapproval over the death of Jason Todd and the Swamp thing #88 debacle (TLDR Swamp Thing was supposed to meet Jesus via time travel and Veitch referring to Jesus as a White Magician sorcerer in the issue and DC got cold feet at the last minute and refused to publish it).

Marshall Law meanwhile is the anti Boys in that Mills goes out of his way to make ML likable and softens his hate boner towards super heroes, complete with the reveal that his girlfriend never loved him and becoming a super villain zombie when she realizes that ML isn't the sort of cliched asshole a feminist bitch dates to piss off mommy and daddy.

 

[God of Nothing]

Brat Pack was revenge porn from Veitch, both for his moral disapproval over the death of Jason Todd and the Swamp thing #88 debacle

It was astonishingly well put together in comparison to everything else.

 

[Corporal Lewis]

I can't bet on The Deep living on Polymarket because I'm an Euro Poor...

The Peak will survive. Place your bets.

 

[The Incredible Gassy]

The Deep survives the final battle but he gets pushed into the water and an electric eel swims up his asshole and electricutes him to death.

 

[Corporal Lewis]

The Deep survives the final battle but he gets pushed into the water and an electric eel swims up his asshole and electricutes him to death.

They will give him a shipwrecked fate, mark my works. Another user said it, he lost everything, killing him would be doing him a favor. #frazzledrip yo, no cap on god

 

[Samuel Fuller]

I can't bet on The Deep living on Polymarket because I'm an Euro Poor...
View attachment 9023928
The Peak will survive. Place your bets.

* a europoor

If the sound of the next word is a consonant, it’s always “a”, not “an”.

 

[SITHRAK!]

the M-16 failing in Vietnam was a devious cOnSpIrAcY by the corporation

You should read C.J. Chiver’s ‘The Gun’. The M16 was absolutely not ready for deployment in Vietnam, and the military’s initial stubborn refusal to issue cleaning kits for the ‘self-cleaning’ rifle cost many American lives.

Ennis’ portrayal of an incompetent military-industrial complex echoes one of the old ‘Murphy’s laws of combat’: “Your equipment is built and supplied by the lowest bidder.”

Moreover, you need to look at the larger context. Vought’s failures in military hardware- WW2 warplanes without self-sealing fuel tanks that burned pilots to death, small arms that don’t cycle reliably- is why they went all-in on Supes instead. And their attempts to insert Supes into national defense produced nothing but chaos, see the ww2 Mallory arc. And so the federal government is blocking ‘Supes in national defense’.

That leads us to ‘The Boys’ in which Vought is trying every trick in the book to get Supes into defense, and the CIA is counting on The Boys to keep it from happening.

 

[regalterry]

You should read C.J. Chiver’s ‘The Gun’. The M16 was absolutely not ready for deployment in Vietnam, and the military’s initial stubborn refusal to issue cleaning kits for the ‘self-cleaning’ rifle cost many American lives.

My point was that Ennis blames the corporation in his (not) M16 tale, when it was the military itself that fucked up, first by pushing the "sharpshooter" idea and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the realities of modern warfare, making procurement of the M16 an urgent need, and then not issuing cleaning kits, not training the troops and most damning of all, issuing the wrong type of ammo.

We can point the finger at Colt for cutting some corners (i.e. not chroming the barrels) and glazing their product a bit too much, but it was ultimately the military that fucked over their own troops, and not just with the M16, but in a myriad of other ways.

Moreover, you need to look at the larger context. Vought’s failures in military hardware

I really don't, because Ennis is mentally a child, with a "capitalism bad!" axe to grind, and is also too lazy to do the bare minimum research.

I can't take Vought as an antagonist seriously because they read like a parody, but Ennis is too stupid to realize this and thinks he's shitting out some scathing social commentary.

and the CIA is counting on The Boys to keep it from happening

Which is fucking hilarious, because, while the rest of the US government is negligent and apathetic at best, the CIA is actively malicious.

If the Boys had any connection to reality it would the CIA pushing for capes to become the premier weapon platform of the US government, both because they are arrogant enough to believe they could control them, and also because they'd want to take the military down a few pegs.

 

[RSU 1741]

My point was that Ennis blames the corporation in his (not) M16 tale

The M-20 is a spoof of both the M-16 initial deployment (and we had decades to fight the Mattel Toy Gun memery) but particularly the L85A1 debacle, with the British proving that they're truly a subhuman race losing even the basic knowledge about developing firearms. Of course, in the Ennis-verse, the FAL is instead a manly weapon because it shoots a bigger caliber.

I really don't, because Ennis is mentally a child, with a "capitalism bad!" axe to grind, and is also too lazy to do the bare minimum research. I can't take Vought as an antagonist seriously because they read like a parody, but Ennis is too stupid to realize this.

His WW2 spoof in The Boys (and honestly, most of his WW2 works) read like parodies. I'm not asking Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths here, but Ennis truly has an "adolescent" worldview of war in all its forms. War as seen by a teen, where it's all manly heroics and dastardly enemies/corrupt hierarchies and conniving war-profiteers. And of course, a lot of swear words and edge, muh edge. Very childish in an already childish medium.

This reminds me of Uber, another edgefest series. Gillen may be mediocre, but he at least tried to approach the concept of "industrialized superhumans in a world war context" with some thought behind it. Aw fuck, I've just realized I've just positively compared Uber to something else. Fuck.

 

[SITHRAK!]

We can point the finger at Colt for cutting some corners (i.e. not chroming the barrels) and glazing their product a bit too much, but it was ultimately the military that fucked over their own troops

It was a shared failure, which when transposed to the books, does focus more strongly on Vought, as they’re the ones supplying a defective product while saying it’s fine. But as I said this was done to explain why Vought switches to Supes, because of their track record of failure in other areas and their near-total control of Compound V (outside Godolkin) and their program of recruiting and controlling ‘Wild’ supes no matter how useless their powers (see Superduper).

I really don't, because Ennis is mentally a child, with a "capitalism bad!" axe to grind, and is also too lazy to do the bare minimum research.

Chivers’ ‘The Gun’ is the most comprehensive examination of the M-16 disaster and ‘The Boys’ is an exaggeration, but this is in line with the rest of the comics’ tone. The M-16 was a clusterfuck of corporate and military arrogance that cost lives, the Vought rifle is simply that writ large.

Note also that the Vought rifle in question is patterned after the British SA80/L85 bullpup, which was also notorious for teething problems around durability and reliability and was widely regarded as a downgrade from the FN-FAL battle rifle within the British armed forces.

I’d argue this was as much a criticism of British military procurement as American.

while the rest of the US government is negligent and apathetic at best, the CIA is actively malicious.

The CIA recognizes the threat of letting a bunch of incompetents like Vought put Supes into national defense because they know all too well that the Supes in question are corrupt, violent, incompetent, arrogant etc.
if I remember the comics correctly, the CIA really starts to work against Vought after the Seven fuck up the in-universe 9/11. Note that they’re less concerned about Godolkin because Godolkin isn’t pushing for Supes in defense.
Note also that The Boys’ remit isn’t so much to punish rogue Supes as it is to use spying, manipulation and blackmail to degrade their performance and discourage Vought from pursuing Supes in defense.

 

[regalterry]

but particularly the L85A1 debacle, with the British proving that they're truly a subhuman race losing even the basic knowledge about developing firearms

To be fair, a lot of woes with the gun are down to the fact the workforce had been told the company was going bankrupt, so they had little reason to care about quality control.

another edgefest series

Ennis also gifted us with Crossed, which is probably where Western comics finally hit rock bottom. He should genuinely apologize to the whole of the human race for that one.

Aw fuck, I've just realized I've just positively compared Uber to something else. Fuck.

Maybe it's just my hazy memory, but I noticed that a lot of edgeslop (Uber, the Boys, Crossed, Frank) seems to have a similar, shitty art style, like the tumblrtard Rudolph nose, only for edgy manchildren that never matured past their teens.

 

[Maker's Mark]

I haven’t watched the last three episodes but I have read what has happened so I might just say fuck it and skip to the finale instead willing myself through three hours of slop. They really brought back Soldier Boy just so that they can promote his prequel series and Kripke could jerk off his Supernatural fans one last time.

 

[SITHRAK!]

So anyway, now it’s confirmed that (show) Stormfront was a V1 user- explaining why she still looks she’s in her late 20’s despite being the same age as Soldier Boy and Bombsight- is there an explanation why she was vulnerable to Ryan and the lesser heroes? Or is this yet another case of powers changing depending on the needs of the plot?