The Boys (all seasons)

I need to preface this with the statement that I love a superhero and have since I started reading comics way back when. I am going to make social comment, and reference the Marvel and DC universes as well as those of 2000ad (my later staple). The Boys is the antidote to the moral rectitude of the traditional superhero, and this is a good thing.

Think about all of the traditional superheroes, they all have a moral compass that points pretty much rigidly north. That rigidity is a consequence of a transformation brought about by a series of life-changing events or because of the tuition of a wise but entirely mortal elder. Peter Parker's uncle Ben, Ironman sees the effect of his weapons, Jor-El, Superman’s father. They are the tropes of ascension to a higher good.

Super-Villains on the other hand diverge from this positive transformational path by dint of similar but negative situations, and without the background guiding compass, and or a perversion (for want of a better word) of their id by the imagined persecution of themselves or their dreams and ambitions, the death of a loved one, or in simple setups, they are already a criminal who acquires powers. Doc Oc, Mr (or Dr) Freeze, have something taken from them, their single point of focus sets on rectifying a past wrong or undoing a tragedy that turns them against the wider world, or sets them on acquiring the one thing they can’t obtain by legal means to fix their past. Or they try to bring about a positive transformation of their present regardless of the cost to society. In Lex Luther’s case, its ego and the fact that there is someone out there who can thwart him in spite of his wealth or genius. General Zod is motivated by revenge. I tend not to give much credence to the nihilist “wants to destroy all of creation/the universe villains” … it just leads to Dues Ex Machina moments, that are frankly bollocks.

As an aside in recent times, the movies Spiderman No Way Home, Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the Disney series WandaVision blur the line a little whereby the lead characters try to bend reality to their will to rectify a wrong and cause catastrophic fallout that they then have to try and fix (but I digress). If you look at the two paragraphs above clearly, supervillains are actually the more complex characters.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

WandaVision

The superheroes of The Boys, diverge from both of these paths because they are as we discover; manufactured by Compound V, a legacy of Nazi experimentation to create and or augment the master race with superhuman powers. I don’t think there are any spoilers here, after all we are on Season three.

The Boys are (for those who don’t know) the entirely human anti-heroes trying to expose superhero corruption, led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban, who played Judge Dredd in the movie adaptation Dredd 2012, that was by many leagues better than the Sylvester Stallone movie Judge Dredd from 1995). If you want full cast details for The Boys go and look here https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Boys-Season-1/dp/B0875VNF4W and or half a dozen other web resources elsewhere.

Dredd (2012)

The superheroes in the boys differ because they are made. Vought their creating company, has brought Ex-Nazi scientists to America post war to develop their ideas to fruition for one assumes the greater good and profit … but eventually just profit. There are no guiding principles for these superheroes created by stealth by the Vought Corporation (you need to watch the series for the detail). Some of the children created by the program go on to develop incredible superpowers. Homelander being the equivalent of Superman, but for the fact that he has no moral compass, and considers humans as expendable trash, however, like a greek god of old he needs hero worship to validate him in a world where he can do whatever he likes with impunity. It is smart, how the creators have made a god on the one hand who on the other hand is a petulant, spoilt, needy turd of a child … who by the way has no qualms whatsoever about committing casual murder.

So, three seasons in, two episodes into season three, I decided I needed to write something about The Boys. Season One took you by surprise because it took the traditional image of the superhero and pulled it through the looking glass. An accidental manslaughter by a superhero of an innocent bystander opens a can of worms, that shows the effect of the collateral damage caused by superpowers in use. Interestingly in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, this aspect of the use of superpowers was alluded to by Ben Affleck’s Batman. Put simply there must have been hundreds if not thousands of collateral deaths and injuries caused by Superman’s fight with General Zod; but the viewer only gets to see the heroic saves in the traditional superhero format … though that is the point is it not? We saw similar critique by authorities in the aftermath of the Age of Ultron and Hulks Rampage and fight with Ironman. Had these issues not been addressed as negatives there would have been a supersized elephant in the room forever.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

In The Boys, Vought just pays people off, spins a yarn and controls the narrative with corporate zeal. Season two, the middle season where we get to see the crossed threads and where the real power resides up in the boardroom. And now Season three.

I am tentatively going to say that if the gore continues throughout the series as it has in the first two episodes, then the entire series is going lose its way as a gory schlock-fest, which will be a great disservice to the story overall. However, as a reset and to emphasise the reality of what the world would actually be like with a population of superheroes and supervillains, it does drive the point home.

So, I have spoken of the superheroes. What about our entirely human antiheroes, the protagonists? They are almost to a man as ruthless and evil as the alleged heroes. They, spy, entrap, blackmail, coerce, steal and murder. And this is where The Boys wins ... our protagonists should be the villains for trying to undermine the heroes, but the heroes are so awful when out of the limelight that you want them taken down.

If you haven’t watched The Boys but have a need to cut through some of the last decade and a bit worth of standard Superhero movies; quite often in my opinion beautifully rendered realisations of comic books then, The Boys is for you. It’s not an either-or situation. You can love Superhero lore, and still get a massive kick out of watching the more plausible scenario, of a corporation dealing in pharmacology, Media, Movies, Theme Parks and Lobbying being at the core of exploiting their products, and the adoration of entirely ignorant masses who just cleave to celebrity.