It’s time to appreciate The Boys for what it really is: a fantastic comic book |
When Amazon's adaptation of The Boys was announced, I was thrilled. Garth Ennis is my favorite comics writer, and The Boys occupies a stable spot on my Mount Rushmore of best comics of all time right alongside Preacher, Planetary, and The Invisibles. At the same time, AMC's then-recent disappointing adaptation of Preacher had already shown me that the Irish writer’s trademark blend of realistic characters and surreal situations doesn’t necessarily translate to TV.
Watching The Boys on Prime Video felt like eating pineapple pizza: First, you bite in, driven by curiosity over a new spin on something you love; then, the flavor creeps in, and you realize what a mistake this was; finally, you finish it because wasting food is wrong, while contemplating all your terrible life choices. Not that I would ever eat pineapple pizza, to be clear, but I did sit through five seasons of The Boys, and the only positive outcome is that it reminded me just how excellent the comics are.
However, for some “diabolical” reason, at some point during the airing of the show, disparaging the comics became customary among YouTubers and content creators looking for a nice algorithm boost. Panels were posted out of context, highlighting the most graphic and ridiculous aspects of the story while ignoring its robust narrative and character development. Now that the show has ended, people are bringing up its many flaws as a counterpoint, but rather than fueling pointless factionalism, it’s more constructive to focus on explaining why The Boys is one of the best superhero comics you’ll ever read.
Created by Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, The Boys debuted in 2006 and concluded in 2012. The core of the story is an attack on the transformation of superheroes and the culture surrounding them into a pervasive mass-culture feature, devoid of its original creative charge and turned into a money-making machine. In that sense, The Boys is a visionary series: Marvel Studios’ Iron Man debuted in 2008, opening the floodgates for a decade of superhero takeover in the entertainment industry. A few months before The Boys’ final issue, The Avengers was released in cinemas.
It’s hard to look at the world of The Boys and not make a comparison with the........