History ComicBook / TheBoys

* NinetiesAntiHero: Team Paralactic, they dont last long.

** The "Get Some" story arc (The Boys # 7) opens with the Tek Knight talking to a shrink. The point is the way this shrink is drawn in some panels bears a certain resemblance to actor MichaelKeaton (maybe not as blatant as Christopher Walken in "Punisher Presents Barracuda", also written by Garth Ennis, but the similarity is there). It's quite fitting since Tek Knight is a pastiche/parody of Batman, and Michael Keaton is of course well known as having played the Dark Knight in the Batman films by TimBurton.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: ''So'' many. From Butcher [[spoiler:slowly gutting Jack from Jupiter]] to the face-removals that are the Female's signature kill to the incredibly horrific things that [[spoiler:Black Noir does to an ordinary family while pretending to be the Homelander]]...

** Justified by the sad real life example of a [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor man with a two-foot-long penis]]. Even minor arousal sends a significant amount of blood to his genitals, causing him to lose consciousness.

* {{Gorn}}: Lots of it.

* FamousLastWords: "Why the fuck you gotta do this? Why you gotta be the way you are?! You think I fucking want this shit, goddammit?!"- [[spoiler: Mother's Milk]]

* BodyHorror: Happens to those with incomplete control over their powers.

''The Boys'' is a series by GarthEnnis, with art by Darick Robertson and others, about a CIA-sponsored team of EmpoweredBadassNormals that monitors, polices and (often) terminates corrupt superhumans. Gritty, violent, and [[BlackHumor darkly humorous]], the series frequently veers into AuthorTract territory regarding its gleeful depiction of the majority of costumed supers as perverts and child molesters, dropping some anvils on a lot of ugly tropes that have been plaguing superhero comics. Much like ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' by Creator/AlanMoore, this series is a DeconstructorFleet. However, instead of attacking the mythos of the superhero, it goes after the sleazy corporate underbelly that grew up around it.

''The Boys'' is a series by GarthEnnis, with art by Darick Robertson and others, about a CIA-sponsored team of EmpoweredBadassNormals that monitors, polices and (more than)occasionally terminates corrupt superhumans. Gritty, violent, and [[BlackHumor darkly humorous]], the series frequently veers into AuthorTract territory regarding its gleeful depiction of the majority of costumed supers as perverts and child molesters, dropping some anvils on a lot of ugly tropes that have been plaguing superhero comics. Much like ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' by Creator/AlanMoore, this series is a DeconstructorFleet. However, instead of attacking the mythos of the superhero, it goes after the sleazy corporate underbelly that grew up around it.

* MotivationalLie: Near the very end of the series, [[spoiler:Butcher is trying to get Hughie to perform a MercyKill on him, and Hughie can't, both for psychological reasons and because Hughie is badly injured himself. Then Butcher tells Hughie that Butcher killed Hughie's parents, complete with details about their house that back up that Butcher had been there. Suddenly Hughie doesn't have a problem offing Butcher.]]

''The Boys'' is a series by GarthEnnis, with art by Darick Robertson and others, about a CIA-sponsored team of EmpoweredBadassNormals that monitors, polices and (more than)occasionally terminates corrupt superhumans. Gritty, violent, and [[BlackHumor darkly humorous]], the series frequently veers into AuthorTract territory regarding its gleeful depiction of the majority of costumed supers as perverts and child molesters, dropping some anvils on a lot of ugly tropes that have been plaguing superhero comics. Much like ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' by AlanMoore, this series is a DeconstructorFleet. However, instead of attacking the mythos of the superhero, it goes after the sleazy corporate underbelly that grew up around it.

** The straw that broke the camel's back was the M-20 Assault Rifle, which failed so badly that the MacGyvering Viet Cong didn't even bother to salvage the guns ''or'' the ammunition, instead using them as ''mounts'' for the ''heads'' of the ''one thousand American GIs'' that died trying to use them at the Battle of Ia Drang Valley - a ''slight'' exaggeration of what happened when the original [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle#M16_adoption M16 rifle]] was deployed in Vietnam without sufficient testing of the design and ammunition. The only difference between fiction and reality is there wasn't a single dramatic incident, but simply an ongoing stream of lethal failures. Vought never got a government contract again.

* VicePresidentWho: ZigZagged. Vic the Veep is incompetent, borderline mentally retarded and doesn't even hide that he's a Vought Corporation puppet through and through, but that doesn't make him harmless. For example, as the President is about to give the order to [[spoiler:shoot down the 9/11 airliners before they hit]], Vic knocks him out with a fire extinguisher (everyone else had been staring at the screens), as Vought Corporation wanted their supers to save the day as a PR move.

** The whole story can also be seen as a TakeThat to anti-heroes who are presented as being as noble as traditional superheroes, like the tagline on the RobLiefeld created ComicBook/Youngblood. Especially in light of The Seven being more focused on making money from their merchandise than being heroes, which is commonly stated as Liefeld's reasons for not getting comics out on time in the 1990's.

* BigFriendlyDog: Terror, if you're not an enemy of TheBoys. Also trained to hump ''anything'' on command.

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** The whole story can also be seen as a TakeThat to anti-heroes who are presented as being as noble as traditional superheroes, like the tagline on the RobLiefeld created YoungBloods. Especially in light of The Seven being more focused on making money from their merchandise than being heroes, which is commonly stated as Liefeld's reasons for not getting comics out on time in the 1990's.

** Recent issues portray [[spoiler: Queen Maeve]] in this light, in a weird sort of way. [[spoiler: We've mostly seen her as a martini-swilling background character, with a personal butler and, we're told, a penchant for bodybuilders. She's clearly post-traumatic after the events of September 11th, and turns out to be the Boys' mole in the Seven.]]

** VA's first major government contract(prior to that, they made ''boots'') was a team of incompetent first-generation superhumans they tried to foist on the Army at the Battle of the Bulge. They not only draw the Nazis right to the camp where they're being deployed ''and'' get themselves killed to the last man, but in the process manage to trash a shipment of tanks and fighters that were already performing only ''slightly'' better than they were(''also'' provided by Vought).

--->'''Marine Corps Rifleman, Vietnam''': ''We left with 72 men in our platoon and came back with 19, Believe it or not, you know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. Practically every one of our dead was found with his [M16] torn down next to him where he had been trying to fix it.''

*** Vought-American is, overall, a representation of a small but recurring theme in Ennis's work: the greed and essential carelessness of war profiteers (and corporations in general). While Vought's activities throughout history (as discussed in issues #19-22) are pretty ridiculous when you see them on the page, they're actually AluminumChristmasTrees; for example, the body-armor shortages at the beginning of the Iraq War. Essentially, his theme is that such corporations are really only interested in bottom-line profit, not any moral concerns, and if there's a way for them to increase their profit without having to worry about such concerns as safety, morality or even whether the product works (such as, say, if they've bought and paid for all the lawmakers who might intervene and restrain them), then they won't hesitate to follow it.

''The Boys'' is a series by GarthEnnis, with art by Darick Robertson and others, about a CIA-backed team of metahumans who kill other supers when they get out of line. Gritty, edgy and violent, the series frequently veers into AuthorTract territory regarding its gleeful depiction of all costumed supers as perverts and child molesters, dropping some anvils on a lot of ugly tropes that have been plaguing superhero comics. Much like ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' by AlanMoore, this series is a DeconstructorFleet. However, instead of attacking the mythos of the superhero, it goes after the sleazy corporate underbelly that grew up around it.

* {{Expy}}: As with ''Hitman'', most of the antagonists to appear in the comic are thinly disguised parodies of mainstream superheroes. The Seven are roughly analogous to the "Big Seven" [[JusticeLeague Justice League]], although Starlight is the replacement for another member from a ComicBook/TeenTitans analogue, so her corresponding character seems to be Starfire; Tek-Knight, despite his suit, is a {{Batman}} parody; the G-Men are a barely-concealed take-off on the ComicBook/{{X-Men}}; the Maverikz, a one-shot super-team that appears in issue #31 long enough to get maimed, are take-offs of the original line-up of the Outsiders; Payback's members all correspond to various [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]]; and Paralactic, the super team sent to mildly inconvenience the Boys in issue #61, are vaguely similar to the WildCATs.

* BerserkButton: The Female ''must not'' be touched. Although The Frenchman can touch her without setting off the AxCrazy in her; quite why has not yet been explained.
** It has recently been revealed that following a very, very troubled childhood, [[spoiler: Frenchie was the first to show her kindness, becoming a father figure of sort, while the others stayed their distance until she was properly house broken]].