History YMMV / TheBoys

** [[WouldHurtAChild John Godolkin]] is a [[CorruptedCharacterCopy twisted]] [[AlternateCompanyEquivalent expy]] of [[Characters/MarvelComicsProfessorX Charles Xavier]]. The leader of the G-Men, Godolkin kidnaps children from their parents and turns them into superpowered ChildSoldiers that he raises to be loyal to him. Any children who prove troublesome are summarily murdered and stricken from the rosters. Worse, Godolkin is a pedophile who rapes the children after he has abducted them, slowly brainwashing them into helping him rape the younger children later, building an army of fanatical soldiers ready to die for him.

* DontShootTheMessage: Although the comic is remembered more as a lengthy series of insults towards Creator/MarvelComics, Creator/DCComics, and the fanbase of both those franchises. The central theme of the comic is that humans are simply too flawed and undisciplined to be given superpowers. The situations found in comic book settings are best left in the hands of people who are ''actually'' trained to resolve these situations, not random vigilantes with no military training or experience.

* AssPull: [[spoiler: TheReveal that Black Noir is an even more powerful clone of Homelander created just in case he ever went rogue is debated about how good and effective a PlotTwist it is among readers, but it's generally agreed it needed ''some'' {{Foreshadowing}} to really work, since Black Noir drops his backstory and motivation near the end of the comic in a few pages, and is quickly killed afterwards.]]

** There's a great deal of linking between Conservative Christians and superheroes, coming up in the ''Believe'' arc and also playing a big role in [[Series/TheBoys2019 the TV adaptation]], where they portray superheroes as advocating Evangelicalism (while also portraying them as hypocrites using religion to manipulate people) and act as if superheroes as a whole encourage hardline Christian values, which is...weak. While Superman ''has'' some Christ parallels that are played up in some works, most superheroes' religious beliefs ''rarely'' come up, to the point superheroes who ''are'' religious end up being notable ''because'' of it, and their religions tend to vary from the strict White-Protestant faith portrayed as the norm in ''The Boys'' [[note]](for instance, ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} is the most prominent Christian hero, but he's a Catholic, and religious cultural beliefs more come up with characters like Magneto, ComicBook/KittyPryde and [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Ben Grimm]] (who are Jewish), or [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Simon Baz]] and [[ComicBook/MsMarvel Kamala Khan]] (who are Muslim); Evangelicalism like the kind portrayed in ''The Boys'' is mostly limited to The Purifiers, a ''supervillain'' entity)[[/note]]. This sort of uncritical evangelical Christian superhero is limited to Christian media like ''Series/{{Bibleman}}''. In other words, Ennis appears to have mistaken TheMoralSubstitute for actual superhero media.

* HarsherInHindsight: The G-Men, a thinly veiled Expy of the ComicBook/XMen, have their Professor X Expy, John Godolkin,[[spoiler: being a pedophile and the rest of the X-Men being his victims and/or brainwashed cultists]]. All of this is Harsher in Hindsight considering the most prominent director for the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'', Creator/BryanSinger, was accused of grooming underage actors and sexual misconduct, including by some who worked on the X-Men films.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: For those who discovered the Amazon show first, opinions on the comic book have certainly been mixed. While the show has without a doubt brought over many new fans to the comic, giving it a much bigger audience than it had even when new, the unrelentingly bleak, mean-spirited tone definitely put off some fans of the show.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: Some negative responses to the series argue that ''ComicBook/MarshalLaw'' did it all before (and, arguably, did it better). [[https://twitter.com/PatMillsComics/status/1299450839220867073 Pat Mills]] himself ''implied'' (without actually saying it) that he felt directly plagiarized and contemplated legal action.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: Some negative responses to the series argue that ''ComicBook/MarshalLaw'' did it all before. [[https://twitter.com/PatMillsComics/status/1299450839220867073 Pat Mills]] himself ''implied'' (without actually saying it) that he felt directly plagiarized.

* GeniusBonus: In the last issue, a background character is reading a book by the disgraced superhero Shout-Out, which was co-written by Jayson Blair. The real Blair resigned from the ''New York Times'' in 2003 after his stories turned out to be largely fabricated and/or plagiarized. His name on Shout-Out's book is thus a subtle indicator to the reader that the book is at least 99% bullshit.

* NarmCharm: Superduper. While they're majorly incompetent as heroes due to the wonkiness of their abilities and the fact a few of them may be mentally handicapped, their earnest desire to be good people and varying degrees of self-awareness over their lot in life makes their silliness a bit pitiable and endearing.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Readers are divided over whether Billy Butcher is a good deconstruction of the VigilanteMan or is unbearable due to Ennis being [[AuthorAppeal so enamored with the archetype]] that Butcher comes off as no less of an EscapistCharacter than the superheroes he despises.

* EvilIsCool: [[Mundanger James Stillwell]]. He has proven to be a master of manipulation and is so terrifying even Homelander is afraid of him.

* AntiClimaxBoss: After he is revealed as [[spoiler: a clone of Homelander even stronger than the original and the one who committed all those horrible actions to frame him, including raping Butcher's wife, starting his whole crusade against super-heroes, Black Noir]] fights [[spoiler:Homelander]] completely off-screen [[spoiler:and is left mortally wounded and unable to react to anything that happens around him. Despite still having the power to theoretically cause mass destruction in his last moments, he merely stands still as Butcher comes to steal the kill from Homelander. This could arguably be justified by the fact that Black Noir [[TheBadGuyWins had already gotten what he wanted]] and fulfilled his purpose in life: to finally kill the Homelander as per the purpose of his creation. Therefore, it’s possible that, having accomplished everything he had set out to do in his life, Black Noir let Butcher kill him on purpose [[AndThenWhat because he had nothing left to live for]] and was satisfied with his life ending right then and there (see AlternativeCharacterInterpretation).]]

* EvilIsCool: James Stillwell. He has proven to be a master of manipulation and is so terrifying even Homelander is afraid of him.

* MemeticLoser: Homelander and by extension his [[Series/TheBoys2019 TV show]] counterpart can be considered this, though not in the stories themselves. Rather, despite being the most powerful character in-universe, Homelander is deliberately written as being much weaker than Superman. As a result, whenever Homelander is depicted in crossover verses fan art or stories with Superman or a SupermanSubstitute (good or evil), Homelander will typically be shown on the losing end of a CurbStompBattle and whenever someone posts on forms asking who would win between Homelander and one of any other Superman expies, expect them to be swarmed with comments about how Homelander has no chance. Case in point, when the verses web show ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'' announced they would be pitting Homelander against Omni-Man of ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' fame, almost everyone [[spoiler:correctly]] predicted it would be a complete stomp in Omni-Man's favor[[labelnote:spoiler for the battle]]Omni-Man turned out to be 60 billion times stronger than Homelander[[/labelnote]]. In fact, [[FandomHeresy it's one of the only Death Battles where everyone can agree on the result and contesting it is one of the worst ideas you can do]].
* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler:Homelander]] casually kills the Muller family, who had won a car and a dinner with him, by dropping them from the sky, while belittling their beliefs, and telling them that the contest they won was a farce. He's later shown eating babies and hearts, though that turned out to actually be [[spoiler:Black Noir]].

** The TwistEnding [[spoiler:that is to say, [[CorruptedContingency Black Noir being revealed as having deliberatly engineered Homelander's]] SanitySlippage to have an actual reason to kill him and thus for his own existence]] could have been a very interesting plot to explore, focusing on their reason for doing so, [[spoiler:as well as Homelander's deteriorating sanity]]. It could have even been the main focus of the comic. As it is, it comes across as a TwistEnding for the sake of having one.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Starlight and Superduper never got the spotlight that might have acted as a counterpoint to the story's narrative of superheroes all being incompetent and destructive bastards who are more trouble than they are worth, [[spoiler:especially Billy's [[WellIntentionedExtremist belief on eliminating Compound V that would prevent people like BlackNoir and the Homelander]]]].

** [[spoiler:Black Noir sexually assaulting Hughie during Herogasm. Especially because of how especially pointless it is, the fact that it happens in a dark sewer, and because the normally mute Noir whispers "good soldier" during the act, before just leaving Hughie there.

* Narm: The superhero parodies can be pretty hard to take seriously since most of them just are some DC or Marvel hero, except they are some kind of deviant/has embarrassing powers/is dumb.

** Tek Knight's death. He saves the Earth from an asteroid by ''literally'' having sex with a it until it explodes, dying in the process. Utterly ridiculous, but also one of the few examples of genuine superheroics to be found, not to mention this was done by one of the only non-powered Supes.

** Soldier Boy is a CaptainPatriotic a la Steve Rogers, presented by Garth Ennis as a mockery and insult to TheRealHeroes of World War II. The problem is that Captain America was a PropagandaHero created by Joe Simon and Creator/JackKirby ''before'' America entered World War II and was a bold anti-fascist gesture in context, especially since Simon and Kirby received threats from Nazi sympathizers, who hated the Captain America comics. Likewise, Kirby, who drew Captain America and later revived him as a soldier out of time in ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'', served as a soldier in the US Infantry during the war; more specifically, he served as a draftsman for reconnaissance maps. Joe Simon, meanwhile, enlisted in the US Coast Guard during the Second World War, making ''both of them'' former military personnel. The comics that Ennis mocks were popular with American servicemen of the time as well.

* BrokenBase: Opinions are split as to whether ''The Boys'' is an effective deconstruction of superheroes in the same way ''ComicBook/Watchmen'' was or just Garth Ennis pitching a fit about how much he hates superheroes.

** [[spoiler: ''Black Noir''. As it turns out, Noir is a clone of Homelander, made as a contingency plan should he ever need to be taken down or replaced. Only, Homelander did so well that it drove Noir insane. Hellbent on finishing his mission, Noir dresses up as Homelander and begins a spree of murder, rape and even ''cannibalism'', making sure to get pictures of it all. Not only does he then show these pictures to Homelander, driving him utterly insane by making him think he blacked out and did these horrible things, but also leaks them to their enemies. He was also the one responsible for what happened to Butcher's wife, triggering the bloody war between The Boys and Supes. It is only after Homelander has come completely unhinged, staged a coup against the United States government and taken over the White House that Noir finally unmasks himself. Homelander's psyche shatters even more after hearing this, and even Butcher takes some amount of pity on Homelander]].

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [[spoiler: Why did Black Noir Let Billy Butcher kill him? He still had more than enough power to kill Butcher in his last moments, yet he just stood there and let Billy finish him off. Was Black Noir not thinking straight because of his grievous injuries? Or did he want Butcher to kill him because he had already accomplished his life goal of killing Homelander and [[AndThenWhat had nothing else left to live for afterwards]]?]]

** A lot of the capes and supers, including The Seven. Sure, they’re mostly assholes and murderers (or sometimes even worse), but a few of them have so many issues and lives that are so screwed up that sometimes you can’t help but feel a little sorry for them and you understand why they became the assholes they are today. [[spoiler: A good example of that would be Homelander, especially after you find out how and why he became what he is today, thanks to what Black Noir did to him]].

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: Some negative responses to the series argue that ''ComicBook/MarshalLaw'' did it all before.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: When the BlackAndGrayMorality taken to the point that the closest thing to 'good guys' amounts to "every faction is a bunch of amoral killers, but when ''that'' bunch of amoral killers are tearing people into chunky salsa, it's to people worse than themselves often enough that they ''sometimes'' seem like the lesser evil," and every issue trying to out-horrify the last, is it any wonder why audiences can't care about the story. Admittedly, this is why many preferred the [[Series/TheBoys2019 TV show adaptation]] as while it still has the gratuitous violence and sex of the comic, it at least had meaningful social satire, likable characters and nuances.