The Boys (2019 Amazon series)

I don't think the all-white team was meant to be the Klan, not the least being that one of the members is black.

The Deep looks super Klanish and they talk a lot about "purity" and "uniformity".

I don't think I understand the meta commentary in the first place. Stormfront was apparently a send-up of Captain Marvel (DC, not Marvel Comics), but I... don't get it? What about the source material lends itself to that interpretation?

I'm mainly going by the trope page itself calling their color scheme "Klan white", but the Deep's outfit is full on pointed-cap robe and all.

@ Pannic: So Garth Ennis' dislike of superheroes boils down to Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch?

Stormfront is literally a Nazi, so if anyone's expected to drop the N-bomb it's probably him.

Kind of ironic this show is on Amazon, which I think is comparable to Vought.

They could probably pull off that kind of hero scheme.

...I'm gonna be killed by Black Noir, aren't I?

Edited by NickTheSwing on Aug 5th 2019 at 8:24:38 AM

I think that's a bit of an oversimplification.

There's an interview he had with SyFy where he mused that he thinks it needs to be something you experienced and were fond of as a child. Otherwise, he contends, if you come to it as an adult there isn't . And he's not alone as far as writers across the pond being more 'alien' to the genre. Some of them took to it and did interesting spins on the genre, but Ennis was more interested in writing horror, war, and gunslinger stories.

This is, of course, in addition to the usual genre criticisms (which we already know about from Kurtzman, Moore, Mills, et al) of over commercialization, maintaining the status quo (something he directly referenced once with his regard to writing Midnighter), and the contention that superheroes are never going to be put in the kind of dilemmas that he finds compelling (see, for example, the famous sequence in The Punisher where Castle chains up Daredevil and tapes a gun to his hand). I imagine that being in a situation where he always had to work in a superhero setting, whether it's DC, Marvel, or Wildstorm, might've been frustrating. I mean there was a point where he had to write a Spider-Man storyline.

But it's a shame, because working in those constraints did some great stuff. Hitman was wonderful with how it intersected with the DC universe. There was one long-forgotten DC 'event' back in the 90s that involved the sun going out, and so the entire story in Hitman involved Tommy and his friends boarding up the bar and holding out.

Ah. Think I found the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkZ2oPmxkdo

Edited by Pannic on Aug 5th 2019 at 11:08:14 AM

It was rather Game Of Thrones-like how The Deep started out as the sleaziest d-bag on the show, coercing Starlight into that sexual encounter. And then he got reassigned, it was clear he's given zero respect, he'd prefer to be more eco-friendly but his corporate lords assign him to a place where he - someone who can understand fish and wildlife in the ocean - can probably hear the dolphins screaming for help and to be let out.

Then he gets raped. And honestly, it was kind of amazing the show didn't treat it as justified or his comeuppance.

Heck even the freaking Homelander isn't just a rhymeless and reasonless "dick for sake of being a dick".

Everyone's so...human. And its surprising given the tone the comic set.

Watching The Boys has gotten me thinking about how morality functions in the broader superhero genre.

Morality is a core aspect of Superhero stories of all kinds. This is hardly surprising- after all, these stories are about heroes. They use their superpowers- however they happen to manifest- to do The Right Thing. That’s what makes them heroes. However, in order for them to do The Right Thing, they need to first have a conception of what Right is that informs their superheroism. Because of this, superhero stories can’t help but come bundled with particular perspectives on what morality is and how best to serve it- but there’s a problem. In principle, nothing stops people from disputing these moral perspectives in just the same way they dispute opinions of any other kind.

The plot of Captain America: Civil War serves as an excellent example of this. The crux of the conflict in that movie hinged on two incompatible and competing conceptions of The Right Thing, each championed by a different heroic character and rooted in divergent perspectives on political philosophy and international relations theory. But beyond politics, this opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to perspectives on what The Right Thing is that are culturally specific.

For instance, imagine a Christian superhero that goes around beating up women who want to get abortions the same way Batman goes around beating up thugs and killers. The only difference between these two kinds of people, to an Evangelical fundamentalist, is that the person the woman intends to murder happens to reside inside her body.

It's curious to me then that, despite the fact that The Boys actually has a legit Christian fundamentalist Supe in the form of Ezekiel, nothing like this really comes up. Ezekiel isn’t really a Christian superhero so much as he is an ordinary celebrity preacher who happens to have Reed Richard’s powers. He doesn’t go around doing hero stuff, at least to our knowledge. Instead, what we see him doing is perfectly ordinary political activism. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me. Naqib is closer to the concept, but with zero speaking lines, he’s more akin to a plot device than an actual character.

I think this is an underutilized concept. Having villainous superheroes whose motivations stem from the same entirely mundane moral disagreements that occur between normal people in real life seems to me to be a more nuanced, compelling and honest way of deconstructing the superhero genre than to just make them all into Freudian Excuse-laden Jerkass Woobies.

Edited by Gault on Aug 6th 2019 at 6:11:40 PM

The problem is, Garth Ennis doesn't like religion either, because except for Starlight every superhero in the comic based around religion was also a pedophile.

I'm on episode 5 and this show is so...uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong it's very well-done with great acting, writing, cinematography, and satire but I dunno. It's kind of weird to watch a show that combines parallels to the current political turmoil in America, the exploitation of news media, and the popularity of the superhero genre. It's fascinating how superhero movies have been a huge form of escapism for a while now. I did a final research project during my junior year in college about how superhero films have been used as a coping response to 9/11 and terrorism paranoia during the past two decades, so this show is a little...scary in a way because it completely challenges that.

Homelander is probably one of the most terrifying villains I've ever seen in a show. He has the god-like powers of Superman, the patriotism of Captain America, the political views of an alt-right, and the morality of a sociopath. As a black comic book nerd, I find myself gawking at him every time he's on-screen. The other character I'm most interested in is Starlight/Annie. Her storyline is top-notch and I can't help but root for her.

The thing that I'm mixed on, though, are the other characters. Hughie, Milk, Maeve, and Stillwern are cool but I cannot stand Butcher or anyone else. The rest of the Seven are insufferable and I could care less about them or their problems because they're terrible people.

That's mostly the intended reaction. Butcher is the ostensible main character, but not really, that's ultimately Hughie. Butcher's not really all that likable (which is largely by design), except for the fact that Urban plays him with charisma. The accent probably helps.

And in the comics, this is all much, much worse, while being slightly less topical because the world has changed a lot in the decade+ since the comic was started.

I see and agreed. Butcher's an asshole, but his actor is charming.

I don't know how I feel about main characters like Hughie and Butcher being motivated by the violence against the women in their life. It feels like a direct contrast with the more timely stuff like Starlight's story. Also, I don't mean to call out the lack of people of color and LGBT people buuuuut there is a lack of minorities in this show. Just sayin'.

Billy Butcher’s role in the show is very reduced from the comic. In the comic he was just as much of a main character as Hughie. The show makes Hughie and Annie more of the real leads with Butcher in more of a supporting role.

I see this as an improvement, because while he did have some nice quirks (such as only drinking club soda whenever he went to the bar) and good dialogue, he was basically just a sociopath. I felt that made him less compelling.

It will be interesting to see if the show goes more into diversity stuff. The comics had some suitably cynical commentary on that in the “Get Some” (which involves a supe whose public persona and media revolves around gay) and “We Gotta Go Now” (which satirized the X-Men) arcs.

Edited by Pannic on Aug 6th 2019 at 1:07:21 AM

@ The Librarian: There's smarter ways to mock Christianity than pulling the Pedophile Priest angle. Like being fundamentalist assholes. Or maybe that's not too smart, but it would be relying less on a tired stereotype.

@theLibrarian, I concur with .

It should go without saying that making all of the religious characters pedophiles is an even less nuanced, compelling and honest way to deconstruct the genre. I'm glad the show didn't take that route.

@deuteragonist, agreed. Antony Starr's acting is phenomenal. He does a perfect job selling the persona of a mad god with that vacant, fake grin and dead eyes. Homelander is the version of Superman that frightened Batman so much in Bv S.

I'm probably a biased source because I am a ex-Fundamentalist, still Christian but part of the thing to understand about the characters here is nobody is actually Christian. No, let me correct that, they're Nominal Hero version of Christians.

That's because all superheroes are nothing more than branded products for consumption by the public. They're selling Homelander, Starlight, and Ezekiel to the Christian market the same way you'd sell themed superheroes to the black, Asian, middle class, or other markets. If they supported whale hunting or the color blue, they'd be selling those. It's a fairly on point critique of the Religious Right (that is nothing more than a shill for the Republican party and their corporate sponsors).

The irony of Starlight being that she's probably the only person who believes in God as the Homelander has his immortal, "The only man in the sky is me." The thing is, I'm not sure if the show producers realize this or if Ennis did or not and accidentally stumbled on it as Christianity began as an anti-materialist message with "You have turned my house into a den of robbers."

What is "The Right" is sadly not a question the Boys is interested in because none of the heroes are motivated by ideology. They are all nihilists, including the heroes.

To be fair, at least in the TV show, that's the set up for the Deconstruction. I won't spoil but it has a pretty interesting analysis of the fact that "male motivated by his female love interest's destruction" gets a pretty savage takedown.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 6th 2019 at 4:59:10 AM

Yeah, the religious right nowadays is made of the same people who call for people to buy their products to survive "the end times", to "tithe" extensively in the name of "seeding for great growth". This show expertly sticks a fork in the entire concept of Conservatism - its a product designed to appeal and dupe people into believing its nonsense claims.

And yeah - the "dead woman is motivating factor" gets a beatdown in this series. She's not dead, Billy.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Aug 6th 2019 at 8:03:22 AM

The idea of the show exploring more nuanced views of morality is kind of hampered by the fact that the original comic isnt really about that at all.

It's not good vs evil, its competent vs incompetent. You'd think the former would have things sown up early on, but not so much.

To be fair, the idea the Boys are a bunch of vengeance crazed psychopaths no better than what they fight is central to the Deconstruction (buried under all the crap that it is).

I'm inclined, instead, to recommend THE RECKONERS which is basically the Boys if Homelander won and the Bous weren't....well weren't assholes.

I can echo that endorsement. The Reckoner Trilogy is penned by Brandon Sanderson, so I found it predictably excellent. The premise is very similar to The Boys in that it follows a group of Badass Normals as they plan and execute elaborate superhero assassinations. The world 's quite different though- instead of operating under the auspices of a single corporation that manages them, the entire world has been carved up into private fiefdoms ruled by Supers. It's good stuff. The main cast is strong and not nearly as nihilistic as the "heroes" of this show.

From what I've heard/read of the original comic, the show already takes significant liberties with the source material- to it's benefit in my opinion. I don't see why it couldn't take a bit more. It wouldn't really be that massive a stretch.

I don't understand this argument you're making. Are religious fanatics- many of them fans of capitalism, and who don't consider capitalism and their faith to be the least bit at odds- supposed to not buy products related to their religion? Is that really a reasonable thing to expect? If a person truly believed that the End Times was just around the corner, no price would be too great to live to witness the return of Jesus Christ firsthand. After all, it's not as if you can take any of your worldly wealth with you when you ascend to Heaven in the Rapture.

Edited by Gault on Aug 7th 2019 at 8:21:12 PM

Yes, it's actually explictly forbidden and incredibly blasphemous. That's not to say that it doesn't happen but there's a reason Televangelists are jokes because faith-based marketing schemes are jokes. Unfortunately, ones that aren't funny and prey on the poor and elderly.

But even in the show, Voight is just cynically manipulating their audience with Christ imagery to up their public support. Also playing into the bigotries of the crowd.

Yeah, that's the kind of marketing religious cons use and it's terrible—as well as effective.

Now I'm even more confused. There are a great many things that are explicitly forbidden by the Bible that modern Christians nonetheless engage in, none of which are thought to contradict their commitment to their faith either by the individual themselves or the religious communities to which they belong. Eating lobsters and refraining from stoning gay people to death are both technically religious crimes, and yet plenty of American Christians don't give either of these pieces of divine instruction much thought without doubting the sincerity of their faith even for a moment. Would these people not count as real Christians either? They fall into exactly the same category.

What you're describing just sounds to me like a sectarian difference, in principle identical to any other sectarian difference. Protestants, Catholics, Lutherans, Unitarians, Anabaptists- it's not news that certain people interpret their religion in different ways to other people. This isn't to say that I agree with the beliefs of fanatical evangelicals- quite the contrary, I think they're completely ridiculous. But no matter how long I squint at this specific argument, as a matter of epistemology, it appears to me to be basically indistinguishable from a No True Scotsman Fallacy.

There’s a lot of it that’s Old Testament and this ignored because the stuff in that no longer applies (Jesus’s Crucifixion was the start of a new covenant) but a lot of it is also because of societal changes over 2,000 years. For instance, technically wearing clothing of mixed threads is punishable by death.

Actually, no, I think you are missing some things in the context of this episode. It's very much deliberately about the hypocrisy on display versus their actual beliefs. Because they do not believe and are cynically manipulating belief.

You're entirely right that secretarian differences are a thing that can and should be brought up. Jesus of Nazareth, historical or not, was an individual who was (divorced of all supernatural content) a Jewish reformer. His ministry being about poverty, anti-fundamentalism, pacifism, extending the faith to non-Jews, and dialing back the Draconian laws of the period.

(John Calvin's claims that the New Testament and Old Testament are totally reconcilable was Insane Troll Logic according to almost all scholars of his day and yet many churches exiled to the Americas because, well, they were religious fanatics scaring everyone else—still claim it)

However, if you say, "Oh, Voight is just another branch of Christianity" then you basically remove a lot of the subtext (no, actually just text) of the episode. For example, religious hypocrisy is something that has been called out as early as the Bible and is being engaged in by Ezekiel who preaches one thing and does the other. That's not indicating that he's got a different set of views—that's just showing it's all a scam to him.

Homelander, we know, is playing to a crowd when he invokes the Donald as there's no indicates he's actually religious and his race-baiting and gladhanding is to serve his actual God: Himself and Voight.

Starlight is the only one who talks about moderating views, questioning them, and ironically any sign of actually believing—which immediately gets her booed.

Plus, even Ennis and certainly Kripke (who often makes these kind of jokes in Supernatural) points out the irony of modern fundamentalism versus Jesus' ministry of peace and poverty being sold to justify wars.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 7th 2019 at 1:14:24 AM