Image: The Boys Season 2 Promotional Poster
So, I’ve gotten into The Boys. I’ve been curious about it since I heard about the premise, but I wasn’t totally bought on it. The superhero genre, though entertaining when executed well, has become overwhelming to say the least. We have Marvel and DC of course. But there are also stories like Watchmen (congrats on those Emmy wins, btw!), My Hero Academia, and now, The Boys. I don’t know much about The Boys from the comics it’s based off of. I did some research before diving in to the show because I’m curious and I tend to do this stuff when watching/reading a piece of fiction. From what I know, The Boys is a story about a group of Vigilantes by the same name whose mission is to take down the superheroes of this world called Supes. Specifically, the most popular group of Supes, The Seven. The Seven consists of incredibly powerful superhumans who are commercialized heavily by a megacorporation called Vought. These heroes are branded on merchandise, foods, drinks, clothes, and Comic-Con-eques events. Everyone loves and idolizes these people like they’re gods. So, why are The Boys so bent on taking down The Seven? Because, The Seven are more villains than heroes.
Image: The Boys
The Seven’s heroism is only an act. In reality, The Seven are horrible people. They sexually assault people, they inject themselves with drugs that enhance their powers (I’ll explain this a little more later), and they even kill people without blinking an eye. From what I know, two main members of The Boys, Hughie and Butcher, had family killed by The Seven. Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin, was killed by the speedster, A-Train, after A-Train ran right through her, turning her into nothing but drops of blood. Butcher’s wife was raped by The Seven’s leader, Homelander. It is presumed that she later died when giving birth to Homelander’s son. Her son died too after ripping his mother apart from her womb and drowning in her blood. We even see more people succumb to brutal fates in this show including explosions, ripping into hearts, melted by heat vision, bones breaking, limbs being torn apart, etc. I would not be surprised if you turned your eyes away from this essay at this point. This show is GRUSOME! It’s good, effective blood and gore, but it is A LOT. Some of the imagery in this show is hard to watch too. I’m shocked even I’m able to stomach it so far. I can’t get through a gory horror film before “NOPE”’ing right out of it. Thankfully, it’s assisted by the story it’s telling and the corrupt characters who support it.
WARNING: A FEW SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT UP TO S2 EP6
The Boys themselves are important characters, but I want to talk about the Supes of this world. The first one is A-Train. He is the Supe who kicked this whole story off. The speedster of the group is a drug addict. He uses this drug called Compound-V to boost his abilities. It basically acts like a steroid to anyone who has powers. He uses it at home, while on patrol, and during competitions. All the while, he doesn’t really care about the people he’s supposed to protect either, much like the rest of The Seven. After A-Train kills Robin, every time he runs into Hughie, he doesn’t bother to recognize him despite the fact the two looked at each other after Robin was killed. So, either A-Train genuinely doesn’t recognize Hughie because he was high on drugs or he does recognize Hughie, but doesn’t care. Both theories are bad and doesn’t make A-Train a remotely better person. Thankfully he does get kicked out of The Seven after they find out about his substance abuse, but I highly doubt his story is over yet.
Image: The Seven (Starlight, The Deep, Translucent, Queen Maeve, Black Noir, A-Train, Homelander)
Two other characters who I want to talk about are Transparent and Black Noir. Transparent (the invisible Supe) only appears in the first two episodes as he is the first Supe to fall to The Boys. The Boys manage to capture Transparent after electrocuting him in the butthole and knocking him unconscious. Afterwards, they hold him captive in order to get information out of him. When he doesn’t comply and escapes instead, Hughie detonates the bomb in his rectum and he explodes. This starts a war between The Boys and The Seven. Black Noir is a literal silent killer. He barely, if ever, says a word on the show so far. His emotions, or lack thereof, are expressed through his actions. No one has seen his true face behind the mask yet either. He is incredibly brutal and ruthless. If he gets a chance to kill, he will take it. So far, his only known powers are super strength and speed. I’m interested in seeing where this story will take him.
The Deep, Starlight, and Queen Maeve would be next on this list. The Deep is a parody of Aquaman. He has similar powers in which he can talk to and control creatures of the sea. Problem is that The Deep is also a jerk; a sexual assaulting jerk for that matter. One of the first things he does when Starlight joins The Seven is to get her to give him oral sex as a sort of initiation. It’s really messed up and it’s supposed to be seen as that. Later in the series, Starlight ousts The Deep about this which ultimately gets him kicked off The Seven in season 2. Afterwards, he tries to prove himself to The Seven again in hopes to get back in, but so far to no success. This is actually a good transition to the next Supe, Starlight. She is the only real superhero on The Seven. She can absorb electromagnetic energy around her and release that into blinding light rays. Starlight is the only one out of The Seven who’s ideology is in line with a real hero’s: use their powers to save those in danger. She constantly tries her best to make sure this ideology is kept intact. She doesn’t fall for a lot of things that Vought wants her to do (though she does do some of it out of fear of being kicked out of The Seven). She is genuinely kind to The Boys and even joins them in their plans like exposing the truth of Compound-V. Compound-V is the drug that not only enhances a Supe’s power, but grants them their power as well. No Supe was born with powers (at least on the show). Instead they were made that way by Vought themselves. Though this comes to a shock to pretty much everyone who didn’t know, Starlight still wants to fight for what’s right. Though, she’s starting to go down a dark path that lead most of The Seven to be as apathetic as they are. In the most recent episode, “The Bloody Doors Off”, Starlight does kills someone and states something along the lines of “I would’ve cried over that before, but now he’s just another person in the way.” I don’t think Starlight is going to become like the rest of The Seven, but that line doesn’t bode well. Which leads to Queen Maeve. The second strongest of The Seven and probably the most aware person of the group after Starlight, but not by much at all. She is still as egotistical and emotionless as the rest of them. She doesn’t stop Homelander from doing some bad things and is complicit in killing several people. But, even she acknowledges that she used to be like Starlight. She was bright and had the ideals of a true hero. But, when she joined The Seven, that started to fall apart and started to become like them. It seems like if it weren’t for Vought and Homelander, Maeve would still be on the path of righteousness. Problem is, this is the world of The Boys.
Image: Stormfront and Homelander
And for our last Supes, we have the newest member of The Seven, Stormfront, and the leader of The Seven, Homelander. Stormfront debuted in the first episode of season 2. She comes off as heroic at first. She defeats villains, saves civilians, and has garnered more fans than Homelander. Too bad she’s just as bad, if not worse, than even Homelander. Stormfront is a Nazi. Not a figurative one, a literal one. She was born and raised in the Nazi era. Compound-V gave her plasmid/lightning powers and longevity. It is unknown how old she really is, but it assumed over 80 years old, though she looks like she’s in her 30s at least. She has carried the Nazi ideology with her. She kills people because she thinks it is fun. Hate crimes are enjoying for her. At one point, she kills a family just because they’re black. It’s horrific to watch and, again, makes her worse than Homelander in some ways. Now, Homelander. This jerk… Homelander is if Superman were a villain disguised as a hero. He can fly, he has super strength, he even has laser vision. He is admired by everyone and is feared by everyone. The guy could slap someone across the face and they’d be dead on the spot. He doesn’t care who he kills either. Hero, villain, normal civilian. If he can kill, he will kill. And assault. And rape. Yeah, Homelander is just a horrible person all around. What makes him different from Stormfront is that he takes no real joy out of killing people. He does it because he can and has no empathy or emotion for it whatsoever except maybe for anger and hate. And I’ve got to give it to his actor, Anthony Starr who is the MVP of this show. The acting going into Homelander’s actions and expressions are just excellent. Just the subtlest changes in his expressions can tell you what Homelander is feeling. The best part is that you can never tell when he’s going to snap and just commit mass murder on the spot. It hasn’t happened yet, but I would not be surprised if he did do that because we totally expect him to at this point.
Again, I would talk more about our main Boys, but I think the concept of the Supes are enough to get someone interested. So far, I’m really liking this show. I’m down for superhero stuff in general. Seeing one that explores the darker side of superheroes similar to Watchman is so, so interesting. We don’t see the subject come up often, so it’s nice to see it being portrayed on some platform. As of season 2 episode 6, we just got introduced to the member of The Seven who got replaced by Starlight, Lamplighter. Ironically played by Shawn Ashmore who was Iceman in the X-Men films. Ha, Iceman became Pyro. He even has a lighter to literally fuel his powers. I can’t help but find that amazing. Great casting. Anyway, I’m excited to see where this show will go. Apparently, from what I’ve read, it’s quite different from the source material and even fans of the comic are liking the changes. I’ll keep a sharp eye on this show as it goes on. I can only hope that the quality will continue to live up to the hype that’s riding its capes right now.
Comments