The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer at Giant Freakin' Robot penned a defense of Garth Ennis' The Boys comics that's insulting to the intellect:

The well-deserved popularity of Amazon’s The Boys has an unintended consequence that doesn’t sit right with me–it has inspired fans to seek out the source material and, upon discovering how different it is from the show, to trash it mercilessly. I’m not here to convince anyone to love The Boys comics, to hate them, or to feel any way in between. But if you judge The Boys comic negatively based on its differences with the show, then you do not understand The Boys comics.

Umm, maybe some are beginning to understand the zygote. And maybe they're not fans, if they find the source material as horrific as has been described in some earlier articles that were unfortunately fluff-coated. And that's practically a big problem - is there really much point toning down the original source for a screen adaptation if it doesn't change how vulgar said original was? Not to mention that, if I were a viewer of The Boys before discovering how nasty it is, I'd feel embarrassed about ever bothering after discovering. Wasn't Kick-Ass also a grimy comic prior to its screen adaptation? So toning down an adaptation translated from panel to screen isn't new, but these adaptations, again, don't change how revolting the original comics were to start with.

One of the first things fans notice upon reading The Boys comic is that the supes characters aren’t as fleshed out as they are in the series. Supes like Homelander, The Deep, and A-Train are one-dimensional jerks with no more depth than a caricature you might find in Mad Magazine.

The supes’ Amazon counterparts have a lot more meat on their bones. Even someone like Chace Crawford’s The Deep–played mostly for laughs–reveals more layers than what we see in the comics.

Fans are right that the supes of The Boys comic are one-dimensional, but that’s because that’s exactly what they’re meant to be.

While both the show and the comics are satire, the show is much more concerned with the real world and contemporary issues. The conflict between those who support Homelander and those who support Starlight, for example, is very much played up as a reflection of right vs. left cultural conflicts.

And that's not problematic? Not even how the screenwriters may not be willing to take an objective view of the left? What's troubling about the comics is how they depict "superheroes" as violent, crude caricatures that are anything but heroic, or not at all. Isn't that precisely the problem with modern entertainment, where heroism is being minimized, and even if they're fictional, heroes are made to look bad?

But The Boys comic is not trying to lampoon anything in the real world, and if you don’t understand that, then you’re lost already. The Boys is a comic book about comic books.

The Boys comic is a comic book about comic books. Specifically, it’s a comic book responding to the continued superhero dominance in American comics.

Garth Ennis, co-creator of The Boys comics, hates superheroes. I’ve got my own issues with Ennis–including the hypocrisy of a dude who yells from every mountaintop that he hates superheroes who then writes Thor and Hulk miniseries for Marvel–but the truth is that the guy has good reason to hate what he hates.

In 2024, it’s just stupid that superheroes still enjoy such a stranglehold on the American comic book industry. Look at the diversity of Japanese manga–there’s superhero manga but they’re far from the norm.

But it's not stupid they're now exploited for the sake of ultra-leftist agendas and such? Ennis himself is a leftist, and wrote some of his ghastly stories out of that very motivation. Say, did the columnist consider the reason superhero comics still dominate is because people like him don't look for the best indie comics to promote 24 hours a day? Because they don't try to encourage developing adventure fare that doesn't emphasize superheroes, just protagonists who could have sci-fi powers? Or because they otherwise have no issues with the left-wing and other bad ideologies now consuming mainstream? Why doesn't that occur to GFR's columnist?

In fact, there’s manga that has nothing to do with science-fiction, fantasy, or any of the genres that are part of the superhero make-up. There are medical dramas, sports dramas, romances, etc.

The truth that we could have just as broad and diverse a set of stories in America as manga readers enjoy but don’t is what The Boys comics are responding to.

Sorry, but that's not solving anything. If Ennis wanted to, he could develop stories similar to the above. Instead, he wastes his time - as does the columnist - concocting negative metaphors tearing down the themes and genres The Boys focuses on, rather than coming up with decent romance and sports dramas from a western viewpoint. To waste time writing such a farce as this column is lazy, and trashes some golden opportunities to prove one has the creativity needed to rise above vulgar "satires" of superhero fare, something that just so happens to have long lost its way as illustrated adventures for starters, and none of these propagandists care to argue in favor of a boycott of Marvel/DC in their current incarnations. Instead, they promote overrated premises like The Boys.

When checking out The Boys comic after watching the show, fans will often be surprised at how much more unapologetically violent, gruesome, offensive, and overall disgusting the source material is.

One early, memorable, and oft-cited example involves Starlight’s introduction to The Seven. While in the show Erin Moriarty’s Starlight is forced to perform a degrading act with The Deep to join the group, in The Boys comic she’s forced to perform it with three members of the team–Homelander, A-Train, and Black Noir.

Well gee, that's exactly the complaint about the zygote - it wallows in degradation, right down to how Starlight is exploited, and we're not supposed to find it even remotely appalling comics like these give sex and romance a bad name? This is why, if the source material is horrendous, why shouldn't the TV adaptation be considered the same, or not worth watching if one doesn't want to put money into Ennis and Robertson's pockets by extension?

Fans often respond to scenes like this, and others, in The Boys comic by saying it’s just for shock value, and to that I have two responses.

First, in this scene in The Boys comic, Homelander and his buddies are letting Starlight know that she has exactly one purpose in the team. Consider that, and then go do a google image search on “Power Girl” or “She-Hulk.” Do another search on “Frank Cho female superhero.

Then come back here and try to tell me how The Boys comic only had that Starlight scene for shock value, and it couldn’t possibly be trying to say anything about the portrayal of women in superhero comics.

It sounds more like the writer is implying that for Cho to draw ladies sexy is wrong and worse than exploiting Starlight. I'm sorry, but this too is awfully flawed for a "defense", and besides, there was once a time when Karen Starr and Jennifer Walters had some very good story roles where they participated in various action scenes, but today, much of that's gone to pot in stories that serve political agendas more. So what's the point here? I'm sorry, but the columnist has flubbed again, and if he thinks PG and SH have served as no more than window-dressing supermodels from past to present, he's just trashing chances to argue about what he perceives is a mistake, when it was anything but that in the past. So ladies can't serve as eye candy in any capacity, not even when they're in combat mode? Wow, how cheap, and satire is not an excuse. If he feels there was ever a time when PG was subjected to sexually offensive storylines, however, he missed a chance to note Gerard Jones came up with something very reprehensible at the time he guided Justice League America to a disastrous conclusion. Why is Frank Cho such a big deal but not disgraced writers like Jones? Another example of a mainstream news writer who goes for pathetically cheap examples to cite while missing more challenging ones.

Second–remember how Season 3 of The Boys started? Please tell me about how they had a little Ant-Man dude crawl into another man and had him explode… to convey a deep and complex message. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

If he thinks that's not atrocious, he clearly sees nothing wrong with a form of marketing that's become a sad staple of modern entertainment - violence played for cheap sensationalism. I don't find the above description amusing or remotely entertaining at all. At its worst, that would have to be an insult to both Ant-Man and the Atom.

Again, I’m not saying you should like The Boys comic–I’m not even saying you shouldn’t hate them. I’m saying that it’s not fair to ask the comics to be more like the show.

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson are trying to do something with The Boys comic, and it is not the same thing Eric Kripke is trying to do with the show. So negatively comparing the comics to the show is akin to complaining about Jurassic Park because there weren’t enough kissing scenes.

I would not judge The Boys comic to be anywhere near as brilliant as something like Watchmen or Planetary, it is similar to those comics in one way–if you do not have a fairly healthy cache of knowledge about not just comic book mythology, but the history of American comic book publishing, then when you open up an issue of The Boys you won’t even get a whiff of the real story.

This is pathetic. Adult entertainment is one thing, but when it comes increasingly at the expense of lighter, more tasteful fare, that's ruining everything. And what "real story" is there here? Only that what we have here is an obnoxious comic adapted to a live action TV show that shouldn't have been. And what's this about the comics needing to be more like the TV show? That won't change anything about how it began or make it any less embarrassing. I just think the Hollywooders who adapted the comics gave an unnecessary reward to "creators" who haven't contributed to comicdom in a meaningful way. Even Stephen King did better than them decades before, but that's probably because, his own left-wing politics aside, he at least wasn't devoting almost all his time to lambasting superhero fare, satirically or otherwise. Anybody who wastes their "talents" almost exclusively on tearing down a specific genre isn't displaying much talent at all. Something tells me that, despite what the columnist says, he wouldn't support development of a Jurassic Park sequel with serious romance and kissing either.

There's even another writer who continued the apologia, and lets know it unsurprisingly spends plenty of time attacking right-wing politics:

For an example of the show’s satire, one need look no further than Season 4. The show frequently mocks rightwing politics, presenting the new character Firecracker as an Alex Jones-style conspiracy nut whose talking points are largely ripped from the headlines of conservative media.

One of her fans ends up threatening Starlight’s supporters while spouting Pizzagate-style nonsense, and the show unironically uses the term “critical supe theory” as a way to mock conservative voices freaked out about critical race theory.

So CRT isn't a concerning and dangerous issue? Well, it doesn't surprise me a show that could be lorded over by leftists could turn to this, and if they haven't so far, there's little to no chance they'll mock left-wing beliefs. Though admittedly, it is odd the producers seemingly poke at corporations:

Beyond supervillains like Homelander, the true villain in The Boys has always been Vought International, the company that creates, licenses, and markets superheroes around the world.

Throughout the show, we discover this company has its evil hand in many different pies and makes most of its money by selling movies, TV shows, music, clothing, video games, and so on.

We also learn very that the company is run by amoral leadership who treats underlings like crap, like when The Deep fires everyone in the Crime Analytics Department who had ever tweeted anything critical about Homelander.

And according to them, it's supposedly an Amazon parody. Unfortunately, that doesn't alleviate concerns regarding mockery of right-wingers, and besides, even today, it's possible for a conglomerate to be run by right-wingers. Chances are the businessmen in charge of Vought are never identified as leftists, so of course, you could end up assuming it's a subtle assault on conservatives as a result.

Fans of The Boys missing the parody of Amazon because they are too busy engaging in the same culture war garbage the show frequently mocks? It doesn’t get more diabolically depressing than that.

And it doesn't get more depressing than how the show resorts to repellent violence, and any moral equivalence is unacceptable either. I'm sorry, but this is hugely disappointing, and does nothing to comment on or improve the dire situation with modern comicdom, mainstream or otherwise, because instead of arguing why better alternatives are needed, they go out of their way to defend comics like The Boys and its TV adaptation. Such lazy commentary is not producing better comics.

Labels: history, indie publishers, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, violence