 So Amazon Prime's The Boys has been a major hit over the past two years. It's a pretty good show which kind of pokes fun at the idea of superheroes in general, and also our society's obsession with them over the past like 10 to 15 years in particular. And it's based on a comic series. And so, having seen the show and liked it, I decided, yeah, let's read the comic. And it's genuinely really, really terrible. The show basically just takes the base concept of the comic and rolls with it, but everything else is completely different, and that is 100% for the best, because the comic is worse in basically every way. The show has a better storyline, it has better characters, it just looks better in general, and it has like actual themes and actual messages that it is sending, whereas the comic is just really try-hard edgy, and that's all it has. That's all there is to it. And originally I was just gonna try and make like a review of the comic, but whenever I tried getting my thoughts on it, I kept going back to comparing it to the show and how the show does the similar things, but a lot better. And so I figured, you know what, I'll just make A, the movie is better than the book episode on this, except in this case it's not a movie, and it's not a book, it's a TV show and a comic series, but you know what? Close enough. The Boys TV show is a million times better than the comic. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So I will split this into two sections. There'll be spoiler and non-spoiler, but really it's gonna be minor spoiler and major spoiler, because I really can't get into all of the ins and outs of how the show is better without giving away some stuff. So just please be aware of that. My overall thoughts, if you're interested in the show, check it out. You might like it, you might not. It's not for everybody, I'll admit, but I think it's really good. The comic is for nobody. It's like, it's something that I might have liked when I was like 14 or 15, because that's when I wrote Neither Gods Nor Masters, and if you've seen my video on that, you know, just, no, I don't recommend it to anybody. So to start off, the artwork in the comic is just atrocious. I'm not normally a snob about these sort of things, but my god, it is just, it hurts to look at. It's ugly, it's dark, a whole bunch of the characters look exactly the same, like Queen Maeve and Starlight, for example, look almost exactly alike. The only difference between them is their outfits, and that's just, I don't understand how that can happen. Like, I understand how artists have their own style and everything, but when you're drawing something, you're just creating it from up here. You can make it look like whatever you want. I don't understand why you would make them look that similar. All of the characters are just kind of unpleasant to look at, and the backgrounds are usually bland and uninspiring. Like, it's just, here's a house. That's it. There's nothing special about the house. There's nothing special about any of the landscapes, or the city skylines, or anything that we see. It's just a backdrop for the characters, which, if the characters look nicer, then I might be okay with that, but I've already discussed they look terrible. They all look really just ugly and unpleasant, and even the violence, which is really crazy and over the top, doesn't look that impressive. It's just, there's a big smear of blood which covers a bunch of the panel, and that's about it. You know, if you're someone who's like super into gore, then there's only one or two bits in the entire series where it really looks impressive, you know, where it has a whole bunch of detail drawn on it and actually does look a little horrifying. You're like, whoa, that's, but most of the time it's just like, here's some blood, and oh look, here's someone who had their arm cut off, and it just, it doesn't look very good. And considering that comics are a visual medium, you really need the art to be at least passable if you want your audience to be involved, or to be into it. Otherwise, you may as well just write a book. And, well, I'm kind of glad Garth Ennis hasn't written one for the boys, because it would probably be even worse in that case. Next up, the characters are way worse in the comic than they are in the book. So we have this group called The Boys who are just normal people who are going after superheroes that cause trouble. And that's a really, really cool idea. I genuinely mean that, and I think that's the one good thing in the entire comic. It's just that one basic idea, because it's normal people who are angry at beings more powerful than them for very good reasons in many cases, and so they're kind of the underdog going after them. And this is shown off most clearly by Billy Butcher, who is the leader of The Boys, and played by Carl Urban in the show. And, okay, in the show, Butcher is an asshole. Like, he is extremely violent. He's willing to hurt innocent people in his quest for revenge on Homelander. He's willing to lie and manipulate to get what he wants. He's like, he is an asshole. He's at least consistent, though. He just wants revenge. And that tends to blind him towards other things. But at the same time, he does have actual relationships with the other members of The Boys. You know, they're his friends. He has relationships with his parents and his brother, who's not really in the show or in the picture, but, you know, he did have a relationship with him, you know? All sorts of stuff like that. He is an asshole, but there's other dimension to his character. In the comic, it literally starts off with him just having sex with his boss, which once you learn why he's out for revenge, that just doesn't line up. It doesn't make him seem like he actually is out for revenge or anything. It makes it seem like he's just a violent asshole. And that's essentially what he is. Throughout the entire comic, he is just a violent asshole who, for the most part, goes after people who deserve it. For the most part. But not always. And even when he's going after people who deserve it, you get the feeling that he is enjoying himself while doing it. Whereas in the show, maybe you can sense some satisfaction coming off of it, but that's just because, like, yep, it was a job that needed to be done and I did it. And then we move on to Huey, who is the closest thing to a main character this series has. And in the show, he's a grieving kid. You know, his girlfriend is killed just as collateral damage by a superhero. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. When the guy who killed her just genuinely doesn't give a shit that company he works for tries to pay him off. And so he's pissed and he feels the injustice and he, you know, wants revenge, but he also wants justice for other people that have been harmed. And he's just kind of a scared kid who's in way over his head. You know, again, there's dimension to him. In the comic, he's just kind of an unhinged conspiracy theorist who really gets way too into the violence. Like, show Huey, you can maybe say he's a little whiny by being averse to violence in that because he just doesn't like killing people, but I mean, can you really blame him? Whereas in the comic, he gets way too into it and really likes it. I mean, he's a better character than Butcher, admittedly. He's more consistent with it. And he does form relationships with other members of the boys. And overall, he's an okay person. But nonetheless, in the show, they took what is a pretty basic character model and they really built him up. And I can only imagine that in later seasons, we're going to keep getting more and more of that. And then there's Homelander, who is pretty much the main villain of the entire series. In the show, he is pretty simple in concept but very complex in execution. He is Superman if he was an absolute psycho. That's about it. And there's a lot of commentary there because Superman in the comics is basically just a god among men. You know, he's it's not conflict where he wonders if he's going to be able to defeat the bad guy. It's conflict over whether or not he's doing the right thing. And I mean, I can see the appeal of that. Like, there's definitely some stuff where Superman's more complex parts come out, like the Injustice comic line, for example. I think that's a pretty solid run. But overall, most writers just don't know how to deal with him very well, so he's not an interesting character. Whereas Homelander is, you know, again, a god among men, but he's an absolute psycho who really just wants what he wants, you know, but we're all just pawns to him. Living a hedonistic lifestyle and if we can provide for that, great. If we get in his way, then we're gone. And also it can provide some commentary on possibly the United States as a whole and American military interventionism. Because, I mean, keep in mind, he literally kills terrorists, but he also kills bystanders by mistake. And he's literally wearing the American flag as a cape. Like, surely that's not a metaphor for something. But anyways, what I'm getting at is Homelander, again, in the show, very complex character with an interesting backstory. And once in a while, he kind of makes a good point, you know, about just the state of the world and how people operate and that sort of thing. And quite frankly, Anthony Starr gives, like, one of the most amazing villain performances I've ever seen come off of somebody. Yeah, words are hard. Whereas in the comic, Homelander just likes killing people, but he also might have dissociative identity disorder, and he's kind of whiny about that, and he's always on the verge of a breakdown. And I'll explain a little more about that in the major spoiler section. But what I'm getting at is, just as a villain, he's not nearly as compelling or nearly as charismatic. And I could go over most of the major characters like this, but I think you get the point by now. All the members of the boys, the side characters, the villains, like, they're just not as interesting in the comic as they are in the show. Because in the comic, they're just, hey, we're superheroes, but we're also kind of evil dicks, and that's about it. Like, in the show, don't get me wrong, a lot of them are evil dicks, but they're also people. And finally, we have the storyline, which is a million times better in the show than it was in the comic. Because in the comic, it's kind of just a series of short adventures where they're dealing with superheroes who cause too much trouble. Like, okay, we'll deal with one group of soups that are causing too much trouble, and we'll move on to the other, and we'll move on to the other. And in addition to getting kind of repetitive, like, it's not totally repetitive. There is an overarching story, but it doesn't get nearly as much advancement as I think it should. But in addition to getting repetitive, the boys are just too powerful, or rather the heroes are just too weak. Because in many cases, the boys, while yes, they do utilize stuff like blackmail and dirty fighting and ambushes and stuff, they can take out groups of superheroes with basically their bare hands or crowbars or just not even firearms, just weapons you could find around your house. Like, there's literally a point in the comic where they're ambushed by Stormfront and his group of heroes, I believe they're called Payout or Payback. Wait, shit. See, this is why you write shit in your note, James. But anyways, they're attacked by Stormfront and the other guys. Stormfront is supposed to be the second most powerful hero in the world other than Homelander, and they fought all these guys with their bare hands and they won. And this was after the boys had been ambushed by them. And Stormfront had to run away after fighting a dude who, admittedly, he is an experienced fighter and he's a total badass, but he's also just a regular human. So it's like, the superheroes don't feel very powerful. Whereas in the show, like I said, they're gods among men. So the boys are constantly the underdogs. They're constantly at a disadvantage. They have to sneak around. They have to be careful no matter what they're doing because if they get caught, they're dead just like that. And so that brings the entire storyline. Tension. You know, things are tense. Things can go really badly for them. And so you know, yeah, shit could go south. People could get killed. Whereas in the comic, it never really feels that way. Above all, the comic is just so obnoxiously edgy. I really, I really don't know how to explain to you how stupid and over the top the edge is in the series. And I know it's written by Garth Ennis. And if you're unfamiliar with him, that's kind of just his shtick. You know, he wrote The Boys. He wrote Preacher, which I haven't read, but I know enough about to realize like, yeah, that's just kind of stupid and edgy. And he also wrote a series called Crossed. Now, of those three, Crossed is the only one that I actually kind of enjoy because that one, it is just pure edge, but it also doesn't pretend to be anything else. But yes, The Boys show. Yeah, it's edgy, but there's a point to it. You know, in the comic, in the shows, superheroes might rape. Well, in the comic, they cannibalize infants and rape corpses. Like it just everything is a million steps above. In the show, Butcher is filled with rage. Well, in the comic, he just likes killing people. In the show, Starlight has to wear kind of a revealing outfit. In the comic, we're just going to make her wear fucking the Borat swimsuit, which barely covers anything up. Like both of them are occasionally mean spirited. In fact, I would say overall, the overall tone of both of them is pretty mean spirited. Yeah. But the show has moments of humor to take the edge off, you know, and it has moments of humanity where you're like, oh, yeah, okay, these are real people with real problems. And the comic just lacks most of that. Like even the few parts that are meant to be funny are, well, again, it's just mean spirited. I don't know a better word for it. It's just, ha ha, laugh at this person's pain. And it just doesn't, it never really connected with me. Like I think I was about halfway through the series, like I kept holding out hope that it would get good. And around halfway through the series, we get to the point where we finally meet Stormfront. And he literally just is standing around a bunch of dead bodies. And he says, Italians, what the furor was thinking, I'll never know. And I think at that point, I just gave up all hope, because like, there's no subtlety involved here. There's no clever writing. It's just, hey, this dude's a Nazi. And granted, the message is Nazis are bad. He's a villain. I'm not saying like Garth Ennis is a racist or anything. I'm just saying it's really stupid. And it's only concerned with being edgy and being risqué. And the show, while again, it is still pretty edgy at times, don't get me wrong. The show makes actual points about stuff. It makes points about power dynamics between different people. It makes points about corporate culture and corporate public relations and how they're really just out to make money, whatever their messaging is. It makes some good points about racism and how it works in the modern day. And they make pretty good points about American intervention. American interventionalism, there we go. Like I said, Homelander sometimes kills innocent people while literally wearing the American flag, like he's, come on, he's, come on guys. The fact that you can read anything into these characters and to these storylines and to these themes speaks volumes about the quality of the show in comparison to its source material. So overall, do I recommend either of these? The show, I think a lot of people would enjoy the show, not, not everybody. Like if you don't have a stomach for violence, then you probably wouldn't like it. If you can't stand, you know, sex, that sort of thing, then you wouldn't like it. As I said, it's just kind of mean spirited. It's, it has a lot of criticism of, you know, corporate culture and American society and that sort of stuff. And it is pretty grim. But overall, it, I find it really enjoyable because it has other stuff to hold me over. The comic is just edge from wall to wall. So overall, I don't recommend it. Like if you're, if you're like me when I was 15 and you just want to see blood and guts and boobs, then maybe, but other than that, I, I can't see anyone liking it. Okay. So the major spoiler section now, I just, I just, I really want to talk about the ending here because it is genuinely one of the worst endings I have ever read in anything ever. Like, I know I said I gave up around halfway through the series, but I was just kind of expecting it to be blandly edgy and kind of stupid. But when you get to the edge, it just completely assassinates most of the character development and all the storylines that have gone up to this point, more or less amount to nothing. So essentially, near the ending, Homelander and a couple of other superheroes lead a coup against the American government. You know, they go to Washington, they kill the president, they take over. And then the boys show up and try to stop them. And it ends with Butcher confronting Homelander in the Oval Office, where he's also mutilating the president's corpse. And he's talking to him, he's saying, fuck you, you raped my wife, that sort of thing. And if you're unfamiliar with the series, the reason Butcher started his campaign against superheroes is because Homelander raped his wife. And in the show, she actually lived and gave birth to a son, but she faked her death and stuff. And that's an interesting storyline. But in the comic, she got pregnant still. But the fetus at a couple of weeks old tore its way out of her and started flying around the room. And Butcher had to kill it. So it killed her. And then he killed it. Okay, sure, we'll go on with that. But Homelander does not actually remember doing that or a bunch of other stuff that they find evidence of him doing. He doesn't remember killing a bunch of people or raping people, cannibalizing people, that sort of thing. So when Butcher confronts him about this, one of Homelander's teammates named Black Noir takes off his mask and reveals that, oh, he was a Homelander clone. So most of the evil shit that Homelander did, who, which caused him to think that he had another personality doing all this and caused him to like slowly kind of sort of have a breakdown, was actually Black Noir. It was actually his teammate who was just evil for the sake of being evil. So in addition to this just being kind of a stupid twist that there was never any evidence given for it so we could never guess it or anything, it's again just like super edgy and it kind of takes away most of Homelander's what's the word? It takes away most of his motivation for being the way that he is and then he realizes, oh, you ruined my life, I hate you and they fight each other and Homelander's actually killed but Black Noir is severely injured so Butcher just finishes him off and then the military comes in and they have special weapons which specifically target superheroes and they kill all of them and that's just the coup's over. Like all the bad guys are dead within a couple of chapters and it wasn't even very difficult for them to be taken out. That sucked but it gets worse because you see Butcher actually creates this sort of, it's basically a bomb, we'll just go with that. He creates a bomb that will target anyone who's been exposed to Compound V which is the substance that gives heroes their powers and it's also going to kill a bunch of other people who don't have powers because they were exposed to it and he knows that other members of the boys are going to try to stop him so he sets off a bomb and kills most of them except for Huey and then he puts the bomb at the top of the Empire State Building and he's about to set it off and then Huey goes up there, they fight for a while and then Butcher is killed in the fight and that's it. Like so this guy who while we know he was definitely a violent asshole who was kind of just looking for an excuse to kill people, he at least worked with his friends. You know you could tell he cared somewhat about the other members of the boys and then he just kills them in his quest and sure maybe if this had been written more intelligently maybe you could make some sort of point about how he's willing to kill his friends for the sake of revenge and that's super bad and stuff but it just comes so out of nowhere and it's so quick and so without any real emotion that it just it feels not just mean spirited but it feels like everything in his character and everything in the story this far was amounting to nothing like they just threw it all out the window. I'm not gonna lie I did most of this video just as an excuse to rant about the ending because holy shit that is genuinely one of the worst fucking things I've ever read like I know I complained about the ending of Everworld a while ago and don't get me wrong Everworld ending is really bad and I've read plenty of other stuff that also had really bad endings in a lot of cases it was because stuff had to get rushed or it was just unfinished or whatever but this I think would be a good contender for like the worst ending I've ever read in anything ever and so for that reason alone I would have to say just just stay away from the comic you know the show is good the show is enjoyable I like it overall it's not for everybody but I like it just if you're interested in this concept of normal people going out fighting superheroes just watch the show stay away from the comic. 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