The Boys

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Ares
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Re: The Boys

Post by Ares »

mrdent12 wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:38 pm It's a result of the medium I suspect. The more sexually explicit stuff poodle mentioned probably wouldn't make it past Amazon's filter. If they are indicative of other events in the comic it makes sense why it's not a straight up adaptation.
Yeah, the comic was essentially Ennis making very shallow, immature and intellectually idiotic parodies of existing superheroes for his group of badass normals to humiliate and kill, while at least somewhat acknowledging that everyone but Huey were pretty horrible. The show apparently makes it clear that Huey and Starlight are genuinely good people doing the best they can, while folks like Billy and the Homelander are absolute monsters. Meanwhile other members of the Seven and the Boys are treated with varying degrees of sympathy while also being varying degrees of awful. A-Train makes some horrible choices and is not a good person, but a lot of it is clearly do to the expectations of being the fastest man alive and the drug habit that is screwing with his mind and body. And while he does some terrible things, he does at least make the good point that what he did to Huey was an accident while Huey's actions and outright murder have all been intentional decisions. He's actually a pretty good analogy for sports athletes who feel pressured to be the best for the limited amount of time they're in the spotlight, the pressures they deal with and how self-destructive they can be.

In short, The Boys the Comic is basically a mean-spirited masturbatory fantasy about how terrible superheroes are without any real depth, while The Boys the Show apparently remembers how things like allegory and nuance work.
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Voltron64
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Re: The Boys

Post by Voltron64 »

Yeah, he fundamental difference between the show is:

Ennis: The comics are parodying superheroes and how stupid they are.

Kripke: The show is parodying celebrity culture and the capitalist-driven veneration of them (with superheroes as a metaphor)
BriarThrone
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Re: The Boys

Post by BriarThrone »

Poodle wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:35 pm Starlight had to perform oral sex on all the males in tbe seven.
Just The Deep. That grudge remained personal. I can see it being confusing, as Translucent was lurking naked in the bathroom afterward, as Translucent does, but that scene faded to black with only the two of them present. When she went public with it, it was "the guy" who did that to her. This was still the point in the story where we were still being led to believe maybe Homelander was an okay guy, too.

Also, it wasn't horrible for the sake of being horrible. That scene had consequences.
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JDRook
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Re: The Boys

Post by JDRook »

BriarThrone wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:00 am
Poodle wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:35 pm Starlight had to perform oral sex on all the males in tbe seven.
Just The Deep. ... When she went public with it, it was "the guy" who did that to her. This was still the point in the story where we were still being led to believe maybe Homelander was an okay guy, too.

Also, it wasn't horrible for the sake of being horrible. That scene had consequences.
I was kind of fascinated by the way the developed The Deep's character arc: the first contact with his character has him leveraging his position to take advantage of Starlight, which flips the whole tone of what the Seven might be, but he does come clean and ends up being this tragically comic character for the rest of the show. Obviously they were working the "Aquaman sux" angle with his failed attempts to help sea life throughout, but they also showed how others took advantage of him, right down to an unexpected power reversal with a groupie, like they were trying to make him sympathetic after the sexual predator opening. It's like a Jamie Lannister redemption arc with more fish jokes.
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Poodle
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Re: The Boys

Post by Poodle »

What I liked was the way tbat it was actually all the non-powered people like the publicists and managers who had the real power.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world. -Albert Einstein.
mrdent12
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Re: The Boys

Post by mrdent12 »

It was nice each of the focus characters were decently developed. Even the ones who didn't change all that much like Homelander or Butcher got shown how they got to become the way they were so the audience was brought along the character journey's verses being told person X is horrible(as pretty much everyone except maybe Hugh and Starlight who came around at the end). Even some of the background characters got a little development, but it was an eight episode season so it is understandable some were just there while others got very minimal attention.
BriarThrone
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Re: The Boys

Post by BriarThrone »

Yeah, Butcher is a nasty guy, willing to make tactical sacrifices, ascribes guilt to all supes, and laser-focused on the final goal... but man, I view him a lot more sympathetically than the rest of you seem to. He's out for legitimate revenge. He believes he's lost everything because of a particular supe, and trying to find revenge more conventionally resulted in tragic consequences for a friend.
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saint_matthew
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Re: The Boys

Post by saint_matthew »

For those of you who aren't fans of The Boys (and there are many reasons not to be a fan), have you tried Powers, over on the Playstation Network?

It's the Anti-Boys:

- Bottom up point of view, rather than top down.

- The characters aren't all assholes.

- Characters all have believable motivations... Including the villains.

- Contains nudity & still manages to be less crass than The Boys.

- Contains much deeper characterisation, less shock & gore.

- Both contain how a world may react to superheroes in a realistic way. Both has supers as potential celebrities, being used by corporations for merchandising.

- Only Powers has Wil Wheaton, you can decide if that's a pro or a con.
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