In the age of superhero content, this was bound to happen; a show where you are not on the side of the supes, but instead rooting for their downfall (or in the case of The Boys, wholesale slaughter). This is not an entirely new idea, this sort of story has been bounced about in the past in various other forms: comics and video games have been doing a variation of this since time immemorable. Usually, it’s about a hero who turns and is now the villain. Usually, they are being controlled by an outside force or have experienced something that changes their being entirely… only for this ex-hero to have to be restored to their former glory or eliminated at the hands of the good guys. This is where the storyline in The Boys begins to diverge, here it’s not Superhero vs Superhero, this is a bunch of mere-mortals taking on god-like super-beings, with only a bunch of C4 and their wits as an aid.
The Boys takes place in a world eerily similar to the DC universe where superheroes are the norm, except here instead of forming the justice league and doing essentially what they want, the ‘heroes’ all work for megacorporation Vought America. This is where things get more interesting and The Boys begins to stand out from other similar content. Similar to what would happen in our capitalist society, Vought really doesn’t care about saving people, all they care about is their bottom dollar. Everything the heroes do is filmed and broadcast: they have brand and merchandising deals, are consistently polled for popularity, and their reputations are the most important thing. Because of this, most of the superheroes are unfeeling, narcissistic assholes. Of course, the general public doesn’t know this, and all they see are their shinning saviours descending from the heavens to beat crime into the ground. This is where two of our central characters begin their journeys, completely unaware of the darker side of the heroes.
Standing on either side of this world are Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty). Hughie is the audience surrogate; he begins the story losing his girlfriend Robin to the hands (or really feet) of a careless superhero. From here, he becomes disillusioned with the lack of care and the outright lies of Vought America to smooth over the situation. After rejecting a settlement payout, Hughie meets Butcher (Karl Urban) who shows him how bad the supes can get and finds himself embroiled in a scheme to take down the ‘heroes’. In a lot of instances, most audience surrogate characters can be the most grating and annoying character to deal with when being introduced into a new world but Jack Quaid puts in a great performance in an effort to distance his character from the wide-eyed stereotype. Annie/Starlight – I think I’ll just stick with Annie from now on, is a super-powered individual who is chosen to join The Seven, who are effectively The Justice League. Similarly stepping into this world, Annie is confronted with the grim and corrupt reality of her situation. Suffering a terrible act committed against her, she is trying to rise up and find her place. Erin Moriarty plays Annie perfectly, expertly walking a tightrope of naivety and strength to create a flawed/damaged yet strong character.
Butcher, played by Karl Urban, begins the story very much aware of how awful the superheroes really are. Taking Hughie along for the ride on his vendetta against superheroes, Butcher lives up to his name and is probably one of my favourite television characters in recent memory. With witty one-liners, weird metaphors involving The Spice Girls and just straight up savagery, Karl Urban breathes life into a character that you would think would never be able to look this good off the page. This is the point where I should probably tell you about the action… well, carnage. This show is brutal. If you are averse to blood, this one is really not for you. Alongside the brutal action, there is a heavy amount of swearing and nudity. When the trailer initially dropped, The Boys was initially criticised in some circles for the amount of swearing, but I personally like it. When the shining beacon of justice in this world is yelling at civilians on a doomed plane to stay back or he’ll “fucking laser them”… it becomes the shit that I love. I just find it ironic that a show with such heavy violence received more criticism for its language than death toll, but society and all that.
The Boys presents us with a myriad of interesting characters on both sides of the fence. I could go on about how being corporate-control has effected each one of The Seven in their own unique way, but I don’t have another thousand words. The whole cast puts in brilliant performances, I can’t think of a single point when I have noticed a badly delivered line or poorly acted moment. The action, while gore heavy, is quite interesting if you can see past all the blood, not just in its choreography but also how it affects each character; it avoids seeming just there for pure shock value, and instead is used in interesting ways to build the world. Overall, as much as I really want to, I can’t recommend this show to everyone. It just won’t be for everyone, and that’s okay. I, personally, have fallen in love with it, and I’d recommend it to anyone who fancies a darker more cynical look at superheroes alongside a dash of gore and sweary humour.
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