Wildstorm/Dynamite Entertainment
Garth Ennis, writer
Russ Braun, Darick Robertson, John McCrea, Keith Burns and Richard P. Clark, artists
*** mature content warning ***
I don't read only superheroes in comics, but I'm also not one of those people who is embarrassed about enjoying superhero comics. I enjoy the escapism and the adventure in older comics where the heroes are always right and the villains are always beaten and everything exists in a black-or-white, yes-or-no reality. I also enjoy some of the moral gray areas that tend to crop up in more modern comics. And when done right, I occasionally enjoy a tale where the "heroes" are not necessarily that heroic.
Garth Ennis takes that idea to the extreme in his epic The Boys. In the world Ennis and his illustrators create for us, all superheroes are "manufactured" by a single company and treated as a commodity. In the interests of profit, the company churns out as many heroes as they can with the resources available to them, and as a result, most of these heroes aren't really all that heroic. They are more accurately described as self-centered, sex-obsessed idiots with god-like abilities and little or no impulse control. The general public isn't aware of this, of course, but that is the reality.
The Boys in this world are a small off-the-books government entity created to keep an eye on the superheroes of this world, slapping them down if they get too far out of line with their various antics and depravities. The team is made up of five individuals, all of whom have their own reasons to hate the "heroes" of their world. Billy Butcher is the leader of The Boys, and obviously the most sadistic of the bunch. Mother's Milk, The Frenchman and The Female round out the rest of the group as the series opens, but they quickly add Hughie to their number after his girlfriend is killed in an "accident" involving superheroes.
This series started out at Wildstorm but was canceled quickly by that publisher; it seems the property was just a little too extreme for them. It soon found a new home at Dynamite and resumed publishing with only a short break. I didn't pick up the series from the start; it wasn't even on my radar at first. But the title got a LOT of publicity when it was canceled by Wildstorm and later picked up by Dynamite. I was curious after that point, so I bought and read the first five trades to try out the series. I was intrigued in spite of myself. Parts of the story and illustrations repulsed me, but I was very caught up in the story of Hughie as he becomes a part of the world of The Boys. I didn't buy them, but I did borrow the next three trades from my local library to continue on with the story.
After those eight trades, I was current with the series and had to wait for another to be released. In the meantime, I kind of lost interest with the series and might have never finished it, but I learned that the series was coming to an end shortly. The series as a whole consisted of 72 regular series issues and three limited companion series, all of which are collected in 12 sequentially numbered trades. (I mention that the trades are sequentially numbered because the three limited series have a particular place in the overall narrative, and are numbered as such in this series, but that isn't normally the case.) Anyway, with a definite ending in sight, I returned to the series and read those final four trades once they were all released.
Overall, I'm glad I read this series. It was very well written and illustrated by these talented creators. Hughie's story and wanting to find out what would happen to him and his new girlfriend, Annie, kept me coming back. I cared about the characters, and wanted good outcomes for them. Despite some of the simply horrendous things they do for their jobs, I also enjoyed reading about Mother's Milk, The Frenchman and The Female. These were also characters I came to care about through these issues.
Butcher is another matter. His character seems easily as depraved as the super-powered maniacs who also populate this universe. His life could have turned out much differently, but it didn't. Whether that is his own fault or the fault of the circumstances around him is open for debate, but ultimately, Butcher is not a very nice man. Having said that, this team of creators is so talented, that once we finally get Butcher's back story in the 10th trade -- which collects the final limited series, "Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker" -- I began to feel some empathy for even this character.
This series did not end in the way that I expected it to. Likely that is a point of credit for Ennis; despite all his clues, I did not see coming the specific ending to the series that I received. In fact, truth be told, I'm not entirely sure I completely "get" the ending. I understand all of the points that are spelled out, what happened and why. But I feel there is maybe something deeper than those surface details I should be getting from this book that I'm just not quite grasping. If you don't mind, or can look past, the graphic violence of the series, it is a good one.
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