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The Boys (Trade Paperbacks) #9
The Boys, Vol. 9: El gran viaje
Las piezas están cayendo en su lugar tanto para The Boys como para sus enemigos mortales y el largamente temido conflicto entre superhumanos está cerca. Sin embargo, todavía hay secretos por descubrir, como la historia del primer encuentro del equipo con The Seven, así como las repercusiones de ese desastroso enfrentamiento. Mientras, Hughie descubre la historia secreta de sus camaradas cuando su líder original, el Coronel Greg Mallory, lo guía a través de 70 años de las operaciones encubiertas más sucias y posibles de imaginar.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2011
59 people are currently reading
954 people want to read
About the author
Garth Ennis
2,624 books3,170 followersEnnis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
September 3, 2019
Finally, we/Hughie officially meets the mysterious Mallory.
And he proceeds to fill in the details of how the whole superhero thing started. Alright, and I guess a lot of fans sort of hated this? But for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
Still digging The Boys.
And he proceeds to fill in the details of how the whole superhero thing started. Alright, and I guess a lot of fans sort of hated this? But for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
Still digging The Boys.
December 24, 2012
Note: the one star rating doesn't reflect this particular book, but rather this one particular issue I'm discussing here, in this piece of my multi-part review.
* * *
There is a problem with this series. The portrayal of women. There's no sense dancing around it or trying to soft-peddle it. Women.
You could give Ennis the same pass that a lot of people give Tolkien. You can claim that he's writing a story in keeping with a tradition that marginalizes women, and so to do otherwise would be contrary to the theme. (Tolkien was following the Eddas, Ennis is following in the superhero tradition.)
But honestly, that excuse only slightly, *barely* works for Tolkien. Giving Ennis a pass is would be an insult to his intelligence. He is viciously lampooning all elements of the superhero genre, so why would he toe the party line with women.
Now is Ennis worse than Hitler when it comes to his treatment of women? No. Not at all. In fact, Ennis takes some pretty hard shots at how comics treat/portray women. Good for him. Bully.
But still, *better than Hitler* isn't really a glowing endorsement. There are problems here, and they're actually more troubling because there's some good stuff in there too, and the problems aren't glaring, they're subtle.
Now, in order to talk about this in detail, I'm going to get into some spoiler territory here. Fair warning.
*****SPOILER WARNING*****
First off, there are really only four significant female characters in the entire story: Maeve. The Female. Rayner. Annie (Starlight).
We can conceivably expand this to six if we count Butcher's wife (who we only see in an extended flashback in volume 10) and Bradley (who doesn't show up in the series until Volume 7.)
Let's be generous and include them as well. Even so, you have to admit that six female characters in a story this big isn't an awful lot.
Here are some numbers.
The combined membership of the two main superhero teams (The boys, and the seven) is twelve. Three of those twelve are women.
Now that's not *terrible* it's 25%. Way better than the Fellowship of the Rings. But even so, it pretty much breaks down to one token woman on each team. It's made clear that Annie has only been brought into The Seven temporarily, potentially just because some of the guys on the team want to have sex with her.)
Five of the six main female characters are shown naked in the comic.
Five of the six female characters are shown having sex in the comic. (The sixth, Bradley, we just see the scene leading up to the sex.)
Four of the six main female characters are victims of rape. The fifth, The Female, is merely the victim of attempted rape. While Starlight, the main female lead, went through sex-by-cohersion *and* has someone attempt to rape her in volume three.
Now let's look at the characters individually.
1.The Female:
A socially retarded compulsive killer. Psychopath. And a mute.
2.Maeve:
Alcoholic. Though she's supposedly one of the three most powerful superheroes in the world, she is easily bullied and manipulated. When she finally gets fed up and decides to take a stand against the big bad, she does so in a really stupid way, is absolutely ineffectual, and pretty much gets one-punch killed.
3.Bradley:
Supposedly savvy corporate climber. Falls in love with one of the male leads (an emotionally distant manipulative type), and proceeds to do everything she can to impress him. Once, after being splattered with the guts of someone killed by a superhero, she says to herself in the mirror. "He's strong, so you're strong."
In the end, after they sleep together, she is betrayed by the clever, manipulative man that she admires for being clever and manipulative. For some reason, she is surprised by the fact that he was clever and manipulated her.
4. Rayner:
Director of the CIA. Portrayed as tough and savvy. She is in charge of The Boys, and is their liaison with the US government. In theory, she's a strong woman in a position of power.
Unfortunately, she is regularly manipulated, misled, tricked, and bullied by Butcher. She also has a sexual relationship with Butcher, where he regularly degrades her. The implication is that she can't resist him and turn away from the sex. In the end, despite the fact that she was instrumental in the good guys winning the day, Butcher ruins her political career by playing a tape he made of one of her sexcapades where she says, "I'm a whore! I'm a fucking whore! I'm a dirty whore getting fucked by a pig!"
This takes her by surprise, because apparently she forgot that Butcher has been secretly taping and blackmailing people *professionally* for the last twenty years of his life.
4. Annie (Starlight):
Tough, smart, powerful. Emotionally troubled, but not unfairly so, as she'd been through some rough shit over the course of the book.
Personally, I think she's the most emotionally mature person in the whole book. And is probably the most dynamic character, undergoing the most realistic change throughout the course of the story.
6. Butcher's Wife (Becky):
The perfect girl. The woman that turns Butcher's life around. We only see her directly in two issues of the 72 issue comic, in a flashback narrated by Butcher.
* * *
Now again, I'm not saying the entire series is anti-woman. Or that there's nothing good in there when it comes to women. Far from it.
Good things.
1. Annie is a great character, and as I've said before. Probably the most emotionally mature person in the series, as well as the most dynamic character.
That said, while she's supposedly a powerful superhero, the only time we ever see her take any real action is when someone tries to rape her in volume three. When the end-of-the-world badness happens at the Finale of the series, she just leaves. Disappears. She's effectively written out of the story and doesn't do anything to help at all.
2. Ennis takes a real vicious shot at the whole glamorization of rape thing in the third volume of the series. The Superhero's corporate handlers propose a new look for Starlight, slutting her up to the Nth degree. They also plan on changing her backstory to include the fact that she was raped.
"It's Victory Comics," one of them says. "They're ever so fond of rape, dear."
"They are," chimes in another. "They really are. Nothing goes together like supes and rape. That's what they say at Victory."
Starlight freaks the fuck out on them and tells them off in no uncertain terms.
3. There is at least *some* representation of strong women in the series.
But... it's largely undermined by how the women themselves are treated and how they behave. The general trend is that while women can be smart and powerful, they're ultimately useless, stupid, or undone by their desires. (Dirty sex for Raynor. Affection for Bradley.)
4. The theme that men need women to keep them from spiraling out of control and becoming deranged, violent, world-destroying assholes.
Butcher's wife, Becky, says it best when she says, "All this strength. All this power. It has to be tempered. Men without women, Billy. It ain't a good idea."
Personally, I'm fine with this as a theme. I think there's more than a little truth to it. And, mythically speaking, women are a civilizing force. You can trace that all the way back to the story of Gilgamesh, when Shamhat tames Enkidu.
But... We have some trouble here. Becky is the only main female character (who is only in two issues of the comic, mind you) that is portrayed as entirely good. (Not stupid. Not a slave to her desires. Not hiding some dark desire to be abused and called a whore.) She's also the only main female character who isn't in any position of power.
The implication is that men are the powerful ones, and a woman's best place is in not having any power themselves. They're just supposed to love men and temper them. Keep them under control.
Am I drawing a conclusion with insufficient data. Yeah. A bit.
Though now that I think of it a bit, Annie backs up the idea too. She's the only other "good" female character in the book. (She isn't punished by fate, or brought low by her dirty, dirty flaws.) She's theoretically powerful. But only theoretically. She never really gets into fights. You could argue that she's able to stay a good character because she never uses her powers, she spends most of her time in the story trying to help Hughie come to grips with things, and grow up a little.
* * *
Gech. This has gotten ridiculously long. I'll stop here.
What's my point?
While I think this series is great. The treatment and portrayal of women is not good. Not horrifying, maybe. But definitely bad and pervasive throughout the series.
So. On this particular issue. One star.
[Review continued in Volume 10]
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2021
Este es el volumen más largo de la saga, contiene 11 capítulos. Acá la historia se reivindica bastante, los primeros capítulos del tomo se tornan un poco aburridos, pero se develan detalles significativos de la historia de fondo, se develan secretos y tiene un final de infarto.
March 15, 2015
Ugh. This is the worst of Garth Ennis. Overly violent and bloody, meandering, overlong and just full of gay/tranny "jokes" that make it super obvious Ennis is either a serious homophobe, 13 yrs old, or has serious issues with his own sexuality..."there's more shit on this than Elton John's cock" really??? That's fucking genius you dumb twat. Ennis is that guy who tells racist and homophobic jokes but then says it's ok because he has a gay uncle, or knows a black person.
As for the book, I honestly skimmed more than half of this...Hughie and Annie still have issues, Butcher is still a nasty cunt, the Seven are repulsive, sexual perverts. Honestly, their violence and disregard for life bothers me more than how they like to orgasm.
Vought is evil, there's gonna be a throw down, Hughie doesn't belong here, No ones as hard as Butcher...mate. He's almost more of a bully to Hughie than any of the Bad guys...just end this already. Even the art isn't strong anymore...not that art needs to be good to show gay sex and bodies blown to bloody bits...
This series should have already wrapped up...it's tired, derivative of itself, and just here to cash a paycheque. I don't feel the passion I used to...this just feels phoned in...and way overly long.
Just not worth my effort. I expected a lot more...Preacher is next up, and depending how it goes, Ennis might be moved to my never read again list. Or maybe I'm just not 17yrs old and this shit doesn't seem cool. Violence language and sex doesn't a Tarantino make...
As for the book, I honestly skimmed more than half of this...Hughie and Annie still have issues, Butcher is still a nasty cunt, the Seven are repulsive, sexual perverts. Honestly, their violence and disregard for life bothers me more than how they like to orgasm.
Vought is evil, there's gonna be a throw down, Hughie doesn't belong here, No ones as hard as Butcher...mate. He's almost more of a bully to Hughie than any of the Bad guys...just end this already. Even the art isn't strong anymore...not that art needs to be good to show gay sex and bodies blown to bloody bits...
This series should have already wrapped up...it's tired, derivative of itself, and just here to cash a paycheque. I don't feel the passion I used to...this just feels phoned in...and way overly long.
Just not worth my effort. I expected a lot more...Preacher is next up, and depending how it goes, Ennis might be moved to my never read again list. Or maybe I'm just not 17yrs old and this shit doesn't seem cool. Violence language and sex doesn't a Tarantino make...
December 6, 2022
Bullet Review:
WHEW, that was a LONG one, felt like a marathon! Would I ever get to the end? How much backstory elaborating how bad the supes are do we need? How much WWII can we inject into a "contemporary" story? (I haven't liked WWII fiction on the best of days, reliving it multiple times in the same comics is exhausting.) When will this Final Confrontation happen and how much more teasing can the readers endure?
There were some good parts, don't get me wrong, but, specifically, the long portions of Mallory relaying the history of supes and Vought-American again (but slightly different), the relationship woes of Annie and Hughie, and how Butcher is a bully to Hughie and Hughie doesn't like that (WAH - but seriously, Butcher is an @$$ to the guy) really drug on.
Also, we get it, supes are deviant in all manners of the word and somehow mentioning AIDS, abortions and trans people existing is funny.
Oh well, time for volume 10!
WHEW, that was a LONG one, felt like a marathon! Would I ever get to the end? How much backstory elaborating how bad the supes are do we need? How much WWII can we inject into a "contemporary" story? (I haven't liked WWII fiction on the best of days, reliving it multiple times in the same comics is exhausting.) When will this Final Confrontation happen and how much more teasing can the readers endure?
There were some good parts, don't get me wrong, but, specifically, the long portions of Mallory relaying the history of supes and Vought-American again (but slightly different), the relationship woes of Annie and Hughie, and how Butcher is a bully to Hughie and Hughie doesn't like that (WAH - but seriously, Butcher is an @$$ to the guy) really drug on.
Also, we get it, supes are deviant in all manners of the word and somehow mentioning AIDS, abortions and trans people existing is funny.
Oh well, time for volume 10!
December 27, 2011
I get the feeling Garth Ennis is a bit tired of this series and if he isn't, I think I am. If you're reading this then you'll have read what came before so I can tell you that what went before goes for one more cycle in this book too. More "Homelander is a psycho" stuff, more "Vought American are evil" stuff, more "supes doing banal hedonism" stuff, more of Wee Hughie and Starlight's tired relationship navigating the rocks of their revelations stuff, and maybe worst of all, the putting off, once again, of the confrontation between the Boys and the Seven.
There's really no other direction for this series to go at this point, just throw the Boys and the Seven in for a final showdown and end it. It's just that these days a comic series has to have 10 volumes so Dynamite have asked Ennis and co. to string this one out even though it's well past it's sell by date.
It might be me, but I think Ennis doesn't have any more ideas for this series. He introduces a new character called Mallory, the former leader of the Boys, who reveals a bit of Butcher's background as well as more of the "Vought are evil" stuff which is just overkill at this point.
Mallory's introduction and age does give Ennis an outlet for his real passion - old war stories. And if you haven't read Ennis' two books called "War Stories, Vol 1 and 2", I highly recommend hunting them down because they are his best work. Unfortunately they're out of print but I found them in my local library and was enthralled and moved by the stories. Really it's the best part of the book, spoiled by the inclusion of the supes who are once again underlined as idiots. Sigh. I get it, I really do, the supes suck, the boys are justified in the horrible ways they deal with them, go on...
Near the end of this bumper size book (it's twice the length of the last book, the abysmal "Highland Laddie") I wondered what the point of this book was, something I rarely do with Garth Ennis books. It doesn't add anything new to the series really, it just hints, AGAIN, that the Boys and the Seven are going to have a big fight - in the next book? Tease tease... But what really stung was the way they killed off a character at the end that felt like such a cheap shot at sentimentality designed to make the reader feel like there was a heart to the story when there wasn't one. I don't consider Ennis a hack, far from it, but that was a hack trick.
And that's what this book feels like - someone hacking out a story that's begging to be finished. I loved this series at first but as it's gone on its felt like its slowly been running out of ideas and at this point I just wish he'd finish it and move onto something more interesting. Summary of this overlong book: Supes bad, Boys good, roll on Vol 10.
PS. Like the last book, Darick Robertson's art is absent here too. John McCrea takes on pencil duty but his artwork, while undoubtedly trying to mimic Robertson's, just isn't as good. Here's hoping Darick returns for the final book.
There's really no other direction for this series to go at this point, just throw the Boys and the Seven in for a final showdown and end it. It's just that these days a comic series has to have 10 volumes so Dynamite have asked Ennis and co. to string this one out even though it's well past it's sell by date.
It might be me, but I think Ennis doesn't have any more ideas for this series. He introduces a new character called Mallory, the former leader of the Boys, who reveals a bit of Butcher's background as well as more of the "Vought are evil" stuff which is just overkill at this point.
Mallory's introduction and age does give Ennis an outlet for his real passion - old war stories. And if you haven't read Ennis' two books called "War Stories, Vol 1 and 2", I highly recommend hunting them down because they are his best work. Unfortunately they're out of print but I found them in my local library and was enthralled and moved by the stories. Really it's the best part of the book, spoiled by the inclusion of the supes who are once again underlined as idiots. Sigh. I get it, I really do, the supes suck, the boys are justified in the horrible ways they deal with them, go on...
Near the end of this bumper size book (it's twice the length of the last book, the abysmal "Highland Laddie") I wondered what the point of this book was, something I rarely do with Garth Ennis books. It doesn't add anything new to the series really, it just hints, AGAIN, that the Boys and the Seven are going to have a big fight - in the next book? Tease tease... But what really stung was the way they killed off a character at the end that felt like such a cheap shot at sentimentality designed to make the reader feel like there was a heart to the story when there wasn't one. I don't consider Ennis a hack, far from it, but that was a hack trick.
And that's what this book feels like - someone hacking out a story that's begging to be finished. I loved this series at first but as it's gone on its felt like its slowly been running out of ideas and at this point I just wish he'd finish it and move onto something more interesting. Summary of this overlong book: Supes bad, Boys good, roll on Vol 10.
PS. Like the last book, Darick Robertson's art is absent here too. John McCrea takes on pencil duty but his artwork, while undoubtedly trying to mimic Robertson's, just isn't as good. Here's hoping Darick returns for the final book.
June 4, 2016
An odd volume that ended with a stellar issue.
September 3, 2019
Yet another amazing installment of The Boys! Can't wait to see how this comic ends.
December 27, 2011
I get the feeling Garth Ennis is a bit tired of this series and if he isn't, I think I am. If you're reading this then you'll have read what came before so I can tell you that what went before goes for one more cycle in this book too. More "Homelander is a psycho" stuff, more "Vought American are evil" stuff, more "supes doing banal hedonism" stuff, more of Wee Hughie and Starlight's tired relationship navigating the rocks of their revelations stuff, and maybe worst of all, the putting off, once again, of the confrontation between the Boys and the Seven.
There's really no other direction for this series to go at this point, just throw the Boys and the Seven in for a final showdown and end it. It's just that these days a comic series has to have 10 volumes so Dynamite have asked Ennis and co. to string this one out even though it's well past it's sell by date.
It might be me, but I think Ennis doesn't have any more ideas for this series. He introduces a new character called Mallory, the former leader of the Boys, who reveals a bit of Butcher's background as well as more of the "Vought are evil" stuff which is just overkill at this point.
Mallory's introduction and age does give Ennis an outlet for his real passion - old war stories. And if you haven't read Ennis' two books called "War Stories, Vol 1 and 2", I highly recommend hunting them down because they are his best work. Unfortunately they're out of print but I found them in my local library and was enthralled and moved by the stories. Really it's the best part of the book, spoiled by the inclusion of the supes who are once again underlined as idiots. Sigh. I get it, I really do, the supes suck, the boys are justified in the horrible ways they deal with them, go on...
Near the end of this bumper size book (it's twice the length of the last book, the abysmal "Highland Laddie") I wondered what the point of this book was, something I rarely do with Garth Ennis books. It doesn't add anything new to the series really, it just hints, AGAIN, that the Boys and the Seven are going to have a big fight - in the next book? Tease tease... But what really stung was the way they killed off a character at the end that felt like such a cheap shot at sentimentality designed to make the reader feel like there was a heart to the story when there wasn't one. I don't consider Ennis a hack, far from it, but that was a hack trick.
And that's what this book feels like - someone hacking out a story that's begging to be finished. I loved this series at first but as it's gone on its felt like its slowly been running out of ideas and at this point I just wish he'd finish it and move onto something more interesting. Summary of this overlong book: Supes bad, Boys good, roll on Vol 10.
PS. Like the last book, Darick Robertson's art is absent here too. John McCrea takes on pencil duty but his artwork, while undoubtedly trying to mimic Robertson's, just isn't as good. Here's hoping Darick returns for the final book.
There's really no other direction for this series to go at this point, just throw the Boys and the Seven in for a final showdown and end it. It's just that these days a comic series has to have 10 volumes so Dynamite have asked Ennis and co. to string this one out even though it's well past it's sell by date.
It might be me, but I think Ennis doesn't have any more ideas for this series. He introduces a new character called Mallory, the former leader of the Boys, who reveals a bit of Butcher's background as well as more of the "Vought are evil" stuff which is just overkill at this point.
Mallory's introduction and age does give Ennis an outlet for his real passion - old war stories. And if you haven't read Ennis' two books called "War Stories, Vol 1 and 2", I highly recommend hunting them down because they are his best work. Unfortunately they're out of print but I found them in my local library and was enthralled and moved by the stories. Really it's the best part of the book, spoiled by the inclusion of the supes who are once again underlined as idiots. Sigh. I get it, I really do, the supes suck, the boys are justified in the horrible ways they deal with them, go on...
Near the end of this bumper size book (it's twice the length of the last book, the abysmal "Highland Laddie") I wondered what the point of this book was, something I rarely do with Garth Ennis books. It doesn't add anything new to the series really, it just hints, AGAIN, that the Boys and the Seven are going to have a big fight - in the next book? Tease tease... But what really stung was the way they killed off a character at the end that felt like such a cheap shot at sentimentality designed to make the reader feel like there was a heart to the story when there wasn't one. I don't consider Ennis a hack, far from it, but that was a hack trick.
And that's what this book feels like - someone hacking out a story that's begging to be finished. I loved this series at first but as it's gone on its felt like its slowly been running out of ideas and at this point I just wish he'd finish it and move onto something more interesting. Summary of this overlong book: Supes bad, Boys good, roll on Vol 10.
PS. Like the last book, Darick Robertson's art is absent here too. John McCrea takes on pencil duty but his artwork, while undoubtedly trying to mimic Robertson's, just isn't as good. Here's hoping Darick returns for the final book.
August 13, 2022
Ahhhh finally we are getting deeper and things are coming together!
The action has taken a backseat to explaining the history of the Boys and supes, and it does get really confusing at times but it's also so satisfying to finally be getting some insight into Mallory and how The Boys came to be.
I am definitely a bit lost with all the politicians though and all the important names are completely jumbled to the point that I'm not entirely sure who is doing what an why we care. But you can still kinda get the gist of what's going on thanks to Hughie's reactions. Ah bless wee Hughie and his tantrums and naïve thinking.
Really enjoyed the story but also a little disappointed at the lack of action. I miss the team, and I'm really keen for the story to keep moving forward.
The action has taken a backseat to explaining the history of the Boys and supes, and it does get really confusing at times but it's also so satisfying to finally be getting some insight into Mallory and how The Boys came to be.
I am definitely a bit lost with all the politicians though and all the important names are completely jumbled to the point that I'm not entirely sure who is doing what an why we care. But you can still kinda get the gist of what's going on thanks to Hughie's reactions. Ah bless wee Hughie and his tantrums and naïve thinking.
Really enjoyed the story but also a little disappointed at the lack of action. I miss the team, and I'm really keen for the story to keep moving forward.
Read
January 13, 2021Ennis got his start in the mid to late 90s, establishing a reputation as an extremist in the comics community alongside Warren Ellis, though Ennis would become the Grant Morrison to Ellis' Alan Moore, with Ennis sometimes going to extremes without letting his story threads come together in a natural way. Does that mean Ennis is a bad writer? Of course not. He wouldn't be a favorite of mine if that were the case. While The Boys doesn't entirely reach the heights of some of Ennis' finer outings like Preacher or Punisher MAX, The Boys proved itself to be another interesting series in Ennis' catalogue.
Garth Ennis is never one for the easily offended, the copious amounts of sex, violence and mayhem that inhabits this series can test even the most mentally and physically strong of people, as I said earlier Ennis is rather extreme with his content. Though luckily, Ennis does know how to pace himself and provide a good plot to keep you invested unlike some of the other artists and writers from the uber grimdark period of comics (cough cough, Rob Liefeld, cough cough, Frank Miller). Ennis, much like Alan Moore, makes a point to show that if superhumans were to exist in our world, they would bring about an apocalyptic sense of change to the world. Though unfortunately, I'm not quite as sure that Ennis is as thorough in his exploration as Moore was. He never fully goes deeper in his critique of superheroes, which is rather unfortunate. Though unlike Moore, Ennis pulls no punches when taking shots as superheroes, this is unsurprising given his well known disdain for the superhero genre, yet again, I don't find that his satire nearly goes far enough to make a grand point of it all.
While The Boys' satire is admittedly simplistic unlike something that is more nuanced like Watchmen, we see Ennis' reputation for characterization shine through, with Billy Butcher being a standout and even Ennis himself lamenting that he was his favorite character to write. Most of the characters in The Boys are strongly developed and their depth and likability is reminiscent of Preacher, but we also see how they change over time. Wee Hughie in particular changes from a mild mannered normal person into a hardened, but still well intentioned person. The satire of The Boys, while sometimes going overboard and becoming crude, usually does its job, with targets being of corporatism, crony capitalism, and the incompetence of government, in particular the Bush era.
I have often complained about how many modern comics have problems with pacing. But luckily Ennis doesn't have this issue, and I would lobby him alongside Ed Brubaker as having a mastery of pacing, as Ennis knows when he should slow things down and when to let things speed up. It is nice to find someone else to use as an example of how to pace your stories in a way to where you won't lose your audience, and Ennis definitely knows how to keep his audiences attention, for better or worse.
Few problems come through in the series, Ennis's writing teeters in quality near the end, with some unexpected twists coming in that shakes up the story at hold and not in a way that feels natural. Though luckily Ennis manages to make it work as best as he can and manages to wrap his story up in a satisfying way. While Ennis is ruthless in his mockery of the superhero genre and its conventions, some of his edgy, extreme humor doesn't really seem to go anywhere, which is a problem that pervades through much of his work. Though unlike Preacher or Punisher MAX where he manages to tamper it with volumes of excellent story, The Boys sometimes does get brought down by its over the top extremes. The art from Derrick Robertson, while very good and well drawn, I often compare to his extraordinary work on Transmetropolitan, and I found that he hasn't ever surpassed the strange and surreal visuals from that series.
Cruel and crass as The Boys may be, Ennis rarely forgets character motivation or good plotting to keep readers invested, while he may lose some of his steam by the end of the series, The Boys remains a strong and enjoyable outing from Ennis' catalogue.
Garth Ennis is never one for the easily offended, the copious amounts of sex, violence and mayhem that inhabits this series can test even the most mentally and physically strong of people, as I said earlier Ennis is rather extreme with his content. Though luckily, Ennis does know how to pace himself and provide a good plot to keep you invested unlike some of the other artists and writers from the uber grimdark period of comics (cough cough, Rob Liefeld, cough cough, Frank Miller). Ennis, much like Alan Moore, makes a point to show that if superhumans were to exist in our world, they would bring about an apocalyptic sense of change to the world. Though unfortunately, I'm not quite as sure that Ennis is as thorough in his exploration as Moore was. He never fully goes deeper in his critique of superheroes, which is rather unfortunate. Though unlike Moore, Ennis pulls no punches when taking shots as superheroes, this is unsurprising given his well known disdain for the superhero genre, yet again, I don't find that his satire nearly goes far enough to make a grand point of it all.
While The Boys' satire is admittedly simplistic unlike something that is more nuanced like Watchmen, we see Ennis' reputation for characterization shine through, with Billy Butcher being a standout and even Ennis himself lamenting that he was his favorite character to write. Most of the characters in The Boys are strongly developed and their depth and likability is reminiscent of Preacher, but we also see how they change over time. Wee Hughie in particular changes from a mild mannered normal person into a hardened, but still well intentioned person. The satire of The Boys, while sometimes going overboard and becoming crude, usually does its job, with targets being of corporatism, crony capitalism, and the incompetence of government, in particular the Bush era.
I have often complained about how many modern comics have problems with pacing. But luckily Ennis doesn't have this issue, and I would lobby him alongside Ed Brubaker as having a mastery of pacing, as Ennis knows when he should slow things down and when to let things speed up. It is nice to find someone else to use as an example of how to pace your stories in a way to where you won't lose your audience, and Ennis definitely knows how to keep his audiences attention, for better or worse.
Few problems come through in the series, Ennis's writing teeters in quality near the end, with some unexpected twists coming in that shakes up the story at hold and not in a way that feels natural. Though luckily Ennis manages to make it work as best as he can and manages to wrap his story up in a satisfying way. While Ennis is ruthless in his mockery of the superhero genre and its conventions, some of his edgy, extreme humor doesn't really seem to go anywhere, which is a problem that pervades through much of his work. Though unlike Preacher or Punisher MAX where he manages to tamper it with volumes of excellent story, The Boys sometimes does get brought down by its over the top extremes. The art from Derrick Robertson, while very good and well drawn, I often compare to his extraordinary work on Transmetropolitan, and I found that he hasn't ever surpassed the strange and surreal visuals from that series.
Cruel and crass as The Boys may be, Ennis rarely forgets character motivation or good plotting to keep readers invested, while he may lose some of his steam by the end of the series, The Boys remains a strong and enjoyable outing from Ennis' catalogue.
November 26, 2019
Poor Terror.
R.I.P. 😭
R.I.P. 😭
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 22, 2020
In this volume we get the full Mallory backstory from the Second World War(!) to the present day. There is a double beauty to this work:.
- 1. How it is tightly tied to real events and people and so seamlessly, if a kid picked this up in a century, this could all be seen as forgotten history!
- 2. What makes people who they are? Well Ennis' tight, yet expansive in scope plotting, allows the reader to understand virtually every character!
But what Ennis does really well here is call America to task! Don't believe me? Read it again. Everything, even war is about profit. He decimates the way American democracy works with the two main parties completely beholden to their corporate paymasters... and Ennis does this all in a multi-colour rip roaring comic book adventure. To top it all off, the last part is mind blowing with a newly empowered Hughie out to have more respect, whilst someone is trying to frame one of The Seven. Mistrust, paranoia and tension, and that's just within The Boys. The final issue in this volume sees the first casualty, and hence the second. Class! 9.5 out of 12
- 1. How it is tightly tied to real events and people and so seamlessly, if a kid picked this up in a century, this could all be seen as forgotten history!
- 2. What makes people who they are? Well Ennis' tight, yet expansive in scope plotting, allows the reader to understand virtually every character!
But what Ennis does really well here is call America to task! Don't believe me? Read it again. Everything, even war is about profit. He decimates the way American democracy works with the two main parties completely beholden to their corporate paymasters... and Ennis does this all in a multi-colour rip roaring comic book adventure. To top it all off, the last part is mind blowing with a newly empowered Hughie out to have more respect, whilst someone is trying to frame one of The Seven. Mistrust, paranoia and tension, and that's just within The Boys. The final issue in this volume sees the first casualty, and hence the second. Class! 9.5 out of 12
March 15, 2015
This was one of the low points in a very uneven series.
At this point, it seems like Ennis needs to wrap things up, but instead I know there are three more volumes. He's made the points that seemed worth making and now the story seems to be spinning its wheels until the eventual showdown between the Boys and the Seven at the end.
What really brings this volume down is the arc in the middle recounting the long history of superheroes in this alternate timeline. Ennis is much more fascinated by this tweaked version of the 20th century than I am and I found the endless recounting of World War II tales more tedious than fascinating. Here's hoping things come to a rousing finish soon.
At this point, it seems like Ennis needs to wrap things up, but instead I know there are three more volumes. He's made the points that seemed worth making and now the story seems to be spinning its wheels until the eventual showdown between the Boys and the Seven at the end.
What really brings this volume down is the arc in the middle recounting the long history of superheroes in this alternate timeline. Ennis is much more fascinated by this tweaked version of the 20th century than I am and I found the endless recounting of World War II tales more tedious than fascinating. Here's hoping things come to a rousing finish soon.
July 18, 2017
First off, the cover is absolutely brilliant! Love it! It perfectly sums up what this series is all about. Frank Miller probably laughed his ass off when he saw it.
Major exposition this volume, as Mallory tells Hughie the story of how the Boys got started. Also, someone seems to be attempting to provoke a confrontation between the team and the Seven ...
There's less action and humor than previous volumes, but we get a ton of much-appreciated backstory. The series would seem to be moving in the direction of a possible conclusion. I have seen listings up through volume 12, but haven't investigated closely enough to see if that's the end or not. I do have volumes 10-12 on my dining room table as I type this, so I'll soon find out. Still loving this series!
Major exposition this volume, as Mallory tells Hughie the story of how the Boys got started. Also, someone seems to be attempting to provoke a confrontation between the team and the Seven ...
There's less action and humor than previous volumes, but we get a ton of much-appreciated backstory. The series would seem to be moving in the direction of a possible conclusion. I have seen listings up through volume 12, but haven't investigated closely enough to see if that's the end or not. I do have volumes 10-12 on my dining room table as I type this, so I'll soon find out. Still loving this series!
March 12, 2024
Could have done without the overly long section about Mallory and the transphobic jokes, but enjoyed the finish.
January 9, 2012
In the first storyline, it moves along at a tight clip, and I felt quite anxious as I read it. There's a lot of cryptic information flying at us and it's hard to keep a balanced view of where the action is soon to head - who's going to get awas of whom.
Escalation. That's the name of the game in Volume 9. And history lessons. Pull us into old conflicts, which have a nasty habit of highlighting the tensions of the current ones.
Ennis takes the story - not very subtly - down an historical road right through WW2 and post-war spymastering. It's tied loosely to the "Vought American and supes" threats, but as ever with Ennis the prime thrust is an incredibly vivid telling of war battles and what happens to the men who survive them, only to seek out further self-destructive purpose.
I find Ennis' war writing fascinating - I have no firsthand experience of war, killing or grunting like this (nor much chest-thumping, flag-waving ''patriotism"), and yet his stories make me feel both saddened and sympathetic towards the men on the ground who fight for good-yet-compromised reasons. As long as Ennis keeps writing such authentic-feeling tales, I'll keep drinking them in wherever they appear.
Sad to see the intra-Boys tensions - well, sad in a way of "I wish people could get along", but satisfying and meaty enough with the conflicts that keep a good story churning out the hits. The politics of the Boys is weighty enough on its own - we wouldn't even need conflict with the supes to keep the drama going, but this drama is really just the mortar keeping the various foolishness of supes' behaviour together.
Art without Robertson isn't nearly as nuanced - but at the beginning of issue 58, one of the team decided to do a spoof of some of the iconic covers/images in all of comics, and I burst out laughing when I noticed. Well done boys.
Escalation. That's the name of the game in Volume 9. And history lessons. Pull us into old conflicts, which have a nasty habit of highlighting the tensions of the current ones.
Ennis takes the story - not very subtly - down an historical road right through WW2 and post-war spymastering. It's tied loosely to the "Vought American and supes" threats, but as ever with Ennis the prime thrust is an incredibly vivid telling of war battles and what happens to the men who survive them, only to seek out further self-destructive purpose.
I find Ennis' war writing fascinating - I have no firsthand experience of war, killing or grunting like this (nor much chest-thumping, flag-waving ''patriotism"), and yet his stories make me feel both saddened and sympathetic towards the men on the ground who fight for good-yet-compromised reasons. As long as Ennis keeps writing such authentic-feeling tales, I'll keep drinking them in wherever they appear.
Sad to see the intra-Boys tensions - well, sad in a way of "I wish people could get along", but satisfying and meaty enough with the conflicts that keep a good story churning out the hits. The politics of the Boys is weighty enough on its own - we wouldn't even need conflict with the supes to keep the drama going, but this drama is really just the mortar keeping the various foolishness of supes' behaviour together.
Art without Robertson isn't nearly as nuanced - but at the beginning of issue 58, one of the team decided to do a spoof of some of the iconic covers/images in all of comics, and I burst out laughing when I noticed. Well done boys.
August 18, 2012
Garth Ennis is one of my favourite writers and I’ve been loving this series. The Boys is about a world where superheroes exist and they’re a bunch of dangerous, narcissistic prima donnas and The Boys exist to keep them in line. If you like your graphic novels to be powerful, irreverant, digusting, offensive, thought-provoking and just downright fucking brilliant, you should read The Boys. In fact, you should read everything by Ennis. And volume 9 knocked me sideways. The end of the book just takes your guts and wrenches them out. Stunning. And for the comic book nerds out there, check out the cover and think about The Dark Knight Returns. Classic.
August 2, 2019
Ok, in this volume we get to see more on how unhinged Homelander is becoming. The Boys have a camera that captures him having an argument with himself in the mirror. Totally looks like his has gone around the bend. We also get some backstory on the whole issue with Mallory and the Boys. We get to the confrontation with the old Seven. We then see how Lamplighter gets pissed and then kills Mallory's granddaughters. Then the Seven deliver LL to Mallory and the Boys as an apology for that.
We also get this funny part where Monkey, their little inside snitch with the CIA arrives at their HQ to let them know he is in charge of them now. The reads them the riot act and lets them know that there will be changes and all and they better treat him with some respect. Their old contact decided she was leaving the CIA and was going to run for Senate in the upcoming elections. Later Billy goes and meets this gold medal winner from the paralympics. I guess Monkey has a big thing for women in wheelchairs. Billy sets it up that Monkey meets her at a hotel. He naturally comes on to her and she totally kicks his ass and knocks him out. Monkey wakes up later tied to a bed with a sex toy shoved up his ass by her. Billy is there to "rescue" him. But first he lets him know that he can't try to boss the Boys around at all, he works for them. Then he lets Terror have his way with him.
Another line is how the Seven have been handed off to the new Vought rep. She is smart and good looking, but not used to superheroes at all. But she is taking initiative on the whole issue with the Boys. She has an computer analysis running to see who would survive a fight between the two teams. It looks like there is an 82% chance of the Seven having at least one or two members survive that battle but no Boys. Butcher meanwhile is meeting with his old contact at the CIA and letting her know he will miss her there. He also gives her files on how you can mount a tracking device that homes in missiles to the brains of superheroes from the V compound in their blood, just in case. He mentioned that maybe she would like to mount those to some jets as soon as possible.
Hughie is still on his quest away from the Boys to make sense of everything. He hits California to meet with Mallory. Mallory tells him all about how he is 91, but the V keeps you younger for a long time. He was in the battle of the bulge. It was there that Vought rolled out their supes, who fly around attracting the Germans. Of course they were no good and the only survivor was Mallory from that debacle. He was captured and a POW for years. After he gets recruited into the beginnings of the CIA himself. He wants to keep an eye on supes, but winds up fighting the Russians. When Vietnam hit Vought were making shitty weapons that wound up getting a whole bunch of Americans slaughtered at a large battle. The VC mocked how bad the weapons were and Mallory was there after and hated Vought more. Mallory tells Hughie about how he and Billy, who he recruited, go on the warpath killing Vought's superheroes over the years. They clashed on many things, but the mission went on. After Hughie leaves he goes to Annie and lets her know that he works for the CIA keeping an eye on the supes. After he is gone though Billy goes to kill Mallory.
Hughie returns to NY and is grabbed by Billy before he goes in HQ to help him investigate the death/murder of a transexual prostitute at a brothel that caters to superheroes. They go and investigate the blackmail files kept there. Jack From Jupiter from the Seven has a things with trannies so all fingers point to him doing the killing. Later they return to HQ and all. Hughie has snatched the files on Maeve to get a peek at her in the nude and all. He and Annie are slowly patching things up. I hope they work things out, since they are so cute together. Files are sent to the media later showing JfromJ with the trannies and the Seven call the Boys for a meeting to confront them about that. Homelander can tell that the Boys are not lying when they said they didnt do it, but Jack doesn't believe him. They agree someone is trying to get them to fight, but now is not the time. The Boys go out to dinner and when they get back Terror has been killed. Billy goes off and sets up a fake appointment at the brothel. When Jack shows up Billy keeps him from using his power and stabs him over and over again about killing his dog.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2024
Essa HQ é a mais longa da série, contendo 11 capítulos divididos em 3 arcos. O primeiro arco, conta como foi o primeiro embate entre os the boys e os sete, com as consequências que foram comentadas anteriormente envolvendo as perdas de mallory e o Faroleiro.
Nesse arco, por meio de flashback, nos é apresentado todo o plano de Butcher para enfrentar os sete, e as consequências que ocorreram por isso, ocasionando também a desistência de Mallory da equipe.
O segundo arco, também ocorre por meio de flashbacks, e em questão de importância para a trama e universo de The Boys, é o que acredito ser o que mais responde perguntas e explica os The Boys, pois são apresentadas duas histórias: a vida de Mallory e como ele se envolveu com os supers, e como Butcher entrou na equipe, criando assim Os Rapazes.
Deixando de lado a importância da história, no quesito da leitura, eu achei bem truncada essa história, pois Mallory utilizando de flashbacks, conta a Hughie as histórias supramencionadas, porém o texto acaba sendo maçante e não há fluidez. É algo que dificulta um pouco a leitura.
Por fim, o terceiro e ultimo arco acontece no presente, mostrando um caso de assassinato que envolve um dos integrantes dos supers, portanto Hughie e Butcher vão investigar o fato.
Durante aa investigações, Hughie tenta se impor e busca um tratamento diferente dentro do grupo, mas Billy ignora o pedido do rapaz, e sequem investigando o assassinato. Hughie descobre arquivos importantes da Maeve que mexem com sua cabeça, ao mesmo tempo que busca reatar seu relacionamento com a Estelar.
Ao final da trama, acontece algo trágico, que remete a encadernados anteriores, que irá mudar todo o status quo do embate entre Os Rapazes e os Sete.
Contudo, apesar de dar três estrelas para o encadernado, seria facilmente um 4, mas por questões particulares que envolvem a maneira truncada da segunda história, não acho que gostei tanto, embora em questões de construção de universo seja bem importante.
Ressalto que durante o terceiro arco, quando Hughie e Butcher vão até um local onde os supers vão para satisfazerem seus desejos, há quadros na parede que fazem referência a diversos momentos icônicos dos quadrinhos da DC e da Marvel, foi bem interessante e divertido ver a sátira com cada um deles.
Nesse arco, por meio de flashback, nos é apresentado todo o plano de Butcher para enfrentar os sete, e as consequências que ocorreram por isso, ocasionando também a desistência de Mallory da equipe.
O segundo arco, também ocorre por meio de flashbacks, e em questão de importância para a trama e universo de The Boys, é o que acredito ser o que mais responde perguntas e explica os The Boys, pois são apresentadas duas histórias: a vida de Mallory e como ele se envolveu com os supers, e como Butcher entrou na equipe, criando assim Os Rapazes.
Deixando de lado a importância da história, no quesito da leitura, eu achei bem truncada essa história, pois Mallory utilizando de flashbacks, conta a Hughie as histórias supramencionadas, porém o texto acaba sendo maçante e não há fluidez. É algo que dificulta um pouco a leitura.
Por fim, o terceiro e ultimo arco acontece no presente, mostrando um caso de assassinato que envolve um dos integrantes dos supers, portanto Hughie e Butcher vão investigar o fato.
Durante aa investigações, Hughie tenta se impor e busca um tratamento diferente dentro do grupo, mas Billy ignora o pedido do rapaz, e sequem investigando o assassinato. Hughie descobre arquivos importantes da Maeve que mexem com sua cabeça, ao mesmo tempo que busca reatar seu relacionamento com a Estelar.
Ao final da trama, acontece algo trágico, que remete a encadernados anteriores, que irá mudar todo o status quo do embate entre Os Rapazes e os Sete.
Contudo, apesar de dar três estrelas para o encadernado, seria facilmente um 4, mas por questões particulares que envolvem a maneira truncada da segunda história, não acho que gostei tanto, embora em questões de construção de universo seja bem importante.
Ressalto que durante o terceiro arco, quando Hughie e Butcher vão até um local onde os supers vão para satisfazerem seus desejos, há quadros na parede que fazem referência a diversos momentos icônicos dos quadrinhos da DC e da Marvel, foi bem interessante e divertido ver a sátira com cada um deles.
January 18, 2022
Solid.
The Boys picks up speed with the longest volume of the comics and three new stories.
The first one, Proper Preparation and Planning, gives us a bit of hinted at and more or less know – but very intriguing – background of The Boys’ previous and cataclysmic clash with The Seven. The Lamplighter’s demise is revealed, with plenty of missing pieces of the puzzle in the grander scheme of things popping up. Solid.
The second story, Barbary Coast, gives us background info on Mallory and tells his story. Very interesting and gripping, but alas Hughie carries on being a total pain: he just whines, complains, is insecure and cannot make up his mind about anything. To give credit to the character, there is one moment towards the end of the story where he manages to act like a man - he shows that he actually knows what he wants to say and says it. 5 points for Gryffindor.
The Big Ride comes last and it’s great. It’s action packed, dynamic, things happen. There’s a chilling finale and all three stories act as a superb prelude and foreshadowing to what the grand ending of The Boys has in store for us. Can’t wait to find out.
It’s a great volume and a thoroughly entertaining one, despite the main drawback being once again Hughie, who is just simply a pain to look at and read. There are lots of cringe moments in his interactions with Annie too, and I am frankly starting to lose my understanding on why that character is needed in the story, or at least why does he get so much presence as opposed to some of the 2nd grade characters (Frenchie, MM, The Female). Maybe we’ll find out in the coming issues.
The Boys picks up speed with the longest volume of the comics and three new stories.
The first one, Proper Preparation and Planning, gives us a bit of hinted at and more or less know – but very intriguing – background of The Boys’ previous and cataclysmic clash with The Seven. The Lamplighter’s demise is revealed, with plenty of missing pieces of the puzzle in the grander scheme of things popping up. Solid.
The second story, Barbary Coast, gives us background info on Mallory and tells his story. Very interesting and gripping, but alas Hughie carries on being a total pain: he just whines, complains, is insecure and cannot make up his mind about anything. To give credit to the character, there is one moment towards the end of the story where he manages to act like a man - he shows that he actually knows what he wants to say and says it. 5 points for Gryffindor.
The Big Ride comes last and it’s great. It’s action packed, dynamic, things happen. There’s a chilling finale and all three stories act as a superb prelude and foreshadowing to what the grand ending of The Boys has in store for us. Can’t wait to find out.
It’s a great volume and a thoroughly entertaining one, despite the main drawback being once again Hughie, who is just simply a pain to look at and read. There are lots of cringe moments in his interactions with Annie too, and I am frankly starting to lose my understanding on why that character is needed in the story, or at least why does he get so much presence as opposed to some of the 2nd grade characters (Frenchie, MM, The Female). Maybe we’ll find out in the coming issues.
October 30, 2021
Aqui muitas coisas são esclarecidas, literalmente são postos os pingos nos is, temos o encontro de Hughie com um certo personagem, um grande flashback alinhavando vários pontos que até então estavam obscuros. A seguir temos o desenrolar de uma trama onde percebemos que tanto os Sete quanto os The Boys estão sendo manipulados.
Talvez o mais interessante desse volume seja como o Ennis trata de assuntos que ainda hoje causam incômodo na sociedade, ele o faz de forma que inicialmente provoca asco ao leitor. O jeito como ele utiliza para se dirigir a certos personagens: o Carniceiro com desprezo e o Hughie com claro desconforto; para depois fazer o Hughie enxergar esses personagens como dignos de respeito ao se revoltar com as atitudes do Carniceiro é muito sagaz. Tem que se ler de forma muito desatenta para não entender a óbvia crítica feita e que lamentavelmente continua super atual.
Talvez o mais interessante desse volume seja como o Ennis trata de assuntos que ainda hoje causam incômodo na sociedade, ele o faz de forma que inicialmente provoca asco ao leitor. O jeito como ele utiliza para se dirigir a certos personagens: o Carniceiro com desprezo e o Hughie com claro desconforto; para depois fazer o Hughie enxergar esses personagens como dignos de respeito ao se revoltar com as atitudes do Carniceiro é muito sagaz. Tem que se ler de forma muito desatenta para não entender a óbvia crítica feita e que lamentavelmente continua super atual.
February 19, 2021
Well finally
March 18, 2022
Backstory, backstory, backstory. It’s all about the backstory in this volume. The wee lad who went on a walkabout in the last volume still hasn’t returned to the fold. Instead, he gets to sit down with an old man who doesn’t look it and hear a story of the early days of the company that made the supes and the supes that made the company. Ennis, who loves nothing more than a good war story, takes the readers back to WWII for a lesson in interfering.
And in the present day (of the yesteryear The Boys is set in), there are some grumbles among the Boys about the political powers that hold their strings. Things are a-changing, can The Boys stay the same?
This is Ennis at his most Ennis-y, the rough and tumble and oh so testosterony. Entertaining, though not my favorite. Military and/or spy fiction aren’t really my favorites usually, nor are tales of political intrigue, especially such hypermasculine ones, but then again that’s The Boys for you. And I seem to be determined to read them all, despite the fact that they don’t delight me nearly as much as the TV show adaptation. Because it is still kinda fun and has Terror and because it still beats Manga that our library is so obsessed with and buys in disproportionate amount to all other comics. So there.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
And in the present day (of the yesteryear The Boys is set in), there are some grumbles among the Boys about the political powers that hold their strings. Things are a-changing, can The Boys stay the same?
This is Ennis at his most Ennis-y, the rough and tumble and oh so testosterony. Entertaining, though not my favorite. Military and/or spy fiction aren’t really my favorites usually, nor are tales of political intrigue, especially such hypermasculine ones, but then again that’s The Boys for you. And I seem to be determined to read them all, despite the fact that they don’t delight me nearly as much as the TV show adaptation. Because it is still kinda fun and has Terror and because it still beats Manga that our library is so obsessed with and buys in disproportionate amount to all other comics. So there.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
January 26, 2023
A little drawn out if you ask me, thus the knocking off one star, but that ending was scary intense for me.
Overall enjoyed it.
Overall enjoyed it.
March 28, 2020
For as lengthy as this volume is (12 issues, covering three story arcs), very little of interest actually happens in it. The first arc, "Proper Preparation and Planning" does little more than move chess pieces around the board and set them up for later. On the Vought-American side, the mysterious man in charge sets up his protege to handle his prior duties as he is moving on to bigger and better things. And on the side of The Boys, Monkey shows up to try to exact revenge on Butcher for years of humiliation but things don't go according to his plans. And we finally get the flashback story about what happened between Mallory and the Lamplighter, but after all the buildup and mystery surrounding it for 49 issues, when we finally get to it, the whole affair feels a bit lackluster.
Next we have "Barbary Coast", which is little more than two men sitting on a porch talking and drinking booze for four issues. So if seeing endless panels of talking heads crammed between overstuffed dialog balloons sounds like fun, you're going to love this one. For the rest of us, reading this story arc really makes one wonder if Garth Ennis ever heard the old writer's maxim "show, don't tell". In this arc, Greg Mallory tells Wee Hughie about his history with the Boys, and his overall history with superheroes in general. It turns out he's quite a bit older than he looks, due to Compound V extending his life, so he regales Hughie with his experience with the failed introduction of superheroes during World War II. That story has its moments, and Ennis actually does give us a proper flashback to that material, though most of THAT is still filled up with people standing around and talking. We do get a lot of backstory here, but it would have been far more palatable if Garth Ennis had sprinkled this information organically throughout the story rather than dropping massive exposition dumps on the reader all at once.
The final arc, "The Big Ride", is where the events of actual consequence in this volume take place. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of material that was unpleasant to read. Hughie comes back to the Boys and they investigate the death of a transsexual prostitute that the Boys believe that Jack from Jupiter has killed. As they investigate this murder, the heroes in the story frequently refer to the transsexual murder victim (and her friends) by various slurs, "freak", and Butcher commonly misgenders the transsexual characters he speaks to during the investigation. To his credit, at one point Hughie calls Butcher out on it and points out what he's doing is shitty. But it's very late in the story after it's been happening for so long (and nobody else among our heroes ever bats an eye at this). Butcher is supposed to be an asshole, I get it, but it's just laid on so thick and the feeble attempt to hold him accountable goes nowhere, to the point where it all feels more like these are the viewpoints of the writer coming through rather than those of the character. Especially given how Ennis writes the other transsexual characters in the story.
The events of this arc are used to set up a potentially deadly confrontation between the Boys and the Seven, and things definitely have escalated by the end of the arc. By the time we get to the end of it, my interest is piqued, but the path we took to get there is just so cringy and uncomfortable, and not in a good way, like a story that really challenges your beliefs or forces you to face uncomfortable truths. Here it's all just salacious shock value and immature frat bro humor at the expense of those who struggle to be treated fairly in our society.
Another volume of The Boys that has plunged from four stars to two upon a reread nearly a decade later, making me wonder if it's because I've changed, if the material was never as good as I had remembered, or something in between.
Next we have "Barbary Coast", which is little more than two men sitting on a porch talking and drinking booze for four issues. So if seeing endless panels of talking heads crammed between overstuffed dialog balloons sounds like fun, you're going to love this one. For the rest of us, reading this story arc really makes one wonder if Garth Ennis ever heard the old writer's maxim "show, don't tell". In this arc, Greg Mallory tells Wee Hughie about his history with the Boys, and his overall history with superheroes in general. It turns out he's quite a bit older than he looks, due to Compound V extending his life, so he regales Hughie with his experience with the failed introduction of superheroes during World War II. That story has its moments, and Ennis actually does give us a proper flashback to that material, though most of THAT is still filled up with people standing around and talking. We do get a lot of backstory here, but it would have been far more palatable if Garth Ennis had sprinkled this information organically throughout the story rather than dropping massive exposition dumps on the reader all at once.
The final arc, "The Big Ride", is where the events of actual consequence in this volume take place. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of material that was unpleasant to read. Hughie comes back to the Boys and they investigate the death of a transsexual prostitute that the Boys believe that Jack from Jupiter has killed. As they investigate this murder, the heroes in the story frequently refer to the transsexual murder victim (and her friends) by various slurs, "freak", and Butcher commonly misgenders the transsexual characters he speaks to during the investigation. To his credit, at one point Hughie calls Butcher out on it and points out what he's doing is shitty. But it's very late in the story after it's been happening for so long (and nobody else among our heroes ever bats an eye at this). Butcher is supposed to be an asshole, I get it, but it's just laid on so thick and the feeble attempt to hold him accountable goes nowhere, to the point where it all feels more like these are the viewpoints of the writer coming through rather than those of the character. Especially given how Ennis writes the other transsexual characters in the story.
The events of this arc are used to set up a potentially deadly confrontation between the Boys and the Seven, and things definitely have escalated by the end of the arc. By the time we get to the end of it, my interest is piqued, but the path we took to get there is just so cringy and uncomfortable, and not in a good way, like a story that really challenges your beliefs or forces you to face uncomfortable truths. Here it's all just salacious shock value and immature frat bro humor at the expense of those who struggle to be treated fairly in our society.
Another volume of The Boys that has plunged from four stars to two upon a reread nearly a decade later, making me wonder if it's because I've changed, if the material was never as good as I had remembered, or something in between.
October 6, 2021
So much happened in this volume: We get a huge info dump about the origin of the Boys, we have Hughie slowly coming to term with his relationship with Anne, and we have the first opening salvo of the war between the Boys and the Seven.
While this volume is huge, it reads very quickly, as there is the typical hijinks we have seen in previous volumes, but also a lot of new information to be read. Mallory, who we formally get introduced to in this volume - even though we have spent some time with him during "Highland Laddie", gives the lowdown of how the Boys came to be, how he recruited Butcher, and how he came to the realization that the Boys - and more specifically, Butcher - needs to be stopped. This leaves Hughie wondering about his own doubts that he has regarding the team, but decides to rejoin with a new approach to how he is going to handle Butcher and crew. He also comes clean about everything to Anne and lets her fully into his life.
We also see the first casually of the oncoming war between the Seven and the Boys, and man its a tough one. Not to spoil it but the member of the team has been there since the beginning of the series, and was almost, to a big degree, the heart of the team. With this death, and the retribution sought because of it, we see a glimpse of how bad things are about to get, and boy, its gonna get bad.
The endgame is in motion, and even though I read this before, I cant really recall all the details, so I'm ready for the closing chapter.
While this volume is huge, it reads very quickly, as there is the typical hijinks we have seen in previous volumes, but also a lot of new information to be read. Mallory, who we formally get introduced to in this volume - even though we have spent some time with him during "Highland Laddie", gives the lowdown of how the Boys came to be, how he recruited Butcher, and how he came to the realization that the Boys - and more specifically, Butcher - needs to be stopped. This leaves Hughie wondering about his own doubts that he has regarding the team, but decides to rejoin with a new approach to how he is going to handle Butcher and crew. He also comes clean about everything to Anne and lets her fully into his life.
We also see the first casually of the oncoming war between the Seven and the Boys, and man its a tough one. Not to spoil it but the member of the team has been there since the beginning of the series, and was almost, to a big degree, the heart of the team. With this death, and the retribution sought because of it, we see a glimpse of how bad things are about to get, and boy, its gonna get bad.
The endgame is in motion, and even though I read this before, I cant really recall all the details, so I'm ready for the closing chapter.
August 31, 2021
2021 reads, #61-72. In preparation for finally watching the Amazon Prime Video adaptation currently being made out of it, I recently had the opportunity to acquire the entire six-year, 72-issue run of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys (broken down at Goodreads into 12 larger graphic novels; this review covers them all, which I'm copying and pasting into each book page), the anti-superhero tale from the creator of legendary '90s Vertigo Generation-X hit Preacher that is now popularly known as "The Darkest Comic Book In History And We're Not Just Buying Into The Hype When We Say That, You Should Do Yourself A Favor And Seriously Take That Warning Legitimately;" and while the original plan had been to read only a few issues of what I was fully expecting to be a mediocre title, whose reputation I assumed had been artificially inflated by a bunch of uncultured nerds who wouldn't know true transgressive literature if it reached up and bit them on the dick, I ended up doing a feverish binge of all 72 issues in a mere 72-hour period this weekend, because the hype turned out to be fully believable in this case, and I kept greedily drinking it all in as fast as I could, partly because I couldn't believe something this relentlessly dark could even exist within the comics industry in any form at all, and kept half-expecting it to disappear in front of my eyes as I was reading it, like some kind of evil magical spell that had finally reached its end.
And indeed, the first thing you'll wonder as you start making your way through it is how this possibly could've started life at "mainstream indie" Wildstorm in the first place, which was just about to go through an acquisition by DC when The Boys was first brought on, which is why Wildstorm unceremoniously dumped The Boys six issues in, although to their credit with the enthusiastic help of the pre-DC staff to get it to a more unknown publisher that would do it right before the acquisition happened, and even giving Robertson a special allowance to his otherwise DC-exclusive contract in order to continue working on it. And this is not just because the title is a particularly sickening example of the Dark Age "superheroes are actually barely disguised Nazi monsters" trope that's been around since literally the early '80s (imagine taking Alan Moore's infamously apocalyptic ending to his early underground hit Miracleman and making that page 1 of issue 1 of The Boys), but it's just as much an indictment if not more so of the corporate psychopaths who own the intellectual property rights to such superheroes, intimating here that if we lived in a world where Time Warner owned not only the story, movie and merchandising rights to caped heroes but the actual real-time life rights of the human beings committing these acts of derring-do, the employees of Time Warner would essentially spend a billion dollars a year attempting to hide the psychopathic crimes such "heroes" would of course start immediately committing, the moment they realize that they have powers that can only be stopped by only a handful of other creatures on the planet, and a fully oiled corporate machine going around cleaning up whatever messes they choose to cause with such powers.
That leads to a world where the violent gangrape initiation ceremony of a new member of the Justice League of America, by this universe's version of Superman, Batman, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter, is merely chapter one of a sprawling, always worsening look at the depths of the human race's capacity for depravity, as we quickly learn that the "super" powers of this universe are not caused by superior alien DNA or bites from radioactive spiders but rather a single "supersoldier" serum developed by a Nazi scientist in the 1930s, which makes it just a bunch of normal, everyday random people who end up becoming said superheroes in the universe of The Boys (around 200,000 of them now, by most people's estimates, although with the vast majority of them never making their powers publicly known, and the only "famous" superheroes being the ones who have managed to achieve corporate sponsorship); and it turns out that when you give superpowers to a bunch of normal, everyday random people, and not the "paragons of virtue" that DC and Marvel have made sure all their own superheroes over the years have been, those normal, everyday random people almost immediately become corrupt, perverted serial killers upon realizing that no one can stop them besides their equally corrupt, equally perverted superfriends. And this is not to mention creating the very real threat of a future government coup by the main multinational superhero conglomerate, Vought-American (a clear stand-in for real-life baddies Marvel-Disney), if their whims aren't catered to by an increasingly nervous Congress and White House (whose current VP, by the way, is a literally mentally challenged Vought stoolie).
That's led the CIA to quietly putting our titular Boys on the payroll, four equally violent psychopaths (plus our hapless Simon Pegg everyman reader-stand-in character) as a dirty-tricks squad being desperately used by the government as a secret behind-the-scenes check and balance against the growing dictatorial control of Vought-American, while a billion dollars are being spent by V-A at TMZ and TikTok to keep up the public appearance of these caped rapists' Dudley Do-Rite reputations, then eventually (in what many comics fans will consider the most cynical turn of the entire storyline) creating their own version of "Dark Age" comics when the Boys' shenanigans make it too impossible to keep their corporate mouthpieces' various horrific vices out of the public spotlight anymore, deciding to turn the vices into virtues so to not cause even the slightest interruption to the hamburger-selling that's been going on the whole time.
So in this, then, the 72-issue uber-plot going on here is an angry condemnation of the entire superhero comics industry, not just the intellectual premise of turning such Nazi ubermen into toothless rah-rah heroes, but the psychopathic mindset needed among the emotionally stunted man-child comics creators to pull off this premise, the glib incel glee among the industry's Comic Book Guy fans who made such material so popular in the '80s and '90s to begin with, the corporate middlemen who know exactly what kind of Nazi rape-porn twaddle they're peddling but simply don't care, and even you for thinking that a mean-spirited but ultimately toothless satire of the subject somehow counts as an effective antidote. It doesn't, as this series' infamously pessimistic climax proves, and now I'm more curious than ever to see how this ceaselessly piss-fueled indictment of the entire industry ended up getting adapted at the corporate-friendly Amazon, whose own employees are guilty of many of this story's most damning behavior. Certainly you shouldn't take this on unless you're ready for one of the most relentlessly bleak stories you've ever read in your life; but absolutely you should do so if you're ready for such, and big kudos to creators Ennis and Robertson for actually managing to finish it without slitting their own wrists somewhere around issue #54 or so. Do yourself a big favor and go into it with this attitude in mind.
And indeed, the first thing you'll wonder as you start making your way through it is how this possibly could've started life at "mainstream indie" Wildstorm in the first place, which was just about to go through an acquisition by DC when The Boys was first brought on, which is why Wildstorm unceremoniously dumped The Boys six issues in, although to their credit with the enthusiastic help of the pre-DC staff to get it to a more unknown publisher that would do it right before the acquisition happened, and even giving Robertson a special allowance to his otherwise DC-exclusive contract in order to continue working on it. And this is not just because the title is a particularly sickening example of the Dark Age "superheroes are actually barely disguised Nazi monsters" trope that's been around since literally the early '80s (imagine taking Alan Moore's infamously apocalyptic ending to his early underground hit Miracleman and making that page 1 of issue 1 of The Boys), but it's just as much an indictment if not more so of the corporate psychopaths who own the intellectual property rights to such superheroes, intimating here that if we lived in a world where Time Warner owned not only the story, movie and merchandising rights to caped heroes but the actual real-time life rights of the human beings committing these acts of derring-do, the employees of Time Warner would essentially spend a billion dollars a year attempting to hide the psychopathic crimes such "heroes" would of course start immediately committing, the moment they realize that they have powers that can only be stopped by only a handful of other creatures on the planet, and a fully oiled corporate machine going around cleaning up whatever messes they choose to cause with such powers.
That leads to a world where the violent gangrape initiation ceremony of a new member of the Justice League of America, by this universe's version of Superman, Batman, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter, is merely chapter one of a sprawling, always worsening look at the depths of the human race's capacity for depravity, as we quickly learn that the "super" powers of this universe are not caused by superior alien DNA or bites from radioactive spiders but rather a single "supersoldier" serum developed by a Nazi scientist in the 1930s, which makes it just a bunch of normal, everyday random people who end up becoming said superheroes in the universe of The Boys (around 200,000 of them now, by most people's estimates, although with the vast majority of them never making their powers publicly known, and the only "famous" superheroes being the ones who have managed to achieve corporate sponsorship); and it turns out that when you give superpowers to a bunch of normal, everyday random people, and not the "paragons of virtue" that DC and Marvel have made sure all their own superheroes over the years have been, those normal, everyday random people almost immediately become corrupt, perverted serial killers upon realizing that no one can stop them besides their equally corrupt, equally perverted superfriends. And this is not to mention creating the very real threat of a future government coup by the main multinational superhero conglomerate, Vought-American (a clear stand-in for real-life baddies Marvel-Disney), if their whims aren't catered to by an increasingly nervous Congress and White House (whose current VP, by the way, is a literally mentally challenged Vought stoolie).
That's led the CIA to quietly putting our titular Boys on the payroll, four equally violent psychopaths (plus our hapless Simon Pegg everyman reader-stand-in character) as a dirty-tricks squad being desperately used by the government as a secret behind-the-scenes check and balance against the growing dictatorial control of Vought-American, while a billion dollars are being spent by V-A at TMZ and TikTok to keep up the public appearance of these caped rapists' Dudley Do-Rite reputations, then eventually (in what many comics fans will consider the most cynical turn of the entire storyline) creating their own version of "Dark Age" comics when the Boys' shenanigans make it too impossible to keep their corporate mouthpieces' various horrific vices out of the public spotlight anymore, deciding to turn the vices into virtues so to not cause even the slightest interruption to the hamburger-selling that's been going on the whole time.
So in this, then, the 72-issue uber-plot going on here is an angry condemnation of the entire superhero comics industry, not just the intellectual premise of turning such Nazi ubermen into toothless rah-rah heroes, but the psychopathic mindset needed among the emotionally stunted man-child comics creators to pull off this premise, the glib incel glee among the industry's Comic Book Guy fans who made such material so popular in the '80s and '90s to begin with, the corporate middlemen who know exactly what kind of Nazi rape-porn twaddle they're peddling but simply don't care, and even you for thinking that a mean-spirited but ultimately toothless satire of the subject somehow counts as an effective antidote. It doesn't, as this series' infamously pessimistic climax proves, and now I'm more curious than ever to see how this ceaselessly piss-fueled indictment of the entire industry ended up getting adapted at the corporate-friendly Amazon, whose own employees are guilty of many of this story's most damning behavior. Certainly you shouldn't take this on unless you're ready for one of the most relentlessly bleak stories you've ever read in your life; but absolutely you should do so if you're ready for such, and big kudos to creators Ennis and Robertson for actually managing to finish it without slitting their own wrists somewhere around issue #54 or so. Do yourself a big favor and go into it with this attitude in mind.
July 17, 2024
These motherfuckers are actually doing it. They’re turning this ship around. The stuff in this volume keeps playing over in my head. Ennis is ramping up the momentum and having characters grow and change and evolve through their interactions with each other. Most of this is talking heads with not a lot of action, but I really prefer that because Ennis is amazing at writing two people talking and the lack of action and gore and over-the-top sleaze jokes means that when they DO happen it’s way more impactful. The art is also perfect, Braun does such a great job giving these characters emotions and making them feel genuine. I really can’t believe how good this series is getting after that annoyingly gross and nasty first half. This era hasn’t lost all of that, but it does seem Ennis and co. have gotten the sense to reign that in and let the characters fly on their own. I’m so excited to see where this all ends up.
February 28, 2021
Solid Set of Comics
This set of comics was good because it mainly focused on the seven and with the boys. It was good to get some of the back story behind the creation of the boys. I found Hughie’s character to be too whiney in this set of comics. Butcher’s character also is getting a little stale as well and not much has been built onto him in quite awhile. It’s still amazing that the TV show is overall so much better than these comics.
This set of comics was good because it mainly focused on the seven and with the boys. It was good to get some of the back story behind the creation of the boys. I found Hughie’s character to be too whiney in this set of comics. Butcher’s character also is getting a little stale as well and not much has been built onto him in quite awhile. It’s still amazing that the TV show is overall so much better than these comics.
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