Orgies, extreme violence, and rampant profanity, this is my type of…comic book? The Boys, written by Garth Ennis, illustrated by Darick Robertson, and published by Dynamite Entertainment is not your typical issue of Spiderman and is far from your Saturday morning episode of Super Friends. And that’s probably why it’s able to gain and maintain the short attention spans of juvenile adults like yours truly.

I was never an X-Men or a Superman fan; I first jumped into comics with the lure of big guns and boobs splattered across the shiny and crisp pages of Image Comics.  At the time, the Image heroes, or antiheroes, such as Spawn and Wildcats were, at least to an impressionable youth, better drawn, edgier and sexier than their older DC and Marvel counterparts. However even this gets old.  I inevitably grew out of comic books…or so I thought until my recent discovery.

A few years ago, by chance, I picked up two graphic novels, or trade paperbacks, both originally published in 1986.  Ironically, years before the Image comics I considered “edgy.”  Unbeknownst to my prepubescent eyes, Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, and Moore’s Watchmen were by far more violent and darker and catered strictly to a mature audience. The Boys shares the same tradition as these two seminal works, but surpasses them in its wanton revelry of violence, nudity, and profanity.  Ultimately, its author, Ennis, crafts cynicism and satire to the hackneyed world of superheroes.

The Boys centers around a clandestine super-powered CIA team put in action to secretly monitor and to keep in check superheroes, by whatever means necessary. The protagonist, Wee Hughie, is recruited to join the team after his fiancé is accidentally killed by a superhero during a reckless act of “heroism.” Hughie quickly finds out that superheroes are not all they are cracked up to be. Superheroes, and many of their villains, are secretly produced and sponsored by a corporation to push merchandise and to win defense contracts. And as long as these superheroes comply and follow orders, a rockstar-esque lifestyle filled with prostitutes, cocaine, and booze follows.

Majority of the superheroes depicted in The Boys share no resemblance to the typical golden age or even modern superheroes. Though portrayed as heroes in their respective universe, they are in fact merely dysfunctional individuals blessed with super abilities. Randomly sprinkle superpowers in society and you get the heroes of The Boys. Rape and murder at the hand of superheroes are natural occurrences simply covered up; the more “serious” crimes are deemed “bad for business” and checked by the corporation.

Instead of naturally falling wayward to those “serious” crimes, the corporation inhibits the “super inclinations,”  and entices the obedience of those superheroes, ultimately upholding the farce of heroism, through the promise and supply of cash from ad revenue, women, drugs, alcohol, and even termination.

The Boys is currently published monthly with over 30 issues, but the easiest way to get your hands on this gem is through the aforementioned trade paperback format (the compilation of multiple issues), which is easily attainable at your neighborhood or online super retailer. There are also other readily available legal (and questionable) methods of acquiring the digital format on the web.

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For more info on The Boys, visit Dynamite: http://www.dynamiteentertainment.com/htmlfiles/

via Vincent Rhee, 4 November 2009 12:40pm | 1 |