Jack of Harts

“You should have been raised by a loving mother and father, not some scientists in a lab.” The enduring lesson of The Boys.

I would like to say that Amazon Prime has created a fresh, new world for their recent superhero mini-series, but I can’t. Well, it IS a new world, but it is hardly fresh. It is filled with the same villains as most major movies and series of the last few decades. Selfish heroes, greedy corporations, and hypocritical Christians. Otherwise known as the Hollywood Trinity of Villainy.

Now I understand. Hollywood has been Weinsteining themselves for so many decades that they simply don’t understand John Waynes, John Carters, or Luke Skywalkers anymore. Look at how badly they wrote even Superman in the recent reboots. They can’t seem to understand what a healthy family is, or how people can be nice to each other. They haven’t seen that in Hollywood for decades, and they write what they know. Even if that is exactly the opposite of what most normal people in America know.

I will note that the MCU has been a rare exception, actually showing us real heroes in action that we could cheer for without reservation. And the movies were just fun to watch. A sideline studio came out of nowhere with second-line heroes and made so much money that their style of fluff and fun became a standard against which other movies were measured. They were successful at building a billion-dollar movie franchise out of almost nothing. Then Disney decided to buy them out. I greatly hope Disney doesn’t take the MCU in the same direction they took Star Wars.

But back to The Boys.

On the one side, we have a sociopath not-Superman, not-Batman, not-Wonder Woman, not-Aquaman, not-Flash, not-Invisible Man, and not-Stargirl. Basically the not-Justice League. Though the major difference is that they have contracts with a major corporation which they work for it and it negotiates contracts for them to go to cities all over America and protect them from criminals or other bad things.

Supes (yes, they don’t have an r in there) have TV shows and movies. They run charities and rescue organizations. Most of them don’t even wear masks. They are a central part of American society, and are pitched as really nice people. They have agents who handle them and speechwriters to tell them what to say. They are basically spokesman for the corporation or whatever charity or organization they run. Spokesman who can go out and throw a truck or stop a missile or whatever when the time comes.

On the other side, we have the people who were injured themselves, or had loved ones killed by Supes who didn’t care enough to not injure or kill people. The catalyst of this story is exactly that. A Supe runs through a nice girl and explodes her while she’s holding hands with her boyfriend/fiance and keeps going. He had something important to do, you see. And later he lies to say that she stepped out in front of him, so it wasn’t really his fault. That sets the kinda/sorta/notreally hero up to be recruited to try and prove to everyone just how sociopathic and nasty all those Supes really are.

And on another side, we have some Hollywood Christians doing there thing. I say Hollywood Christians because they are Christians that act the way Hollywood says they act. And let me say, I grew up in the Pentecostal movement that these guys are patterned after. I’ve been to the tent revivals, I’ve been to churches where people dance in the aisles, and all that stuff. I have never been someplace where the speakers make the kind of teachings and preachings that they did on this show. I would go as far as to say that the Hollywood Christians portrayed on this show run so hamfistedly counter to what the Bible really says, and what is actually taught in the Pentecostal movement as to be really bad parodies.

Of course they are portrayed with straight faces as if that is what the writers THINK Christians act like. I’ll also note that they very slightly renamed one of the most famous Christian charities in a way to leave no question at all who they are using, and them make them a central part of one of the major corrupt conspiracies the entire story is built on. So close that if I was that charity, I would be talking to my lawyers to see if there is a libel case to be made. I know in America those are hard to bring, but it really is that close.

The rest of the series would be something I could see coming from Quintin Tarantino. Violence. Language. Sexual situations. Darkness and humor mixed into a stew of dark humor and violence that left me feeling depressed with humanity when I was done. I went to see what other people thought of it, and the most common refrain I heard is that it was like what heroes would be like in the real world. Which I think says something really dark about the worldview of the people saying that.

Me, I went and watched Good Omens to renew my faith in humanity. Yes. A story about Armageddon and the Anti-Christ was more joyful and fun to watch than The Boys. Of course, Neil Gaiman did have a part in writing it, so there’s that. He makes stories about dead people funny and joyful.

Do I recommend the series? Well, if you really like dark and “realistic” stories, you will probably like it. It’s well acted, and the special effects are movie quality. And there was some great care taken in crafting it. It is a well-made series. Myself, I don’t want to see it again. And I most likely will not watch the series when it comes back for season 2. I will probably read the cliffnotes to see what dumpsters they go down next time. I simply don’t want to watch shows were bad and angry people do bad things to other bad and angry people.

I want to see heroes doing great things and winning. That’s why I like the Star Wars trilogy and the books that followed it. Why I like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica (the original), and Buck Rogers. It’s why I write my stories that way. I want to put goodness into the world with my creative endeavors. And I want to watch stories that do the same.

The Boys is simply not for me. If it is for you, I hope you like it. But for me, I give it two thumbs down.