Sam's Reviews > The Boys, Volume 1: The Name of the Game

I was really waiting on this one.

Serving as a deconstruction of the superhero genre, and with fantastic and unique artwork throughout, as well as funny and clever dialogue, the plot of these ongoing adult superhero comix follows a secret CIA (or maybe it is supposed to be FBI?) group that targets superheroes who have been corrupted by their celebrity status and committed acts of evil without consequences. Though written by the amazing and talented Garth Ennis, who made the infamously mean-spirited Crossed series (I highly DO NOT recommend that series for that reason), this one is a direct antithesis of that series in just about every way, maintaining a level of sex and violence while being entertaining because of it and not feeling exploitative or mean-spirited, yet some sex scenes feel unnecessary, even in context. While not Ennis's most messed up work (that dishonor goes to Crossed), some parts can still be a little much for an unprepared reader; however, the series is separated into interesting story arcs, which makes the series easy to follow.

Instead of focusing on violence or darkness, the series has a darkly hilarious tone, with more focus on comical aspects at times. For example, one story has a character called the Tek-Knight (basically a technologically advanced Batman) who has sex with just about any orifice he sees and cannot control his own actions, which is just plain hilarious. In fact the superheroes are self-aware knockoffs of popular ones, only they're clearly villains, like Homelander, who's Superman if he exploited his powers to get what he wants and engage in violent acts without fear of being punished or defeated. It shows much more restraint with it's imagery, making it clear as to what's happening, but not showing sex graphically in any way and also having violence that avoids feeling overly brutal. Its social commentary, interestingly enough, focuses on a lot of contemporary issues, like homophobia, corrupt church organizations, illegal experimentation, and the like, which all fit in surprisingly well with the overall plot thanks to the overtly satirical writing.

The characters, including all of the Boys, Hughie, Billy Butcher, Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and The Woman, all have their own quirks (no MHA pun intended) and are very interesting and well-developed; they also contribute to a lot of the humor in the series, like Billy's violent and self-destructive nature, Mother's Milk's anal retentiveness and germaphobia, Hughie's inexperience about the world, and the relationship between Frenchie and The Woman that belies their violent-when-provoked nature. But not all the heroes are evil, like Starlight for example, who's the only one of the Seven that's morally straight and doesn't stand for her co-worker's corruption. Black Noir's identity as Homelander's clone in issue 65 was rather anticlimatic, and only exists to reveal who Black Noir really is. Also, 6 unfortunate words: The Infamous Homelander eating a baby.

It even has lots of spin-offs by Garth Ennis himself (albeit with different artists), and a 2016 TV adaptation, though it had to tone down the content a little, yet it still maintains the dark hilarity that made the comic great and also goes off on it's own interesting path while still being faithful to the source material.

This is well worth it if you thought that the real superheroes exist in all of us.