THE BOYS - GARTH ENNIS & DARICK ROBERTSON

It becomes clearer and clearer why Alan Moore is so grumpy. Let me backup; I didn’t pick this one out. It’s a library book that appeared mysteriously at my job. Well, probably not all that mysteriously. There’s a night shift and whatnot that’s gotta do something all night, and apparently these folks are reading Watchmen rip-offs. This thing is fully 20 years after The Watchmen and it follows the same basic premise: what if superheroes were really naughty hypocrites? Plus, the thing where all the characters are slight knock-offs of famous superheroes (we’ve got a Flash and a Captain American and a Superman, and the main guy is basically the Punisher). It throws in a little of Millar’s Wanted (which also predates it), specifically in that it follows the villains. There’s alot of “Superman” sexually harassing people and crazy violence and fringe sex-acts (a charcter dies and a hamster crawls out of their ass) and I get that it’s all meant to be shocking and “can you believe that a superhero could really be a bad guy?!!” but c’mon. Watchmen came out before I was born, the idea that their might be something evil or upsetting behind the hype and goodness of the Superhero is the opposite of shocking. A totally straight superhero would be more surprising and interesting at this point. It’s not unlike the clown thing, where, at this point, most of the depictions of clowns are the wicked or twisted types, the straight-laced originals that were supposed to be sending up are so far in the past they exist primarily as historical artifacts. Maybe we just don’t need more superhero stories. This was boring and violent. 72 rehashed ideas