"The apocalyptic bleakness of comics over the past 15 years sometimes seems odd to me, because it's like that was a bad mood that I was in 15 years ago. It was the 1980s, we'd got this insane right-wing voter fear running the country, and I was in a bad mood, politically and socially and in most other ways. So that tended to reflect in my work. But it was a genuine bad mood, and it was mine. I tend to think that I've seen a lot of things over the past 15 years that have been a bizarre echo of somebody else's bad mood. It's not even their bad mood, it's mine, but they're still working out the ramifications of me being a bit grumpy 15 years ago."
— Alan Moore, in a 2001 interview with The Onion.

While Alan Moore isn't singlehandedly responsible for the state of today's comics, there's no denying that he's been a major influence. I had to go back and find that exact quote and include it here, because it was all I could think about as I was reading the first six issues of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys.

"The Boys" are a collection of non-costumed people with a hate-on for superheroes, funded by the CIA to keep tabs on and occasionally eliminate superpowered individuals. Not that The Boys have any fondness for the CIA; it's certainly a marriage of convenience where "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The less cynical reader may be unconvinced by the premise, as the "government versus the super-heroes" chestnut is always hard to swallow. Since we always see comics stories from the point of view of the heroes, we're familiar with the levels of personal sacrifice and dedication these people show in order to make the world a better place, and we know wholesale condemnation of heroes is just stupid.

In the pages of The Boys, however, superheroes do not make the world a better place.

From the word go, Ennis and Robertson drive home the point that superheroes are reckless, selfish, sex-crazed, power-mad, drug-abusing fiends. They spend their time fucking anything that moves (and some things that don't), abusing women at every turn, recklessly killing bystanders, going on power-trips, stealing drugs from children's hospitals, sticking guns up their asses… and that's the short list. And if there might be "one or two" good people out there in tights? "Fuck 'em," says Billy Butcher, the head Boy.

We are introduced to the group through the eyes of their newest recruit, Wee Hughie, whose girlfriend Robin is killed during a super-fight—she's crushed by a villian whom the superfast A-Train throws at her, leaving Hughie holding her severed arms. Robin's death is greeted by A-Train with embarrassment, not remorse; he soon sends a team of black-suited lawyers to get Hughie to sign legal agreements not to sue for damages, and tries to pay him for his trouble, but Hughie won't take the cash. Billy Butcher swoops in and uses Hughie's grief as the catalyst to make him one of The Boys.

The book is filled with "real world" depictions of superpowers, of the "what would happen if I punched you in the stomach with super-strength?" variety. (The answer is, of course, "I push your stomach out your back through your spine.") And when not in combat, super-powered babies burst through non-powered wombs, super-cocks tear up non-powered vaginas, and so on.

It is an interesting idea to look at superheroism from a different angle, to try to figure out what might motivate an actual person instead of a character drawn on a page to become a "hero". If superheroes were real, I'm sure you'd find lots of shady motivations and private personas that didn't match the squeaky-clean public ones. But The Boys takes this from comic-book wholesomeness and goes so far past "reality" that it hits the other side of plausibility with a thud. Nobody has wholesome motivations. Nobody wearing a cape is redeemable or likable. Everybody is an abuser, an asshole, a junkie, a pervert.

And gerbiling. The Boys actually resorts to using that tired old cliché . I kid you not.

The nihilism on display in the first six issues of this book—especially to readers used to seeing their heroes display at least some… well… heroism—is breathtaking.

The contradictions inherent in The Boys are plain, but they are not addressed. A main gripe with "supes" is that they're untrained; the police and fire departments and other trained people should be handling dangerous situations. Yet Billy drugs Hughie with something to give him super-powers (so he can hold his own against the supes), and then turns him loose on them without a word about what to do. Of course, it doesn't end well (see the earlier description of punching someone in the stomach), but he's forgiven, since he's not wearing a cape.

The book is incredibly sex-negative. Sex is lumped in with theft, animal cruelty, drug abuse, and rape as depraved behavior that shows how awful these "heroes" really are. Some gay sex is depicted, seemingly between consenting adult heroes, but The Boys relish in using it as just another sordid secret to attack a teen hero team. The fact that Billy Butcher has his own rough-sex thing going on with his CIA boss is OK, though. He's not wearing a cape. And he's not gay.

The book, like so many other "extreme" comics out there these days, reduces superheroics to gang warfare, and unwittingly makes The Boys just another gang who thinks they're right. In practice, they're indistinguishable from the heroes they stalk—they have powers, they are ruthless and morally questionable, they are untrained—but these are who we're meant to root for, because we see their human sides and motivations. (And the fact that the heroes have been stripped of any redeeming qualities they might possess.)

The Boys was nominated for an award by GLAAD recently for its second story arc, which deals with solving the murder of a gay teen. Needless to say, I was unprepared for the whiplash I suffered after reading this second story, which reads like it was co-plotted by Judd Winick. A note to the nominating committee at GLAAD: either your memories are short, or you've been punk'd.

Zan is the co-creator of the Queerie-Award-nominated The Mark of Aeacus from Class Comics. He lives in Seattle with his partner Steve and their two dim-witted cats.

The Boys © 2007 Dynamite Entertainment. Review © 2008 Charles "Zan" Christensen

Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).