Spoilers The Boys Season 1 - Amazon Prime Superhero Series Starring Karl Urban and Elizabeth Shue

Amazon Prime's new superhero series, The Boys was released today. The series is based off of a Dynamite Entertainment comic book written by Garth Ennis, and created by Supernatual, Revolution, and Timeless creator Eric Kripke, and produced by Preacher producers Seth Rogen and Even Goldberg.
It takes place in a world with superheros, but the big twist here is that they are pretty much the most sick, twisted individuals you can imagine, and are controlled by a corporation called Vought, who also covers up all the sick shit the heroes get up to. The show follows Hughie Campbell, who joins up with The Boys, a group of anti-Superhero vigilantes, after a speedster know as A-Train runs through his girlfriend, killing her. The first episode also follows a superheroine known as Starlight, who joins their world's equivalent to the Justice League, known as The 7, and very quickly discovers how horrible they are. The first episode already has a few hints that this storyline might end up joining up with Hughie's at some point.
The cast:
Karl Urban as Billy Butcher
Jack Quaid as "Wee" Hughie Campbell
Laz Alonso as Mother's Milk
Tomer Kapon as Frenchie
Karen Fukuhara as Female
Anthony Starr as Homeland
Erin Moriarty as Annie January/Starlight
Dominique McElligot as Queen Maeve
Jessie Usher as A-Train
Chance Crawford as The Deep
Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir
Elizabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell

So far I've watched the first episode, and I really enjoyed it. One thing I will start off with is it is definitely not a show for the easily offended or the squeamish, in the first episode alone we get a graphic death, a girl forced to give a guy a blow job (we don't see her do it, but the scenes before and after make it clear it happened), mid air sex, and a shit load of swearing. One thing that surprised me is just how much the 7 line up with the Justice League, Homelander is Superman, Queen Maeve is Wonder Woman, The Deep is Aquaman, A-Train is The Flash, and Black Nori is Batman. The only one who doesn't directly line up to a JLA member is Starlight.
I'm curious how horrible Homelander is, because they specifically say that he's the only decent member of The 7, and in a show like this that usually means that he's going absolute worst one. We already get a hint of this at the end of the first episode.
I really enjoyed it overall, the characters are all pretty interesting, the writing was good and they already seem to be setting up The 7 to be the kind of characters you love to hate. They also set up a couple of interesting mysteries with questions about what exactly A-Train was up to when he ran through Hughie's girlfriend, and references to some kind of mysterious substance that Madelyn Stillwell and Homelander are apparently willing to murder a planeful of people, including a kid, to keep secret.

 

Is this not in 4K in the UK? I can only find the HD.

 

It got a good write up in the Toronto Star but the writer did warn about the gore.

 

I'm glad Elizabeth Shue's getting work, but the preview looked awful. There's enough garbage people dominating headlines, are superhero stories are childish enough (not saying that's a bad thing, necessarily, but they are), that sophomoric, garbage "superhero" stories are about the last thing I'm looking for these days. Hard pass.

 

I think The Boys is solid entertainment but nothing spectacular.

However, its timing couldn't be more perfect. Anyone who was looking forward to watching Another Life only to have it suck all the wind and brain cells out of you with how godawful it was will tune into The Boys and think it's the greatest show ever by comparison.

 

Can't speak to the show yet, I've only watched the first episode, but the comic is excellent. A world where the only good people are naive. There are no heroes in this story, only the corrupt and the soon to be corrupted. Garth Ennis's world is a place where hope is misguided, safety is an illusion cultivated to contain the quivering masses, and corporate concerns are where the real power lives, even with supers running around.

Oddly, the first episode of the series felt watered down. Tamer than the comic by far, but not necessarily in a way that hampers the material. Less focused on the corporate supers angle than on taking on the, more timely perhaps, flood of superheroes in media and popular culture. These are superheroes in the social media age, concerned with their merchandising and their popularity figures across demographics. Consumerism may be the ultimate evil in this show.

I'd watch anything with Karl Urban in it, mind you. So I'm in for the rest of the season.

 

I think I'll give it a shot.

 

One of my favorite scenes in the first episode is the big meeting of The 7, where you expect them to start talking all the big superheroic stuff they're going to do, and instead they start talking about business and money.
I just remember something I forgot to mention before, there is actually a reason Simon Pegg is Hughie's father in this. He was actually the original inspiration for Hughie in the comics, but since he's to old to play the character now, they brought him in as his father instead.

 

Just finished the season. Rather addictive. Karl Urban was a treat. Found it bleak, flipping the super hero trope over and most people were just retched . Loved it!

 

I'm on episode 7. It's ok for what it is, but the Starlight actress is the best of the hero bunch.

But that Butcher actor guy. He's Oscar worthy, and a damn handsome man.

 

Watching it, I kept thinking that Starlight looked familiar, so I finally looked her up on Wikipedia, and she was Hope in Jessica Jones.
On the other hand, I did not recognize Queen Maeve, and was shocked to find out that she was Lily on Hell on Wheels.

 

Finished it yesterday.

Shopping today, I realized, hey! It's McCoy and Scotty in a stand alone adventure.

Which kind of proves that they could have let Pine walk, and pushed forward with Star Trek IV.

 

I'll be honest, the trailers haven't wowed me. Felt like another show trying to be as gory and violent as possible. When I get Prime for Star Trek Picard, I might watch an episode. But the only thing selling this to me right now, is the always awesome Karl Urban.

 

Awesome show. I was expecting it to be more graphic though. Those warnings made it feel it was going to be a Spartacus level gore fest of blood and boobs but it was rather tame in comparison. Even the rape scene it warned about wasn’t even shown on camera.
The chap who played Homelander (awesome character by the way) looked and sound very much like Chris Pine. It was very unnerving.

So now we know what it would be like if Disney owned superheroes.

 

I have a suspicion that the 4K version is coming later. Like with Good Omens.

 

The comic was quite a hard hitting deconstruction of the genre, although I'm hoping they don't include some of the worst excesses:

Spoiler

such as the idealistic teenage female superhero who undergoes a team "initiation" which involves giving oral sex to all the male heroes

It really could go either way here, the source material would certainly allow it to be puerile and still be true to form, but there's also room for something much more thoughtful about the nature and abuse of power.

 

...Do you want I spoiler it for you..?

 

Haven't we seen enough nihilistic superhero stories after Zack Snyder burned the DCEU to the ground? Apparently not.

 

Shoot.

 

It’s just one oral sexual encounter with the Deep, and it isn’t shown.