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

Spoiler: You asked for it...

In the tv show he's "just" The Deep who demanded the price of admission from Starlight, lying straight to her

 

Thanks guys, I think the idea of exploring exploitation as an abuse of power is very worthwhile, I just wasn't very comfortable with the almost comedic tone the comic seemed to take with that.

 

The whole topic is marked Spoilers.

 

It's interesting how they expanded the role of the Deep in the show. In the comics he just made few appearances...

 

And as you can see, I deleted my post even before your answer

 

Just finished and it was awesome.. start to finish.

As much as i love the MCU movies, some DC movies and the comics they are based they are stuck in their mainstream pg13 rut, never risking too much and the characters are heroes (even those with antisocial tendencies) which can get quite boring, especially after they have been killed for the xth time and you just know they'll bring them back after a while in a big event, rinse and repeat.

It was cool to see a more "realistic" character portrayal of people with superpowers that have remained people with all their character flaws, varying levels of competence and intelligence and what it means to be worldwide megastars.
Many people read devour gossip about entertainment starts and we shake heads at their sometimes odd behaviour, villify the assholes and elevate those clean-cut ones to godhood but throw in superpowers which can level city blocks AND let them be an asshole and you got The Boys.

Brilliant show and i can't wait for season 2.

 

Looks more like a psychotic Bradley Cooper too me.

 

I'm mildly curious, I know that this is a pretty extreme show, I'm just curious to know if the show is as unabashedly offensive as the comic, or if they did the smart thing and modified it to be less fucked up, like how every adaptation of Mark Millar's work has had to do to make the story adaptable. I know The Boys comic has a reputation for being extremely sexist, among other things, so I figured that if Amazon was adapting it they'd pull a "Kick-Ass" and change a so fucked up its basically unadaptable story to make it so its somewhat less problematic. I'm just curious if they ended up doing that.

All the articles Ive seen talk about how extreme the show is, but no one really goes into if its as bad as the comic or if they did changes to make it more palatable to an audience bigger then the hardcore fans of the writer (to be clear I know this show is too offensive for me personally to ever watch, I'm just curious about the adaptation vs the comic).

 

I've never read the comic, but based it's wiki summery, they toned it down quite a bit for the show.

 

Well, the ending was pretty messed up. Somebody got some 'splainin' to do.

 

I have to confess, the first episode was actually more tame than expected. I was expected a constant stream of gore, sex and violence, and there really wasn't that much.

 

Through four episodes, enjoying this show a lot. Feels almost like the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League from the late-80's/early-90's.

One thing: Too bad someone didn't think to get Chris Pine to play Homelander. I think he would've been perfect for the role.

 

It was fairly toned down from the comics. If the comics were a 10 on a 1-10 scale for sex/violence this would be around a 7. There are some pretty violent and graphic scenes, but still not as extreme as the comics.

The non-consensual oral sex still occurs to Starlight, but in the comics she was forced by like 3 or 4 members I believe and in the show it is one (which actually was someone not involved in the comic)

I think the main reason the violence level is lower is that in the comics the Boys have access to "Compound V" from the start. The CIA knows all about it already and the Boys use it on themselves to gain powers to fight the Supes and they have some pretty brutal fights because of it.

Where as in the show Compound V isn't found out until later and none of the human characters try it. (It's later said that the failure rate for adults to use it is pretty high).

 

After the show i checked out the comics it's based on and there is a scene in a brothel or something where several Supes are "using" the women in a really disgusting way, i.e. someone yells "Change" and they each run across the hall to another room with a woman - very disturbing and extreme (but something i'd expect may happen even today in certain "gentlemen" circles where the women don't register as humans and are passed along like a bottle of whiskey).

The show was violent enough, both explicit and implied but i guess it also has some budget restraints for a first season because Supe on Supe battle is not you see in every episode and might be confined to season finales.

However since basically season 2 is wide open the way season 1 ended it may still happen that the Boys start using Compound V to even the odds because i basically can't come up with a way to take out Homelander who is the equivalent of Superman without the Kryptonite weakness (how they took out Translucent was actually quite ingenious and disgusting).

Cool concept ( i don't know if it's also a storyline in the comics) is how Homelander used Compound V to create Supervillains so the Seven have someone worthy to fight (and boost ratings).
I hope it comes around to bite them in the ass but i guess we'll see it in season 2

 

No, this neat idea isn't in the comics. I have to say that I like this, because in the comics heroes don't do absolutely nothing to deserve their fame. They don't rescue anyone, they don't fight anyone. Their adventures are told by comics books, which are implied to be re-telling of real stories. In-universe it's
explicitly said superpowered people prefer to be a "hero" than a villain, because it's more simple to make money in this way.

 

I was actually thinking he reminds me of Michael Fassbender. like. a. lot.

Yeah, but this one is actually kind of doing it right, as well as doing it without outright trampling an existing franchise where it doesn't belong imho

I gotta say, I feel like the show works. It certainly has some wonderful talent

 

We tried the first ep and ended up watching 5 in a row because it was just so good.

For me, the "heroes" are very obviously take-offs of DCU characters, but the show is just taking the flawed heroes of DCU (Arrowverse as well as movies) a step further. Think of the Justice League under the control of Amanda Waller and that pretty much sums it up, in a good way. This is Suicide Squad, but told in a far more compelling way.

This isn't a deconstruction of DC, it is a deconstruction of MCU. These "heroes" are not. They aren't just flawed, they are outright corrupted. ( I haven't made up my mind on Maeve yet. ) In DCU the heroes are already flawed and mostly broken. In MCU they are all full-on redemption, if they weren't already full of Goodness (ie Steve Rodgers.) I like MCU for the most part, but it has certainly started to become generic and predictable.

The Boys is a great show for me so far. I don't want all comics or comic based films to be this, but I love what they have done. They couldn't have done it coherently if existing comic universes weren't so thoroughly explored, so this is not really a stand alone, it requires some experience with the medium that is being deconstructed.

 

After binging Endgame and then Endgame with commentary I binged "The Boys".

OMFG! talk about a super hero palate cleaner.

The show is dark, funny, gory and a must see. I had no previous knowledge of this story or the books.
After 6+ hours of Marvel goody goody super heros it was the hard, cold slap in the face I needed.

When Robin gets turned into a red cloud in the first episode I knew I was in for a wild ride. As the show progressed we get to see what total shitbags the "Supes" are and the machine behind them glossing over their collective awfulness. Elizabeth Shue is wonderfully bad as the soulless Vought International rep.

The only things that were less than great, IMO, are Simon Pegg and Jennifer Espisito.
Simon is unconvincing because of his terrible American accent. Love Simon, but not in this.
Jennifer is just a bad actress, always has been. Her scenes with Urban make this very obvious.

Edit: I just found out that the character of Hughie was based on Pegg originally! Took to long to get to screen so he plays the dad. But Hughie was supposed to be Scottish. Why didn't Pegg just use his normal voice? Took me right out of the story every time he opened his mouth.

 

3 episodes in and loving it

 

Holy shit, the dolphin