Shock and schlock can actually go along this far.
The adjective “classy” wouldn’t be the first that springs to mind when describing The Boys on Prime Video. However, the TV series seems like museum-quality artwork in comparison to the source comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The comic version just actually employs the shock value, despite the fact that both editions of The Boys enjoy filth, schlock, and extreme brutality a lot. The characters are made to feel like the grunge is ten times worse. In the comics, Ennis will draw protagonists and antagonists performing the most heinous deeds, such as the moment Billy Butcher (portrayed in the TV series by Karl Urban), caves in a baby’s head, just to heavily impress the readers.
On television, though, showrunner Eric Kripke controls the shocking level to make it seem a little more realistic. This conveys to the audience in a much more powerful way how profoundly depressing and/or terrifying people may prove in the actual world. Social criticism is at the center of both versions of this narrative, and neither version is trying to be discreet about it. The comic parodies Bush-era politics as well as current comics trends. Apart from The Punisher, Ennis is well known for his abhorrence of heroes. He utilizes each character as an outlet for his anger toward various superhero archetypes.
This is the reason a number of characters in the series are brutally tested to the point that just mentioning them would require a trigger warning. The show rationally portrays all big horrific incidents as being much more graphic and shows it on TV. Characters would be presented in the series to be savaged, particularly in case they are female or belong to the LGBTQIA community. Issue following issue grows much more diabolical. Politics is viewed with the same sour disposition.
The way that both iterations deal with the infamous plane sequence from Season 1 is the clearest example of this nasty attitude. Similar to the well-known aircraft rescue sequence from Superman: The Movie, Anthony Starr’s Homelander and Dominique McElligot’s Queen Maeve are sent to save a jet in the episode. When they board the jet in the television series, they discover that there is no practical way to rescue all of the passengers, thus Homelander decides to spare none in order to avoid bad PR images. This is among the initial major character moments in the series to really highlight how completely despicable Homelander is. He was prepared to let a number of defenseless people perish in order to protect his reputation and that of the business he is employed by. In the comics, the supes get on board one of the hijacked aircraft on September 11, 2001. They managed to have the jet miss colliding with the World Trade Center and rather hitting the Brooklyn Bridge, but just in the comic version. While the show presents itself as a scathing critique of how global leaders who have been bought out by large corporations are willing to mistreat individuals in order to keep their employers and shareholders happy, it is actually merely a crude joke in the comics.
This is not to suggest that shock value has no intrinsic value. Without the element of shock, filmmakers like Eli Roth might not make a name for himself, and Family Guy wouldn’t have secured its place among the most watched series on television for nearly two decades.
People enjoy shock value and finding out the limit to which they can push their boundaries prior to being repulsed. There is undoubtedly a place for shock. However, unlike the TV series, the shock in the comic counterpart serves no higher purpose and doesn’t genuinely convey any meaning. Ennis only uses it to express his rage towards the Bush government and comics clichés. As a result, readers start becoming excited for terrible things to happen in the comics rather than paying their actual attention to the characters. It creates a barrier between the plot and the audience that isn’t present in the series. When readers witness women being abused, unarmed people being killed, and general mass carnage, Ennis wants them to feel ecstatic. When the TV series enthusiastically encourages its audience to think of the characters as actual humans, for better or worse, the comic version simply dehumanizes the characters through that way.
When horrible things occur in the series, it makes the audience realize how flawed these characters become. Rather than being lasered with heat vision or anything similar, the worst situation that the characters are caught up in, particularly when they are the situation that everyone in the actual world can be stuck in, occurs off-screen. These kinds of behaviors aren’t designed to be enjoyable; rather, they’re destined to be depressing. Instead of being amusing, it occurs off-screen to draw attention to how it impacts the characters.
This approach is extended beyond the series’ characters who are supposed to have the audience’s support. The most wicked characters on the series, including Homelander and Chace Crawford’s The Deep, also receive this treatment. The series spends a lot of time demonstrating how pitiful and insignificant these folks are. The humanization of characters like Erin Moriarty’s Annie/Starlight and Jack Quaid’s Hughie allows viewers to relate to them more readily and prevents the narrative from being too dark and unsettling. But in order to depict the true horrors of contemporary society, the show’s antagonists are also given a human face. It demonstrates that most villains in the actual world aren’t humorously terrible; instead, real villainy originates from everyday people, who possess the ability to effortlessly blend in with the crowd, and who put up a good front to the public yet are abusive when they are alone. Being reminded of this is the most terrifying aspect of the entire series.
The ultimate cause for the show to be superior and more enjoyable than the comic is that it is actually simple to watch and know that the performers are having fun on-screen. You almost feel Anthony Starr grinning secretly with every heinous deed or insane breakdown that Homelander experiences. He exudes excitement about having a part that will let him express such a vast range of emotions. Starr makes the most of the opportunity to display his capacity in a part by chewing on the scenery like it’s bubble gum. It can be difficult to measure the feeling that everyone working on a project is having a good time, but when it does, it radiates to the audience in a way that is contagious. As though we are all privy to a joke.
Making something greater out of the shock and schlock of comic books is not difficult. However, things are so much more detailed and complex than the comics ever attempted since the series makes an effort to genuinely make a statement about the world as opposed to simply encouraging the viewer to cheer for bad things to occur.
