By Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-494-3
Writer Garth Ennis takes his utter disregard of the super-hero genre to a whole new level with this series about a team of dedicated professionals in a world more than over-flowing with super-powered individuals.
Billy Butcher is an old soldier. He knows how the world works and what powerful men and women are really like. He also sees how super-heroes get to do what they like and get away with it, cloaked as much by influence and celebrity as they are by godlike powers and abilities.
Striking a Devil’s bargain with the CIA and other establishment authorities he forms a team to watch the metahumans, and, when necessary, to give malefactors a bit of a slapping to remind them who really runs the planet.
Told from the point of view of Wee Hughie, an inoffensive little lad whose dismembered girl-friend was just one more incident of collateral “accountancy†during a super-powered tussle, The Boys is a dark, sardonic, vulgar, wickedly brilliant, funny and touching satire on super-heroes in a real world setting. Ennis’s ability to show us the inner workings of “the other side†often means you feel more sympathy for the devils than for the angels, but that just serves to make clearer his theme that you don’t just need a costume and a Press Kit to be a hero. In a morally ambivalent society there will always be a need for solutions like ‘The Boys.’
Subtle and intense, and subversively underplayed by the excellent Darick Robertson on art, ably augmented by Tony Aviňa’s colouring, this very adult fable for discerning readers is an absolute delight.
© 2007 Spitfire Productions, Ltd , & Darick Robertson. All Rights Reserved.