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78 reviews for:
The Boys, Volume 5: Herogasm (Ltd Ed HC - Garth Ennis Signed)
Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson
3.58 AVERAGE
78 reviews for:
The Boys, Volume 5: Herogasm (Ltd Ed HC - Garth Ennis Signed)
Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson
3.58 AVERAGE
Art was less well done, not much to the story, and just a lot of useless sex. I know the main series and all, but this stuff just felt like "...why?" the whole way, whereas the sex and things in the main part of The Boys made sense.
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
For a series that was already pushing bondries of debauchery, this arc was next level. The story continues to evolve. And the art in this book was fun to view. :D
A low point in my reread of the boys. This was just over the top extremism.
Look at the title of this volume and then realize that this was written by Garth Ennis. Let your imagination begin to take you where you think the story will go and you won't have even arrived halfway to the depravity that Ennis inflicts upon your senses. Again, to all of my friends and family. Don't read this or anything else written by Garth Ennis. Trust me.
Oh boy, lots of sex with supes. Yawn. OK, so the meta plot is interesting but for a 6 part series this is not worth it.
Another good volume of The Boys!
I can't really see this storyline making it to the show - the orgy that heroes REALLY get up to when they're having their annual team-up to go off and fight an alien invasion of whatever. Pretty sick stuff. But a good story for The Boys . . .
I can't really see this storyline making it to the show - the orgy that heroes REALLY get up to when they're having their annual team-up to go off and fight an alien invasion of whatever. Pretty sick stuff. But a good story for The Boys . . .
Volume 5: The superheroes on all sides unite, publicly to fight an off-world existential threat, privately to go to a retreat loaded with drugs and prostitutes to let off some steam. The Vice President (who is mentally incapable of full sentences or full words) comes along because, apparently, that is the only place you can get drugs and sex. The titular "The Boys" (I assume the "The" is important) are along to surveil the Vice President's secret service. All said members of the secret service die viciously in this Volume so mission... ...accomplished?
As I was looking to get a brief background to the Amazon Prime series, I jumped in at 5 as that Volume happened to available as a library ebook. There will be important aspects of backstory and character development I will have theoretically missed but, if this Volume is representative of the series, those elements only exist theoretically.
I've seen plenty of scenes in books and movies that can fairly be described as gratuitous. But here the word fails me. It's not even enough to say the Volume is gratuitous. Panel after panel is devoted to narratively pointless excess. Now, I could describe it in Caligua like tones, gripping the hems of my dress as I wail at the licentiousness of it all, which I suspect is the aim. But you know what?
It's fucking boring. It's fucking sterile. I'm fucking over it.
There's a number of attempted escalations, but all they do is draw attention to how embarrassingly bad the portrayal is. I realise this is meant to be the fantasies of demigods with no limits but this is the kind of stuff you would expect to see on a 4chan message board, while unironically discussing the neo colonial implications of a "brown shower."
The plot is pretty much described as above. Yes, there are subplots and various manoeuvrings, but it is all pretty basic stuff. One minor character on a cobbled together redemption arc lets us know he has a wife with a child on the way before he "does the right thing" of blowing the Vice President's minder away at close range as the character dies. It’s assumed that we should know why it was necessary for him to bother.
The idea of amoral corporatized superheroes is worth running with but any suggestion of subtlety rams into the brick wall of the Vice President’s dialogue of “mahhhh dicky”. Yeah, we get it, he’s dumb. And the writing is very average, best expressed in a phone text from the Volume 2 bastardising a line from Full Metal Jacket:
“Hands off cocks and
On with socks”
Did they even bother saying it out loud and hearing how weak that sounds? Similarly lame examples abound in this Volume – brevity doesn’t make it a laconicism if it totally lacks rhythm or wit. Naughty words don’t make it cleverer.
I'm not overly experienced with art of any kind, but I'm not sure you're successfully showing changes in background lighting by having a character become unrecognisable every second panel. I'm also no expert on biology, but I'm also reasonably sure the base of the average penis doesn't start north of the navel. The drawing isn't so much as a comic book uncanny valley as a canyon, with semi-appealing depictions way way… waaaaayyyyyy over on the other side. It’s a harsh take but, considering how little artistic merit there is in the rest of the work, there needed to be a bit more than basic level pool scene nudity for 50 odd panels.
It’s all very uninspiring.
As I was looking to get a brief background to the Amazon Prime series, I jumped in at 5 as that Volume happened to available as a library ebook. There will be important aspects of backstory and character development I will have theoretically missed but, if this Volume is representative of the series, those elements only exist theoretically.
I've seen plenty of scenes in books and movies that can fairly be described as gratuitous. But here the word fails me. It's not even enough to say the Volume is gratuitous. Panel after panel is devoted to narratively pointless excess. Now, I could describe it in Caligua like tones, gripping the hems of my dress as I wail at the licentiousness of it all, which I suspect is the aim. But you know what?
It's fucking boring. It's fucking sterile. I'm fucking over it.
There's a number of attempted escalations, but all they do is draw attention to how embarrassingly bad the portrayal is. I realise this is meant to be the fantasies of demigods with no limits but this is the kind of stuff you would expect to see on a 4chan message board, while unironically discussing the neo colonial implications of a "brown shower."
The plot is pretty much described as above. Yes, there are subplots and various manoeuvrings, but it is all pretty basic stuff. One minor character on a cobbled together redemption arc lets us know he has a wife with a child on the way before he "does the right thing" of blowing the Vice President's minder away at close range as the character dies. It’s assumed that we should know why it was necessary for him to bother.
The idea of amoral corporatized superheroes is worth running with but any suggestion of subtlety rams into the brick wall of the Vice President’s dialogue of “mahhhh dicky”. Yeah, we get it, he’s dumb. And the writing is very average, best expressed in a phone text from the Volume 2 bastardising a line from Full Metal Jacket:
“Hands off cocks and
On with socks”
Did they even bother saying it out loud and hearing how weak that sounds? Similarly lame examples abound in this Volume – brevity doesn’t make it a laconicism if it totally lacks rhythm or wit. Naughty words don’t make it cleverer.
I'm not overly experienced with art of any kind, but I'm not sure you're successfully showing changes in background lighting by having a character become unrecognisable every second panel. I'm also no expert on biology, but I'm also reasonably sure the base of the average penis doesn't start north of the navel. The drawing isn't so much as a comic book uncanny valley as a canyon, with semi-appealing depictions way way… waaaaayyyyyy over on the other side. It’s a harsh take but, considering how little artistic merit there is in the rest of the work, there needed to be a bit more than basic level pool scene nudity for 50 odd panels.
It’s all very uninspiring.
The Boys is an unflinchingly graphic, 12-volume descent into sexual violence, exploding bodies, depravity, broken taboos and bodily fluids that purports to deconstruct the superhero genre with a chaser of black humor. All it really accomplishes, however, is a whole lot of sophomoric commentary on power and politics, stretches of exposition that last for entire issues at a time, unpleasant and inconsistent artwork, and a certain hypocrisy from a creative team which seems to revel in depicting all of the terrible violations it decries.
The story involves a CIA black ops group tasked with monitoring, terrorizing and murdering rogue superheroes in a world where pretty much *all* superheroes are nothing more than fraudulent predators and degenerates. Into this mess enters Wee Hughie, a fellow who loses his girlfriend early on as collateral damage in a super-brawl. Hughie, recruited by the Boys’ leader, Butcher, sees just how sick and dirty the world of supes - and those who oppose them - really is. And pretty soon, what begins as a covert containment program turns into all-out war.
Put together, what could have been a brilliant criticism of a genre that we take for granted instead feels like a three-day lecture by 15-year-old edgelords who really want you to know why their hormonally supercharged worldview ought to be taken seriously by grown-ups. No, we don’t want to hear why you think sexual violence is okay when it is committed by a bulldog. No, we don’t want to see how often you can fit an act of public excretion into your story. No, we don’t want to see how cool your characters in trench coats are. No, we don’t need to actually see somebody eating a dead infant.
One imagines that this entire series is an extended middle finger to the notion of “With great power comes great responsibility.” It often feels like the creators here are angry that superhero comics even exists, and that their fans continue to buy them. We get it - the superhero genre has definitely gotten big enough and overstuffed enough for somebody to take the air out of it. But The Boys ain’t it. This isn’t insightful enough to work as criticism, clever enough to work as parody, funny enough to work as black comedy, or focused enough to work on any of the three previous fronts even if the skill was there for this to succeed.
The Boys is just a chronicle of cynicism, vicious and vile, slapdash and self-indulgent, excessive and egocentric. For those looking to read a different kind of take on the superhero concept, there are plenty better to choose from - Brian Michael Bendis’ POWERS instantly comes to mind - that won’t make you want to disinfect your hands when you’re done.
The story involves a CIA black ops group tasked with monitoring, terrorizing and murdering rogue superheroes in a world where pretty much *all* superheroes are nothing more than fraudulent predators and degenerates. Into this mess enters Wee Hughie, a fellow who loses his girlfriend early on as collateral damage in a super-brawl. Hughie, recruited by the Boys’ leader, Butcher, sees just how sick and dirty the world of supes - and those who oppose them - really is. And pretty soon, what begins as a covert containment program turns into all-out war.
Put together, what could have been a brilliant criticism of a genre that we take for granted instead feels like a three-day lecture by 15-year-old edgelords who really want you to know why their hormonally supercharged worldview ought to be taken seriously by grown-ups. No, we don’t want to hear why you think sexual violence is okay when it is committed by a bulldog. No, we don’t want to see how often you can fit an act of public excretion into your story. No, we don’t want to see how cool your characters in trench coats are. No, we don’t need to actually see somebody eating a dead infant.
One imagines that this entire series is an extended middle finger to the notion of “With great power comes great responsibility.” It often feels like the creators here are angry that superhero comics even exists, and that their fans continue to buy them. We get it - the superhero genre has definitely gotten big enough and overstuffed enough for somebody to take the air out of it. But The Boys ain’t it. This isn’t insightful enough to work as criticism, clever enough to work as parody, funny enough to work as black comedy, or focused enough to work on any of the three previous fronts even if the skill was there for this to succeed.
The Boys is just a chronicle of cynicism, vicious and vile, slapdash and self-indulgent, excessive and egocentric. For those looking to read a different kind of take on the superhero concept, there are plenty better to choose from - Brian Michael Bendis’ POWERS instantly comes to mind - that won’t make you want to disinfect your hands when you’re done.
The content is lacking, but the illustrations are awesome.