You should read The Boys.
They might just kick your teeth in
There we go, I’ve said it- anything further can be considered superfluous excess, unless of course you actually want to know what The Boys is and anything about it.
Or are incapable of using Google. I’m not one to assume. Not often anyway.
I fear that Garth Ennis, the author of this delightful illustrated tract (yup, a comic book), has at least one screw slightly wobbly, if not coming entirely loose. He’s responsible for the critically-acclaimed Preacher, not unknown for its ability to induce nausea, but more recently for something called Crossed as well, which is so vile I’m not going to link to it. He’s free with his swearing, his violence and his sex… and has turned out one of the finest comics I’ve ever read (though that should be taken with a shopping trolley-full of salt, given that my current comic intake consists almost entirely of books involving transforming robots).
Ennis hates superheroes. He feels they’ve harmed the comic book industry, isolating it in a perceived childish niche where it has found itself branded socially inept, and treated accordingly. Comics can be a mature art form, goes the argument, and to this end Ennis sets about literally demolishing the superheroes. In The Boys he shows what super powers would do to the people who have them, and that turns out to be what all power does- it corrupts. Almost to a man (and woman), the superheroes here are the villains, venal, vile and ridden with vice. When a man is raised from birth knowing that he is physically superior to everything else in existence, he’s probably going to come out of it with some psychological maladjustments, and that’s what we find in the Homelander, a cross between the omnipotence of Superman and the out-and-out patriotism of Captain America (one of the primary joys of the series is checking out Ennis’ thinly-veiled analogies of famous superheroes and their resulting perversions). From this ubermensch downwards, we’re presented with a panapoly of licentious bigoted idiots, convinced they can do no wrong and rolling in money, women and drugs.
Now you're seeing Superman in a whole new light, aren't you?
Into this, we add The Boys- a CIA-backed gang of international badasses who believe that superpower is the most dangerous weapon on the planet and has to be watched accordingly. Butcher flies the Union Jack, Mother’s Milk represents the US, Frenchie (supposedly) hails from the Gallic chunk of Europe and the Female is a Japanese lass with a penchant for face-removal. Wee Hughie, a Scot whose girlfriend is explosively seperated from her arms thanks to the superfast hero A-Train, is the audience surrogate painfully exposed to this secret war between The Boys and superheroes.
The art… eh. It comes and goes. Sometimes (notably in earlier issues) it’s super-detailed, beautifully coloured and gloriously grim. Later (I’m thinking in particular of Volume 6, The Self-Preservation Society, but only because it’s the most recent one I’ve read), colouring becomes quite flat and the lines seems to lose a bit of their intricacy, characters lose a bit of their fluidity and can end up looking stiff and awkwardly posed. Whether or not this is is a good thing depends on how essential one concludes that the hyper-violence is to the story: one could argue, very plausibly, that frankly a lot of it is unnecessary and that the plot could run along quite happily without it. Equally, you could note that the narrative of The Boys is driven by intense feelings and bitter resentment, and that the violence merely serves to underscore that; also that if you buy an Ennis comic you should probably know what you’re signing up for…
"So let's just put our heads together and sort this out."
Another potential pitfall is the slight barminess of the nature of the conspiracy theory plot (big business is out to get you!), and on occasion the sheer nihilism on display by virtually every member of the cast save Wee Hughie and his girlfriend Annie (also secretly Starlight, seemingly one of only two halfway decent superheroes in the whole thing) can be quite exhausting. But this is to ignore the fact that The Boys is a fast-paced, intriguing and fundamentally funny take on the superhero genre which can do gross-out humour- witness one moment when Wee Hughie turns out to have been going down on Starlight when she was unknowingly on her period and everyone has a good laugh at his expense- and genuine sentimentality. Butcher is a dark and driven man with an astounding capacity for horrific violence, but at the same time he’s capable of compassion, seeing in Hughie a kindred spirit wounded by superpowers and confessing that he always wanted a little brother. Mother’s Milk goes to great lengths to care for his tearaway daughter, and Frenchie looks after the Female with tenderness and resilience in spite of her inability to communicate and truculent nature. Ennis’ universe is one where people bad people do good things and good people do bad things, but that ultimately they are defined as such by the extent to which they do those things- the Homelander occasionally helps Starlight, but he does this to suit his own ends and the odd moment of convenience hardly cancels out his bloodthirsty proclivities which he indulges for his own satisfaction, while Butcher can lie, manipulate and kill to get what he wants, but is, when it comes down to it, working towards a positive end, embodying, “the ends justify the means”. The means repulse Hughie more and more as the series goes on, the ongoing moral dilemma as much the reader’s as it is his.
If you’ve ever wondered about why Batman kept around a ‘boy wonder’ in tiny shorts, what superheroes really do when an Infinite Crisis event rolls around, why a Communist superhero might be called ‘Love Sausage’ or what might drive a guy to keep a hamster up his backside, then this comic is for you. If you don’t fancy pacey, funny and well-written pieces, or if you just don’t like the word ‘cunt’, then maybe don’t pick it up. But you’re missing out.
Kingston Start Clapping
I’m off to see Tellison perform at the Kingston Hippodrome tonight, and given that this coincides with the release of their new album, I figured this would be another good opportunity to try a concise (as in not rambling for hundreds of words) review, so let’s put our headphones in and get going.
Tellison are technically competent in every way, but that can be a problem. Contact! Contact! was bookended beautifully by some cracking songs, but on the whole proved quite… well, if not forgettable, then certainly not memorable. That’s still a bit of an issue on The Wages Of Fear, but less so. Instead of a couple of stand-outs, the quality is more even across the whole record, and obviously the better for it. It’s also noticeably sadder- the whole album carries tones of regret and grief which amplify as it goes on, culminating in a fantastic trio of Vermont, Edith and the almost cripplingly tear-jerking My Wife’s Grave Is In Paris. The emotion is personal, blame turned inwards, but quietly and unassumingly, managing to steer clear of angst and cutting through the waves of poignancy.
Freud Links The Teeth And The Heart is the weakest effort, further strengthening my theory that songs involving dentists just don’t work; Stephen H. Davidson occasionally slips up and clumsily handles his words; and there’s no individual track which can stand up to Hannover Start Clapping, but overall this is a confident and accomplished album with a strong central theme of loss running throughout and a unique sound. Well worth a listen.