#the boys comic

[artbyblastweave]

I prompt you to elaborate on the idea of deliberately making something in a story boring, for I an always interested in your analysis.

In The Boys (Comic version, which I have complicated but more-positive-than-most feelings about) Garth Ennis very deliberately wrote most of the superhuman combat scenes as short, brutal affairs in which whoever was more powerful or better-equipped would just slaughter the other side in a matter of seconds; if the sides were more evenly matched it was then a matter of who swung first. To my memory, there were only a handful of fights blocked like fights instead of like curbstomps. This was in service to Ennis's artistic vision; violence as a swift, brutal thing, only glamourous in the sense of black-comedy dismemberments or the grim satisfaction of being alive when the other guy isn't, and with the majority of all conflicts playing out through via prep-work and intelligence-gathering done in advance of the first punch being thrown.

It was an aggressive refutation of how superhero fights go in more straightforward superhero fiction, with clever tricks, drawn-out dramatic brawls, violence as a palatable form of spectacle, something marketable after-the-fact. A lot of the fights the titular team got involved in consisted basically of jumping distracted supes; one of Homelander's jobs was to just unceremoniously decapitate any earnest upstart supervillain and then have the marketing team at Vought write a comic portraying the fight as something with genre-typical stakes. To this day, I feel like there was a level of honesty about violence in this portrayal. In real life, it's not fun!

But! It did introduce some problems. Namely, a series in which almost every single fight is something Nasty, Brutish and Short created, for me, a form of doublethink about how seriously we should even take the Vought capes as threats. A series in which every fight is deliberately uninteresting (if you aren't entertained by curbstomps) is a series in which every fight is deliberately uninteresting, and from there your enjoyment of the series rides or dies on how interesting you find the non-fight political intrigue, character dynamics, and so forth. The version of Garth Ennis who isn't writing capes is, in my opinion, pretty damn good at that other stuff, so I inched through.

The show patched the majority of my difficulties. It retained the broad thesis that cape fights would largely be curbstomps, and the other broad thesis that capes would largely be useless or counterproductive at their supposed role, but combined this with a number of actual fight scenes. It made Butchers team significantly less powerful, with a significantly greater focus on the sneaky bastardry necessary to flip assets and find weaknesses. It made killing any given supe much, much more of an endeavor, something genuinely very difficult and impressive, and it made every given supe death much more of a plot point or a character beat than it would have been in the comic. The supes being less interesting than typical for their genre, that was preserved- but the situations involving supes that we, the audience, are privy to? All very interesting still!

Now on the other side of the spectrum, you've got Worm, and you've got Jack Slash-as-an-examination-of-Joker. "Your philosophy is ill-considered and fake deep, and you aren't funny" is actually a fairly common clapback against The Joker within officially published DC comics properties, but it butts up against the fact that he's taken pretty seriously as a threat regardless of that fact! Jack Slash is an attempt to reconcile that, to figure out how someone as LOlrandom as Joker could last longer than three minutes as a serious contender, and the answer is "subtle secondary powers that puff up his win rate, in a way that his self-absorption prevents him from recognizing as anything but his own innate talent." He's blatantly shallow. Everyone talking to him is palpably rolling their eyes within the text, but he's got the brute-force necessary to undercut anyone trying to one-up him (Theo's interlude, Tattletale in the parking garage.) It's called out multiple times that's it's mysterious that he's doing so well when he's so mediocre. The candidate he picks for the 9 is a dud. He can't come up with anything more interesting for Cherish than having her do all the other tests over a second time. His big comeback is just Slaughterhouse 9! But More of them! Fuck Yeah!

But! Despite the text being aware of how shallow he is and how thin his ideas are, all of his ideas keep working. It doesn't matter that it's edgelord bullshit- it's edgelord bullshit that everyone else is forced to take seriously and respond to, which is where the actually-great character work in the S9 arc happens. And at this point I think there are basically two camps within the audience. Camp one consists of people who, despite Jacks clear shallowness, nonetheless are entertained and engrossed by the batshit combat scenarios he masterminds, even if he shouldn't be able to mastermind them. I am a counselor at Camp One. Camp Two consists of people who call bullshit on the ability for such a shallow guy to mastermind all that crap and bend everyone to his will, who don't really find anything redemptive in the eventual reveal that it was powers-enabled because they still had to sit through the implausible bullshit. This is a position I have no choice but to respect because it's the position of my cousin, who I adore and want to remain on good terms with at family gatherings. The things we do in service of family, amiright

[whompswhomp]

OMNILANDER, FAMILY SUMMER VACATION! (short comic)

Also, John thought the ears looked dumb, but Ryan wanted to match so ofc he couldn't say no

[thenyougetbackup]

my fav speedsters 🏃‍♂️⚡

if u get mad at me for liking comic A-Train i WILL cry (i'm actively ignoring that one scene, leave me alone) (edit: actually no i don’t have to explain myself for what i like i’m not insecure)

[ayspooky1]

For @natabatts

🥛☕️

I hope you like it.

[11patricepancho-blog]

Heres my connection and comparison between Trigun and the boys comics

Both are blonde male (Vash the stampede and comic homelander) and they born with an unknown biological relative until... they are taken in by their mother figure/father figure.

They both have an evil bonde twin brother (Homelander's clone/comic black noir and millions knives) who are sadistic and madness and they harmed humanity to make their twin brother (Homelander and vash the stampede) arrested or executed or killed.

They both have a biological relative (Tesla from manga and comic stormfront) aee the first test subject before they are born (Comic homelander and comic black noir, vash and knives)

Both evil blonde twin (Homelander's clone/comic black noir and millions knives) reveals their sicken plans on humanity to their blonde twin brother (Vash and comic homelander)

Both blonde twin (Homelander and vash) goes on a metal breakfown and starts on lashing out on them (Homelander's clone/comic black noir and millions knives) until they lose their body parts until their fates are different (Difference: Homelander's jaw was ripped by his clone and and knives used his blade to cut off vash's arm for being clumsy)

[noobclock666]

Okay hear me out. They are kind of the same.

They both beat up superhero's.

They both have powers. Believe it or not.

They both have a cute brother and sister relationship. AND NOTHING MORE. Maybe father and daughter. But that's a little too much.

The grown man is taking care of a murderous little girl.

Thay are both crated by douchebags that both think superheroes and or anime are silly. And I respect them both for that.

[battery4ever]

vought's newest doll, Featherweight (Jackie Monroe)

oh i cant WAIT to talk about this girlie

[onlyallytothesun]

I get annoyed when people reduce Homelander to another evil Superman clone. He is such an interesting villain and doing so just ignores the set up of his character.

Comic Homelander on the other hand? The worst type of an Evil Superman Clone.

[robertmisirian]

@dynamitecomics

[sarahlreynolds]

I'm a big fan of The Boys so I decided to do a quick fanart sculpt of Starlight!

I wanted to create something stylized, using inspiration from both the comic and the show. So I went with her show outfit/hairstyle but posed and composited the final image taking heavy inspiration from a really fun illustration Darick Robertson (The comic book's artist) did of the character. Linked here: https://pin.it/45Q7hwY Sculpted in Zbrush, Rendered in Keyshot, and composited in photoshop. I normally don’t post my sculpting work here so I know this is a big departure from what I’ve been posting on tumblr lately, hahah I guess after all of the black and white horror sketching I needed to do something super colorful and cartoony. 

[pocket-dragon]

POV you ate shit during the family drama hour and your adopted peepaw needed your dogs help finding the Temple

[thenyougetbackup]

DROP DEAD, NEEDLEDICK.

[11patricepancho-blog]

Comic stanley ipkiss and homelander's clone had in common be like:

[violent138]

Starting to think a cooler headcanon for Clark’s upbringing might just be that the entire town of Smallville collectively decided to just go with it and accept that Martha and John's kid has superpowers, but we don't talk about it.

Someone's tractor gets stuck and nothing can get it out? "Be a dear and run down to the Kents, would you? Ask for Clark?"

"Why Clark, we need a machine--"

"Run along now."

Or if he kicks too hard and the football vanishes into the upper stratosphere, no it didn't, we all collectively saw it land over there *vague hand movements*

[battery4ever]

oomf said comic reggie looks like a baby pou

how do i beat him