The Boys #34 FULL REVIEW and RECAP!

[Kamakazi]

It's the Final Showdown between The Boys and Stormfront! The suspense is killing me! Who will be horrifically murdered? Will it be the Author-Surrogate members of the Boys, or the cartoon punching-bag that is Stormfront? Trust me, YOU WILL NEVER GUESS!

The book starts with The Boys hanging out near "Payback Mansion", which for some reason is a crumbling ruin. This is bizarre, because we're constantly being told that the Supes live like rock stars. I'm sure there's some sort of point that Ennis is trying to make, but damned if I can see it.

Hughie mentions that he's called someone for help. Oddly enough, the person he calls is the exact person that I said it would be in my "Fake Recap" from earlier this week. When my lame jokes about imaginary plotlines end up being identical to what actually happens, we know we're all in trouble.

Suddenly, Stormfront flies in and blows up the van the Boys were driving. He's taken out everyone but Butcher! Clearly, they're all dead now. Because there's no f**king way that Nazi Thor would do something moronic like land and take on Butcher hand-to-hand. And he sure as hell wouldn't Monologue for two pages and then let Butcher hit him in the head with a crowbar. Because that'd be really bad writing.

Meanwhile, back with the Seven: Starlight is back in her original outfit. You go girl! Homelander hasn't really noticed.

Meanwhile, back with Vought-American... there's a really weird scene that I didn't even remotely understand. Seriously, I have no clue what it's meant to convey. Somebody died at a spa, or something. Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention. I guess one of the interchangeable Vought guys died, and is being replaced by another interchangeable Vought guy. Why we care is completely beyond me.

Meanwhile, (and I love typing 'meanwhile') Butcher beats the hell out of Stormfront. Rather than like, fly away or something, Stormfront decides to duke it out. It's hard to understand why he'd want to go this route, considering that he's blind in one eye, and also apparently completely deaf, and had no peripheral vision.

A bunch of WWII racial slurs are hurled, and Butcher yells Ennis's ultimate insult: "Hitler was gay". Because the only thing that could make Hitler even more evil is if he were a homosexual. Seriously folks, I don't want to hear your stories about how Ennis actually LIKES the gay community any more. I'm a Straight Mormon Republican from Utah, and even *I* think Ennis needs to ease up on the Homophobia.

Oh, hell. Let me just cut right to the chase here. Stormfront, world's second most powerful Supe, who can fly, shoot lasers from his mouth, and is super-strong, decides that it'd be a good idea to WALK directly up to a crowbar-wielding Butcher, then stand there like a moron until the inevitable slaughter occurs.

I'm not saying that Ennis is the only guy ever to pull this massively stupid move. Every writer who's ever been associated with the Iron Man title has decided that world-class Genius Tony Stark would rather engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Hulk, as opposed to merely hitting the stratosphere at Mach 6 and nuking his opponent from orbit. But that brings us to the central problem with The Boys: Ennis wants to eat his cake and have it too. He constantly ridicules Superhero comics, but then can't be arsed to avoid any of their cliches. Let's face it- if you stripped out the profanity, nudity, and ultra-violence, The Boys would simply BE a bad Superhero comic, not a parody of one.

Uh, so then Love Sausage shows up. No, apparently I wasn't kidding in my Fake Recap. I nearly crapped myself when it happened, because for a second I thought I was having some sort of Glitch in the Matrix moment. The Frenchman and MM show up as well, and they all beat Stormfront to death. But he deserved it, because he mildly bruised The Female. Yes, Butcher has mercilessly murdered no fewer than 600 people since the start of this series, including all of Stormfront's team mates, but hell, let's cheer on the four-to-one murder The Boys are committing. Boo Nazis, Go Boys!

Later, there's a lot of Hughie Angst. Damn I hope this goes somewhere. I'd love to see a Hughie Swerve in our future, however much I doubt it will happen.

Oh, and now that all the one-dimensional Payback characters are dead, The Female wakes up. It bugs me that Ennis couldn't even allow ONE of his fairly boring Ego-Surrogates to die. The book hardly needs The Female, who mainly exists to be a foil for The Frenchman.

In Prologue: Butcher has kept Solider Boy hostage, and is now going to torture him to find out "who sent them". The sheer gratuitousness of this scene is mind-boggling. Butcher would have to be the stupidest person on the planet to not know "who sent" Payback. Seriously, who the hell does he think sent them? The Young Republicans?

Next issue: the long-awaited Mother's Milk origin, apparently. I can hardly wait, because I've got 20 bucks on "to charge his powers, MM has to nurse at the teat of/have sex with" his mom.

[Boris]

I am mildly disappointed by the "Axis vs Allies" turnout. Yeah, it's supposed to be fun, but I really expected a little more teeth from Stormfront "the second supervillain ever", given the premises in last issues. Feels like a waste to me. :(

(Maybe it's just that I was hoping in Mallory's first memorable appareance on the scene, instead of Love Sausage and his mighty crotch! :D)


But enough whining, let's fight! ;)



A bunch of WWII racial slurs are hurled, and Butcher yells Ennis's ultimate insult: "Hitler was gay". Because the only thing that could make Hitler even more evil is if he were a homosexual. Seriously folks, I don't want to hear your stories about how Ennis actually LIKES the gay community any more. I'm a Straight Mormon Republican from Utah, and even *I* think Ennis needs to ease up on the Homophobia.

Did you think that "hitler was a queer" is precisely the worst insult ever to a nazi guy?

Seriously, if you were to insult a homophobic, racist hooligan in a brawl (expecially in order to make him angry and distract him from killing your friends), what would you shout?



Meanwhile, back with Vought-American... there's a really weird scene that I didn't even remotely understand. Seriously, I have no clue what it's meant to convey. Somebody died at a spa, or something. Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention. I guess one of the interchangeable Vought guys died, and is being replaced by another interchangeable Vought guy. Why we care is completely beyond me.

Apparently the elder Vought executive (who's supposed to be boss) "accidentally" died of a heart attack, just when he was beginning to question the work of his younger protegee.



Oh, hell. Let me just cut right to the chase here. Stormfront, world's second most powerful Supe, who can fly, shoot lasers from his mouth, and is super-strong, decides that it'd be a good idea to WALK directly up to a crowbar-wielding Butcher, then stand there like a moron until the inevitable slaughter occurs.

I'm not saying that Ennis is the only guy ever to pull this massively stupid move. Every writer who's ever been associated with the Iron Man title has decided that world-class Genius Tony Stark would rather engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Hulk, as opposed to merely hitting the stratosphere at Mach 6 and nuking his opponent from orbit.

And guess what... I'm with you on this one!

Just a point: you will stand as a moron and take a crowbar in your teeth, instead of safely electrocuting the entire area from the sky, if you are convinced that you are The Perfect Aryan Superman and everybody else is a "mongrel" that will never touch you, let alone fight you.

Nevertheless, as I said before, I am fairly disappointed by this issue, mainly for the dumbness of the "second ultimate superhero battle" of the series, as I was tricked to think.


In Prologue: Butcher has kept Solider Boy hostage, and is now going to torture him to find out "who sent them". The sheer gratuitousness of this scene is mind-boggling. Butcher would have to be the stupidest person on the planet to not know "who sent" Payback. Seriously, who the hell does he think sent them? The Young Republicans?

Well, at this point of the series the Boys have quite a number of enemies, including (maybe) the CIA itself.
But you have to think of Stormfront saying "the orders were not to kill you, but I don't care less".
Maybe Butcher was thinking that nobody at Vought could be so crazy to sic a superhero team directly on him (after all, an all-out fight would inevitably bring mutual assured destruction, no?).
I read it as Butcher wanting to point out if it was a retaliation from some other superteam or a direct hit by Vought (after all, we already read Herogasm, he has not!).

Or maybe it's just an excuse to let us admire Butcher with a cleaver and a cheap Punisher pose. :D

[Kamakazi]

Well, were I to be totally honest, I'd admit that the whole "Ennis hates Teh Gheys" thing has just become a running joke for me at this point. :) Since I'm now "out of character", so to speak, I'll just go ahead and say it: I don't think Ennis particularly cares about homosexuals one way or the other. But if I start being rational in my Recaps, all the fun goes away.

The real problem with the "Hitler was a queer" comment is that it doesn't make much sense to me. How old is Stormfront supposed to BE, anyway? :) It's almost as though Ennis has Folded Time so that Stormfront can simultaneously be about 40-50 years old, while still having been old enough during WWII to care about someone insulting Hitler.

As for the Vought thing- thanks for explaining it to me. I guess it kind of makes sense now. I still maintain that if Ennis wanted me to care, he should have told us the guy's name, or given him and eye-patch, or a swank Jersey accent.

On Stormfront again: I tried in my mind to justify how that scene goes down. I really did. But at the end of the day, I just couldn't. Did you ever see "Minority Report"? Remember how at the first of the movie they tell us that the Precogs "can't see anything unimportant, like rape", and that it takes all three of them to see anything at all? And then by the end of the movie, the single girl is predicting when Umbrellas will be opened. I hate that kind of lazy writing. And for me, (and for you, I suspect) the entire Payback arc was lazy writing.

I'll bet either one of us could, in 30 seconds, write a better (or at least more logical) plot. Like maybe this one:

Frenchie: "Mon du! Ze portable radar we have purchased from ze Army Surplus store shows Stormfront incoming!"

Butcher: "Good thing we requisitioned some of these Surface To Air Missiles!"

As for the final scene, I suppose that maybe Butcher might think the CIA sent Payback, although I'm unsure what their motivation might be. So far, the entirety of the CIA appears to be represented by a horny MILF and a nerd with a wheelchair fetish. But then again, maybe we're supposed to believe that there literally is no one else in the CIA. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why the CIA would use The Boys to police the Supes, instead of just sending in guys with SAWs and flamethrowers, the way Vought does when they have a problem. :)

[blackphoenix]

In point of fact, Kamakazi, I don't think Stormfront engaging in hand to hand combat with the Boys is a stupid decision, at least from his standpoint. We readers are typically "God" as we see all and know all that happens in the universe. We tend to forget that the characters aren't omnipotent. As of the time of the beginning of this issue, Stormfront's only two encounters with the Boys were when the Female gouged his eye out (and he sent her to the hospital) and when Butcher threw the glass into his eyes. Both would be considered "cheap shots" in a fight, and would lead him to believe he could take them all out in a fair fight. Also, Butcher killed Payback in a dark, abandoned building, using the environment to his advantage. The battle in this issue took place in an open field, with no place for him to hide until his next strike. Also, we don't know for sure that he knew that Swatto, Mindroid and Soldier Boy were dead. He might have picked the glass out of his eye, decided to go straight home to regroup, and happened to find them there. So, if you consider that Stormfront had reason to believe he had the strength, homefield/environment advantage,, and was expecting backup, it wasn't that bad of a plan from his perspective. Of course, I doubt he took the time to formulate an attack plan anyway. I think he just went home, happened to find them there, got pissed off and attacked. Remember, the supes' penchant for recklessness, arrogance and lack of good judgment is the entire reason the Boys exist.

I've come to believe this arc was intended to show a different side of the Boys. We've seen them use their intelligence (Get Some), their sneakiness (We Gotta Go Now), their ruthlessness when they're the aggressors (Cherry), and now we see their muscle. I think this attack wasn't an outright attempt to exterminate the Boys, but a test to see how tough they are, and whether or not Butcher would release his Payback files after the initial attack on the Female. Stormfront would be able to take the fall, because he'd been a villain before (See Herogasm). When he didn't go straight to the press, they sent in the rest of the team to finish them off if they could. I think Butcher suspected this, which is why he chose to simply kill off Payback. He wants VA to think he wouldn't release his info, so they'll attack again, and he can get his confrontation with Homelander. I think his interrogation of Soldier Boy is his way of trying to confirm his theory on this matter.

[Kamakazi]

BP, maybe I'm just focusing too much on what *I* would do if I were a supervillian. (Always a goal of mine.) :D

[Boris]

@ Kamakazi


On Stormfront's real age: we are told that he was a kid in the Thirties and he was raised and trained by the Reich, so he's a 90 years old nazi "genuine goddamned article". As long as we're talking about people that can fly and shoot the hell off their mouth/eyes, thanks to an extreme version of the Super Soldier serum, I can live with that. :)

About this arc in general, I don't think it's lazy writing (at least not completely lazy, it has his moments). I've got more the feeling that Ennis deliberately wasted a potentially wonderful plot to indulge in his usual gross humor.

My ideal plot: Vought unleash Payback on the Boys, the Boys kill everyone except Stormfront (the only real heavyweight), Stormfront gets wounded, goes berserk and declares World War III (of course he is really a heavyweight, not a far-grown bully incapable to stand a brawl). Butcher does absolutely nothing to stop him, because he sees a crazed nazi Captain Marvel blasting half of New York to the ground as a wonderful killer for the Supes' popularity and Vought's business.
Hughie and the Boys decide that Butcher went too far, the U.S. Government takes direct action, Vought people find themselves in an entire world of trouble and are forced to react at all levels, the Seven get out of control as Homelander convinces himself that he's really Superman and goes off to save the world, pressure in all factions skyrockets, and all hell breaks loose.

At least is more interesting than "Allies reunited kick Nazis to the ground once more, this time literally." :(

[Boris]

I've come to believe this arc was intended to show a different side of the Boys. We've seen them use their intelligence (Get Some), their sneakiness (We Gotta Go Now), their ruthlessness when they're the aggressors (Cherry), and now we see their muscle. I think this attack wasn't an outright attempt to exterminate the Boys, but a test to see how tough they are, and whether or not Butcher would release his Payback files after the initial attack on the Female. Stormfront would be able to take the fall, because he'd been a villain before (See Herogasm). When he didn't go straight to the press, they sent in the rest of the team to finish them off if they could. I think Butcher suspected this, which is why he chose to simply kill off Payback. He wants VA to think he wouldn't release his info, so they'll attack again, and he can get his confrontation with Homelander. I think his interrogation of Soldier Boy is his way of trying to confirm his theory on this matter.

As the adage goes, "time will tell". :)

I don't think it was a test, however. Their sneak attack on the Boys is actually well planned: they could hit the Female because she's the only member that can be easily located (thanks to her "hobby") and then they used her to lure the others into a trap (the fake hospital). Looks like a direct assault to me. ;)

I see this arc more as a diversion and a mean to advance plot to a climax (what will the Boys do to react?). Hell, at least I hope it's a diversion. :confused:

[Kamakazi]

Your plot is about 100 times better than the one Ennis gave us, Boris. It would have been very cool to see Homelander convince himself that he's an actual Superhero. :)

Not to change the subject, but what do you think Butcher meant when he said "we could tell him who we are" to MM?

[Boris]

Your plot is about 100 times better than the one Ennis gave us, Boris. It would have been very cool to see Homelander convince himself that he's an actual Superhero. :)

Ennis idea, actually (at least according to latest developments in the Seven, Homelander seems more and more frustrated of his role as "some kind of f*ck*ng facilitator", as he "tought he was a superhero". Quite promising, if Ennis will take it to a logical conclusion and not abort it after a couple of issues ;))



Not to change the subject, but what do you think Butcher meant when he said "we could tell him who we are" to MM?


Well, it's maybe the most interesting bit in the whole arc.

By now, we should know very well that he and the Boys aren't exactly saints, but we still don't know zip about who they are and where they come from (apart some ambiguous references here and there), and chanches are that they aren't "good guys" at all.
It's the "shadowy past" thing I was discussing in another thread.

Now, given that MM was discussing about Hughie losing faith in the entire Boys thing, Ennis may want to suggest that, even if they look more like a bunch of mass murderers and assorted psychos (and in that they are far more similar to their enemies than Butcher can admit), the Boys have solid and good reasons to do what they do, and all we and Hughie have to do is wait and see (after all, it's MM's origin issue next month).

Remember that the whole superhero affair is going on since WWII, that Mallory was already working on it at the time (see "I tell you no lie, G.I." for the Legend mentioning it) and that the whole Boys thing stinks very bad (see issue 24, the Legend hints at some very bad things they've done and Butcher asks him - in a menacing tone - if he went on too much about Mallory).

There's indubitably something we should know. ;)

[Boris]

As the adage goes, "time will tell". :)

I don't think it was a test, however. Their sneak attack on the Boys is actually well planned: they could hit the Female because she's the only member that can be easily located (thanks to her "hobby") and then they used her to lure the others into a trap (the fake hospital). Looks like a direct assault to me. ;)

I see this arc more as a diversion and a mean to advance plot to a climax (what will the Boys do to react?). Hell, at least I hope it's a diversion. :confused:

I've read again the whole arc, and all in a sudden I saw the light:

It may actually be a parody of The Avengers, but the parody here is not Payback, but The Boys themselves!


Think of the classical Avengers' story cliche: some incredibly powerful foe (usually a team of villains) poses a threat to the world and more specifically to our heroes.
They manage to hit a member of the team bad (often a minor character, or someone we could care less for, like the Vision), and it's war. The Avengers strike back and blast half the enemy team except the more powerful ones. Things go on until one of the big guys (Cap, Thor or Iron Man) faces The Ultimate Villain but he nearly loses, and then, lo and behold, Avengers unite! Everybody (including people coming back from arcs of ages ago) shows up and saves the day.

Think of the Self Preservation Society now: the plot, the narration, the battles, the language. It's a bloody parody of the parody. Devil of an Ennis!!!