Full disclosure, I am a comic book nerd. The last twenty years of Hollywood has made me happier than I ever thought possible. Comic book movies and TV shows have been awesome. Gone are the days of Batman and Robin and Superman IV! We are in the new golden era. And the nerds have inherited the Earth.
But an Earth with superheroes means a ton of violence and destruction.
You saw what happened to Sokovia.
With all this great comic book stuff coming out, it was about time someone did a full deconstruction of what it means to have people with powers living among us.
Movies like Batman v. Superman briefly touch on what a world with heroes feels like, but no one goes into how it affects average citizens. That's why I was so pumped when I heard Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were adapting The Boys for the small screen.
This teaser debuted at New York Comic Con, and it was spectacular.
The comic came out in 2006 and ran until 2012. It was a deconstruction of the superhero genre and a black comedy with a very dark core. It had one of the best openings of all time, where a guy proposing to his girlfriend watches hr decapitated as a superhero gets thrown into her.
Total mic drop.
Now, as people get a bit oversaturated with comic content, it feels like the right time to see a TV series dedicated to asking whether or not having superheroes is such a great idea?
The newest trailer gives you more of a sense of the TV show's tone.
I think a general lesson to take away from this is that there's always room for a show that accurately dresses down part of the collective consciousness. The Boys, when it was written, appealed to comic readers who had been steeped in the hero world for generations. Now it's being adapted to appeal to a general public who may not be reading comics, but sees heroes across media.
If you can spot a trend happening, it's always great to find the "realist" version of that to make an idea fresh.
Unforgiven took a swing at Westerns.
Shaun of the Dead took a bite out of zombies.
And now The Boys tackles heroes. It's about an elite CIA group tasked with keeping these people in check.
Got a great idea like that? Join our FREE pilot writing seminar.
Based on the comic book by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, The Boys comes from creator Eric Kripke (Supernatural) and producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. It stars Karl Urban, Elisabeth Shue, Erin Moriarty, Antony Starr, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Chace Crawford, Nathan Mitchell, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, and Simon Pegg. The Boys has received an eight-episode order from Amazon.
So get ready for some ass-kicking of epic proportions.
The official synopsis for The Boys is:
"In a world where superheroes embrace the darker side of their massive celebrity and fame, THE BOYS centers on a group of vigilantes known informally as “The Boys,” who set out to take down corrupt superheroes with no more than their blue-collar grit and a willingness to fight dirty. THE BOYS is a fun and irreverent take on what happens when superheroes – who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as Gods – abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. It’s the powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about “The Seven,” and Vought – the multi-billion dollar conglomerate that manages these superheroes. THE BOYS is scheduled for a 2019 release."
