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Superheroes and The Boys: True Lies Whether Satire or Straight
If you had one, what would your superpower be?
I just asked Bruce, if you could be a superhero, what would your superpower be?
“Bliss,” he said. “I could bliss myself out in an instant, and bliss everyone else out, too.”
Bliss (n) perfect happiness; great joy.
Gee whiz, I thought. Would even the world’s most-evil superhero Homelander finally be happy?
Instant (and lasting) bliss would throw a monkey wrench into the plotlines of the not-so-funhouse, not-so-distorted mirror to our society that is Amazon Studios’ The Boys.
If you’re like me, there’s a whole world out there who are completely sick of Marvel superheroes, their tweeny non-problems and tissue thin personalities, and who don’t consider DC’s offerings of “darkness” like the Joker or bland, upstanding heroism like Superman to be much of a replacement. This sentiment is obviously one of the inspirations for the twisted, depraved, cynical, hard-R-rated The Boys, a comic-turned-TV-series that is a lot more spot-on in its criticism of our present-day Western (US-centric) society than the most bitter satires have been in the past. The Boys goes past where Dr. Strangelove feared to tread and Don’t Look Up so fecklessly failed and…
