By: Brittany Sciacca
Imagine for a minute what it would be like if instead of working diligently to save your life, nurses and doctors used their positions of power to prolong your suffering or end your life. Imagine if a firefighter showed up at your house, and instead of pulling you from the flames, they locked you inside and watched you burn. What would happen if our military, which is supposed to defend, instead turned on the citizens they were charged to protect? These scenarios sound horrible, and like something out of a nightmare, but they happen even in this world. Now, imagine if the hero you were waiting for was a superhero…
Graphic Novels
In the epic series of graphic novels The Boys Garth Ennis and co-creator/illustrator Darack Robertson explore what would happen if the superheroes created to protect us were actually the biggest threat to our safety. In a gory, gut-wrenching, and always shocking series of books, Ennis and Robertson create a world not unlike our own, but with one horrible twist: narcissistic, psychopathic, and sexually depraved superhumans who often do more harm than good. There are beacons of hope in the “Supe” world who actually want to do good and help people, but typically the heroes in this story are secretly up to horrible things.
The Amazon Series
In 2019 Amazon released the first season of the show based on the series of the same title. Written and produced by Eric Kripke, and starring Jack Quaid (son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan) as protagonist Hughie Campbell and Karl Urban as Billy Butcher- the scruffy, foul-mouthed, superhuman hating leader of the ragtag group known as “The Boys.” After the tragic death of his girlfriend by one of the Seven, a corporate-backed group of superheroes, meek Hughie Campbell is thrust headfirst into a bloodbath world that the Billy-Joel-loving former good boy probably never dreamt possible. Like many young men and women, Hughie grew up idolizing heroes, and it is with Hughie on his journey that we find out the true nature of the superheroes in his world.
The Boys’ America
In The Boys’ America, much like ours, corporations, politicians, and the elite class run the world and secret deals affect the global population in ways they do not realize or understand. Only in this alternate America, one corporation known as Vought has manufactured, marketed, and monetized superheroes into a multi-billion-dollar industry. The superheroes are treated like movie stars and their depraved behavior is swept under the rug so as not to affect the bottom line of their parent company. In the show, we see that there are usually two very extreme sides to each hero and that every action taken by superheroes in this other America is usually self-serving or for some ulterior motive that benefits the Supes or the shady corporate big wigs that fund their lifestyles.
What Would A World With ‘Heroes’ REALLY Look Like?
In this twisted world created by brilliant minds, we are allowed a very realistic glimpse into what life might actually be like if superheroes did exist. It is not a rosy, safe world where the only evil villains are outcasts with plans on world domination that they announce upon arrival, and are always foiled by the good guys with pure intentions. It is a world almost indistinguishable from ours, where the ones with the most power are the most corrupt, where the only real heroes are the average people who risk their lives to hold those in power accountable. In my humble opinion, I think that The Boys is not necessarily an “anti-superhero” tale, but rather a story that follows five unorthodox heroes who take on evil, even though that means putting themselves and those they love in danger. And after all, isn’t the desire to help and to save–no matter the cost to you– what being a hero is all about? Superpowers or not?
