Prime Video’s “The Boys,” adapted from the Garth Ennis comic book series of the same name, took the world by storm when it arrived on the streaming platform back in 2019, garnering a great deal of praise among critics and general audiences. There is a prevalent consensus that the series is even better than its source material by a wide margin. But that begs the question: Why do viewers consider the show to be better than the comic?
The short answer is that the show and comic have two wildly different interpretations of maturity.
One of the strengths of the show adaptation is that its characterization blows the original comic out of the water. Garth Ennis penned the original work as a satirical piece, first and foremost. Other deconstructions of the genre, like Alan Moore’s iconic “Watchmen” series, manage to turn these pastiche characters into nuanced characters in their own right, debatably even eclipsing the popularity of the obscure heroes that he based them on.Garth Ennis’ characters by contrast are almost cartoonish in their portrayal.
The novel almost feels like reading an extended MAD Magazine skit at times, only with more gore and shock value.
Take Soldier Boy, for example. Presented as a deeply nuanced character, Soldier Boy was the standout character of season 3 despite the rifts he causes in Billy Butcher’s insurgent group. Crass with his allies,and mercilessly brutal to his enemies, the character still has an underlying humanity, gleaned through the quieter moments he shares with the cast. There is a sense of honor to him, and he genuinely expresses remorse at the civilian loss of life as a result of a PTSD-induced activation of his powers. There are concerns over fatherhood, wanting to have kids desperately, and worrying about turning out like his own father.
So, where did this Captain America analog pull all of this nuance from? It’s not the original comic, that’s for sure. Because where this unaging icon of pseudo-patriotism, played by Jenson Ackles, was all-depth in the show, his comic counterpart is a shallow parody of Captain America who pees himself in a fight and makes a goon of himself out in the battlefield.
Garth Ennis’s admitted distaste for the superhero genre as a whole brought this on. Ennis finds the idea of costumed adventurers clownish and is unafraid to jam-pack that sentiment into any series he writes for. He is infamous for writing established characters in his stories in an exaggerated fashion, befitting his own viewpoints on the character while puffing up the grittier and more violent characters he prefers to write.
This is the guy who penned a whole series about The Punisher killing the entire Marvel Universe after all, despite the slew of demigods and armored Avengers who would realistically roll over him like it’s an average Tuesday afternoon, so let’s just put common sense back in the drawer..
Another aspect of the show that leaves its source material in the dust is its gentler touch when it comes to dealing with sensitive topics. One of the more prominent examples in the show’s first season is the workplace incidents of sexual harassment that affected the character Starlight upon joining the supposedly righteous superhero team, The Seven. The original novel presents the harassment so tastelessly , the showrunners considered cutting this scene from their adaptation altogether. In the comic the perpetrators were spouting cringe-worthy superhero catchphrases as they propositioned Starlight, but the show frames it with the seriousness that it warrants.
It is treated less like a juvenile attempt to make the reader uncomfortable and more like an accurate take on the horrors of a manipulative workplace environment.
Regardless of whether you’re a fan of Garth Ennis’ original comic or an exclusive show-watcher, it is undeniable that one of the show’s strengths over its source material is the greater level of maturity going into the production process. The show treats serious situations with the weight they deserve, and characters are better developed instead of being treated with all the care of a twelve-year-old’s first attempt at constructive criticism.
