Interesting, I was also considering posting a pieces of it, but I did once before and dear lord I hated that story. To you it might be a homage to those cop movies, and I can see where the interpretation comes from, but to me it was just awful. Ennis a three issue Batman story where Batman or any other actual GCPD police officers are side characters to his awesome, violent, uber-machismo former NYPD officers can stroll in to the city and be all that awesomeness. I especially love the scene where they lure GCPD officers in to a trap to create a distraction from themselves and then have the gall to be angry at those officers, or the scene where they try to execute a criminal in front of people and have the audacity to ask what crime was done. Or where the god of all men was so awesome that he could hear Batman lurking around, because hey, it's not that it was a Batmna book or anything.
And I've seen you raise the point that Ennis glorification of macho behaviour at early stages of his career, although I struggle to comprehend how it was only there for some extent in the story in question, but I think here's were we disagree at a fundamental level. For me, it is still there in his current work. He has done some really great stories, I will never deny that, but almost all of his stories which don't glorify that kind of behaviour involve war and people in them. To him, it almost seem that the only people who matter are people who experienced war and they always echo the same character traits. I can pick up an Ennis story by random and pretty much guess spot on what his main character is going to be like and how everything is going to be solved.
As for The Boys, I can again see why that would an interpretation of Ennis's story, but to me, it is a hypocritical story as the only person that really solves anything in the story is Billy through the use of sadistic violence. So while the story may have shown Billy to be a traumatized veteran uncapable of real human interaction, quite similar to Ennis's Punisher, it also makes Butcher and his methods the only effective ways to combat the threats of the world. That is why to me Ennis's story glorify violence and uber-machismo, as they are shown as the only solution to almost anything and the people using them as more of martyrs than sociopaths.
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And I've seen you raise the point that Ennis glorification of macho behaviour at early stages of his career, although I struggle to comprehend how it was only there for some extent in the story in question, but I think here's were we disagree at a fundamental level. For me, it is still there in his current work. He has done some really great stories, I will never deny that, but almost all of his stories which don't glorify that kind of behaviour involve war and people in them. To him, it almost seem that the only people who matter are people who experienced war and they always echo the same character traits. I can pick up an Ennis story by random and pretty much guess spot on what his main character is going to be like and how everything is going to be solved.
As for The Boys, I can again see why that would an interpretation of Ennis's story, but to me, it is a hypocritical story as the only person that really solves anything in the story is Billy through the use of sadistic violence. So while the story may have shown Billy to be a traumatized veteran uncapable of real human interaction, quite similar to Ennis's Punisher, it also makes Butcher and his methods the only effective ways to combat the threats of the world. That is why to me Ennis's story glorify violence and uber-machismo, as they are shown as the only solution to almost anything and the people using them as more of martyrs than sociopaths.