The Boys: Dear Becky #7

[history79]

Comments

[mazway_75]

While the parallel is "hit you over the head with a hammer" blunt, Ennis is right on some points here.

Specifically, watch Michael Moore carrying on his "I speak for blue collar workers" act when he walks the red carpet at Cannes and complaining "Biden just isn't liberal enough like we need" and others backing that. Yes, the "voting against your own interests" thing is constant but it's also some human nature and Billy also gets the point that some people just care about the immediate future and how much they can have over the long-term.

[starwolf_oakley]

Is Ellis trying to say "Here's how Billy got to 'Kill all superhumans and everyone with V in their system'"? Billy knows his big "Kill Them All" plan involves killing himself, his team, and any innocent non-superpowered people with V in their systems. Not exactly in his own best interests.

[dan_ingram]

So...what was the point of this mini, exactly?

[beyondthefringe]

They needed something to sell now that the show is so popular?
*shrug*

[cyberghostface]

Probably. At this point because of the show it's Dynamite's biggest original property so they're going to milk it.

[themajesticmoose]

One long barely literate edgelord rant about how superheroes suck and the world is bleak and terrible and how Garth Ennis's two dimensional and kind of racist OC's are So Much Cooler Than Stupid Old Superheroes mixed in with a big heaping of misogyny, nihilism and mind numbing socially conservative drivel by a "Writer" who hasn't published anything halfway readable in over two decades

So

Pretty much the same as everything else Garth Ennis has written in recent years

[tcampbell1000]

Kids, kids, you're both idiots!

I can take a little nose-tweaking in the form of Guy's self-involved brand of liberalism, and I've certainly heard both his and Billy's arguments before. But where they both lose me big-time is their desire to boil every TraaaAHEMCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH John Major voter down into one single personality. Really, it's the sheep and the wolves that are part of a diet-fascist's coalition, and a few other types too.

I reserve particular disdain for the cultists-- the ones who picked their political party based on something that made sense twenty years ago but vote the same way now as then primarily because they're loyal to a team identity. Like, y'know, the Republicans who picked their party because they believe in a strong military, but don't blink when Trump threatens military spending so he can try to destroy free speech on the internet now that he's about to be kicked off Twitter. Say what you will about The Boys, but at least it foregrounds the importance of realizing when the side you've picked no longer aligns with your values.

Anyway, cultists and wolves and sheep... well, that's getting closer, but the point is this political shit's too complicated for any self-satisfied bloke with a few beers in him to turn into a simple morality tale. To read generously, I'd say that both Guy and Billy are generalizing for the same reason: to justify who they are, their different but not so very different martyr complexes. And to feel a little less alone: Butcher diagnoses Guy's bookish isolation and he seems more outgoing on the surface, but he's lying to everyone, plotting to kill everyone he knows, and spending this whole miniseries talking to a dead woman about how fucked-up he is.

It's too bad there's not more to the 2020ish political chatter here and in issue #1, because that chatter is the only part that feels like Ennis is groping toward some new point that The Boys comics series didn't already make. Hughie's got some PTSD from his time with a bunch of super-killing savages, but he'll be okay. He and Annie will be okay. Butcher let the abyss of hatred consume him, but it happened slowly enough that Hughie and some little part of him prevented him from flat-out genocide. The other Boys characters... were also there. I mean, I am glad the series didn't try a big swerve and split up Annie and Hughie as they fled Billy and Becky's reanimated corpses, but all in all, it feels like this one's mostly skippable.

[mazway_75]

The U.S. election shows this as it's obvious that yes, a lot of people voted for Biden but then stuck to Republicans downticket as they hate Trump but still didn't want Democrats in control.

Then there are those business owners who normally would be against Trump but afraid Biden will do a national lockdown to hurt them so went for the guy ready to protect their livelihood (ignoring the pandemic is damaging that anyway).

Yes, it's easy to lump folks into one side or another and obviously, backers of Trump are harder to defend given what else they put up with. But I know several conservatives who openly go "this is not the GOP I joined" even as some liberals think Biden is "too moderate for us." It's a lot harder lumping into one big group nowadays despite how easy it can seem.

[lordultimus]

Call me in a year when we can actually determine if Republicans are eating each other or not.

[themajesticmoose]

"What if we're not sheep, what if we're wolves?"

I'm sure that Ennis thinks that this is oh terribly deep and clever and that he's making such a profound and meaningful point here with this poorly written garbage but the fact is I don't view people with right wing views as sheep OR as wolves and I never have done.

I view them all as garbage.

Worthless, repulsive garbage.

And the reason I wouldn't compare them to animals is because I think animals have more of a right to exist than they do and I wouldn't want to insult an innocent animal by comparing it to one of these repulsive pieces of shit. Put simply when I look at someone who holds right wing views I don't think "Why do they feel that way?"

I think "You should have been aborted"

All of this pretentious bollocks about why bad people do bad things but the fact is I don't remotely care whether they act out of malevolence or ignorance. I genuinely don't care whether its greed or desperation.

I despise them all just the same.

[reveen]

Meanwhile in 1870 Karl Marx explodes with uproarious laughter, but has no idea why.

Billy, that's what we call false consciousness. It's when you think you know the score within the class hierarchy, but you don't. Based on that last line I think that if you weren't already committed to the whole superhero genocide thing you'd be a perfect mark for one of those dudebro MLM scams that get advertised on Youtube.

[dan_ingram]

"We're not sheep, we're wolves."

I've found that the people who say that are less wolves and more feral dogs looking for a piece of (metaphorical) meat.

[themajesticmoose]

My first thought was "Careful there Billy, you might cut yourself lording over all that edge"

[lonewolf23k]

Billy's the kind of guy who'd have rallied behind Trump, wouldn't he?

[themajesticmoose]

The first thing we learn about him is that he's a sad violent fuckwit desperate to hurt people, the second thing we learn is he's a fascist and the third thing we learn is that he's the kind of trash that's bigoted against people for their sexuality or the kind of sex they enjoy

So yeah he is absolutely the kind of repulsive disgusting piece of shit that would have voted for that nazi pedophile that calls itself Donald Trump