A review by crookedtreehouse
The Boys Volume 7: The Innocents by Garth Ennis
4.0
The idea of writer Garth Ennis sending the characters from The Boys to interact with a team made up of developmentaly disabled superheroes should set off alarm bells for anyone who prefers to stay away from schlocky comics. And while I certainly wouldn't call this collection subtle, Ennis has definitely reigned himself in. Not entirely, but a fair amount.
There's still the infantilization of one of the heroes, Tourette's used as a humor device (but mainly to point out another character being awful, I don't think you're meant to laugh at the character, just be angry at the character who laughs at him), and of course a potential rape scene, because Ennis.
While the surface story at the heart of this volume is Hughie conducting surveillance on a parody of DC's Legion Of Superheroes, this book is mainly about trust between The Boys, and trust between Hughie and Starlight. And, in that regards, this is a five star book. It's easy to see where every character is coming from, as they are all upset about being decieved while also deceiving the people they're angry at.
We also have the Believe festival from the TV show, even though this takes place much much later in the story. Like much of the transition between media, the TV version is much more affecting and well plotted. We don't need the joke about the main religious hero having a bunch of young sidekicks, and The Homelander pointing out that there's blood on their seats when they get up. We didn't need The Female getting revenge on a child by peeing on his lolapalooza. The only thing that's in the story that could have been interesting in the TV show is what The Homelander does to the Christians who win a chance to fly with him.
This volume and volume two are by far my favorites of the series, but this is the one I would recommend to more people, as you don't have to endure As Much of the hate speech (there's still some in this volume; massively toned down so that it's only the absolute worst characters saying it, but it's there).
There's still the infantilization of one of the heroes, Tourette's used as a humor device (but mainly to point out another character being awful, I don't think you're meant to laugh at the character, just be angry at the character who laughs at him), and of course a potential rape scene, because Ennis.
While the surface story at the heart of this volume is Hughie conducting surveillance on a parody of DC's Legion Of Superheroes, this book is mainly about trust between The Boys, and trust between Hughie and Starlight. And, in that regards, this is a five star book. It's easy to see where every character is coming from, as they are all upset about being decieved while also deceiving the people they're angry at.
We also have the Believe festival from the TV show, even though this takes place much much later in the story. Like much of the transition between media, the TV version is much more affecting and well plotted. We don't need the joke about the main religious hero having a bunch of young sidekicks, and The Homelander pointing out that there's blood on their seats when they get up. We didn't need The Female getting revenge on a child by peeing on his lolapalooza. The only thing that's in the story that could have been interesting in the TV show is what The Homelander does to the Christians who win a chance to fly with him.
This volume and volume two are by far my favorites of the series, but this is the one I would recommend to more people, as you don't have to endure As Much of the hate speech (there's still some in this volume; massively toned down so that it's only the absolute worst characters saying it, but it's there).