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A review by crookedtreehouse
The Boys Volume 8: Highland Laddie by Garth Ennis
2.0
While my biggest problems with parts of The Boys series is its over-the-top, unnecessary schlock, this book suffers from being a dull waste of time.
Hughie's origin story, that he and his friends were a cut-rate Hardy Boys who all grew up to be unusual adults doesn't add anything to the story at large. It isn't until Starlight shows up, and they spend two issues hashing out their problems in a way that doesn't warrant more than three or four pages, that this series seems to have any purpose other than Garth Ennis wants to be shocking, but isn't really.
Of the two of Hughie's young friends, one smells so bad that his family and him have to wear gas masks, and the other was the town jock who is now a transvestite (not a trans person, not someone exploring being non-binary, I'm using outdated language because it is an outdated character ... the character isn't treated insultingly but nor is the character just allowed to be a person who happens to be a large man dressed in clothes that are deemed feminine). I get it, Hughie has always been an outsider. This also could have been expressed in about two or three pages, as opposed to an entire mini-series.
You can easily skip this volume entirely when reading The Boys, and just assume that Hughie and Starlight made up off-panel after volume seven. You don't lose any plot points, character development or helpful insight.
I'm also really glad that they won't have to bother even trying to incorporate a single page of this into the TV series, since pretty much every part of this story conflicts with the canon of Season One.
Hughie's origin story, that he and his friends were a cut-rate Hardy Boys who all grew up to be unusual adults doesn't add anything to the story at large. It isn't until Starlight shows up, and they spend two issues hashing out their problems in a way that doesn't warrant more than three or four pages, that this series seems to have any purpose other than Garth Ennis wants to be shocking, but isn't really.
Of the two of Hughie's young friends, one smells so bad that his family and him have to wear gas masks, and the other was the town jock who is now a transvestite (not a trans person, not someone exploring being non-binary, I'm using outdated language because it is an outdated character ... the character isn't treated insultingly but nor is the character just allowed to be a person who happens to be a large man dressed in clothes that are deemed feminine). I get it, Hughie has always been an outsider. This also could have been expressed in about two or three pages, as opposed to an entire mini-series.
You can easily skip this volume entirely when reading The Boys, and just assume that Hughie and Starlight made up off-panel after volume seven. You don't lose any plot points, character development or helpful insight.
I'm also really glad that they won't have to bother even trying to incorporate a single page of this into the TV series, since pretty much every part of this story conflicts with the canon of Season One.