Was “the boys” meant to be any of those things? I found it entertaining and well done, who cares about categorizing the people in tights

If anything it is a satire on the trope and that’s it

I like the anti-hero in tights trope, it makes them more grounded

The new recruit going through with sexual harassment while being praised by her family and fans for being recruited? Wanting to be mad but also being a sexual being?

There is no grand lesson just a story, one relatable to a broadening audience

I watched it just after reading "7 habits of highly effective people". The entire time I watched I was critiquing the characters

1. They all lied, all the time, in different ways 2. There is zero trust between anyone. 3. I don't recall any female nudity (perhaps I've become more numb to it?) There was male nudity. 4. Even the "good guys" are terrible people. No one likes them, they are just as big of jerks as the "Heros". Main Character has PTSD from Episode One and it only gets worse (due to his own choices and actions).

It goes to the opposite extreme running the a basic premise of "everyone is a person", everyone has faults, everyone has needs.

The "best moral character" is perhaps Starlight, and she's abused, co-dependent on her mother, and struggling to come to terms with her new job requirements asking her to lie and confronting childhood beliefs and cultures (homophobia, premarital sex). In the show thus far: no one has dealt with their baggage. No one's trying to in a health way (The Deep might be an exception as he's seen talking with a Therapist, but he's far from "good").

Without having read the comics: I'm not sure the "good" guys win. The protagonist wins. The "factually right" guy wins. But even that has yet to happen in the show.

Wow. Thank you for linking to this. As an army brat I can relate to the transitions in the post-Vietnam Army to first Gulf War ( when dad finished his 20 ). He always felt that we should have kept some level of conscription, if only to ensure that folks from all walks of life ( including our political leaders ) were exposed and could influence military culture.

That's a pile of extremely poorly-supported claims strung together with only the occasional, vague gesture in the direction of facts.

I'm about 72% of the way through so far, and I'm really digging it. I was a bad person and converted it to ePub so that I could read it on my Kindle. I should send Wildbow some love with Paypal, given the sheer number of hours of entertainment I've received so far.

Seconded! Also, the criticism in this article about lack of diversity doesn't apply very much to Worm (and its sequel, Ward).

To give some examples -- one of the protagonists of Ward is gay, as are two of the antagonists. One of the protagonists is trans. One is black. Two are Hispanic. One of the side characters (a hero) is a recovering homophobe. Another side character is a white supremacist who's trying to turn over a new leaf.

One of the main villain groups in Worm are white supremacists -- and one of the heroes is a kid who leaves that life. Two of the protagonist villains (brother and sister) are black. There's a lesbian couple -- one a hero, one a rogue/villain. There's a character who I think would be called genderqueer? One of the protagonists is asexual.

It sounds like a lot, but there's a huge cast of characters, and it never felt tacked-on to me.

And so much of the story is about really, really traumatic stuff. It's really dark, sometimes horrifying, sometimes tragic, sometimes awesome, and overall really gripping. It's sort of ruined mainstream superhero media for me -- it seems so flat and predictable in comparison.

Highly recommended.

I often cite Worm as being one of the largest factors in my abandonment of the conventional Marvel/DC movies. They're so stale and ill-conceived by comparison.

I haven't watched the show, but as I remember it, the light side was pretty much absent from the comics. I assume they heavily deviated from the comics?

I'll know when its gone too far when they make "Crossed" into a TV series.

If you enjoyed The Karate Kid when you were younger, I would recommend Cobra Kai. It's a very good expression of the idea that everyone is the hero of their own story; everyone thinks they're the good guy, and yet everyone is a jerk in their own special way.