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Comment by magic_hamster | Hacker News Reader

The Boys shows a realistic version of superhero reality where powers actually create huge problems in the physical sense. It is combined with very juicy gore to increase the effect. A lot of it happens ny mistake.

That alone is an interesting take, but it gets better when dealing with the actual heroes. It's a great parody of Marvel and plenty of cultural queues. They explore a reality where the superheroes are marketable products and everything they do is for the optics. In reality, they are horrible, horrible people with a God complex that often do horrifying things.

It's the best superhero story I enjoyed in a long, long time.

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Eh. I don’t buy it. So many people think it’s smarter to be cynical. I don’t. Anime does this all the time ever since evangelion. So many mangakas crawling over each other to show how much more depraved humanity really is than the last.

I haven’t seen the boys so I can’t comment on it specifically but I would ask, is it really “realistic” or is it just cynical?

> I haven’t seen the boys so I can’t comment on it specifically but I would ask, is it really “realistic” or is it just cynical?

It's a different take. In a world where some people have absolute power, would they get absolutely corrupted?

The answer (from The Boys) is not so clear cut.

See that’s where I have a problem.

Spider-Man isn’t a series that says what would happen if a dude got spider powers and fought crime. It’s a story about a specific person, built around specific themes. Stories aren’t simulations.

Some people think that if a deconstruction work has characters die, because normally some people would die if they fight all the time, that it must be a realistic portrayal of what would happen. That’s false! It’s still a story and glossing over the boys it certainly doesn’t seem very different. It’s not a story about what would happen if superheroes were real and had too much power. It’s a story about some specific assholes mostly who have superpowers.

The real answer is that if people gained super powers, they would not start being superheroes to begin with.

We can discuss that, but first let me recommend the movie Chronicle (2012) which really is as realistic as I imagine it would get.

Conerecing The Boys, it's not about humanity as much as it's about American stuff. It's being very very specific with its criticism. Homelander is not just a psychopath, he's a product, literally, of American culture (represented by conglomerate Vaught).

Also, while The Boys has criticism and some characters might not survive, it's also very tongue in cheek and tries to entertain rather than lecture. Personally I have fun watching it. If nothing else, it manages to surprise me, which is not something I could say about superhero movies in the last ten years.

> It’s not a story about what would happen if superheroes were real and had too much power. It’s a story about some specific assholes mostly who have superpowers.

No, the absolute power/absolute corruption in The Boys is not in the superheros.

It explores both. Some characters are cynical. Others, like (one of) the main characters Huey, is a hopeless romantic who believes in the basic goodness of people and doing the right thing. He also listens to a lot of Billy Joel.

If fact, I would argue that the juxtaposition of the main characters being essentially polar opposite’s is what gives the show most of its effective (dark) comedic moments.

The Boys is the closest a studio can come to producing realistic reactions, effects, and backstory for superheroes.

The cynicism is portrayed, and expounded upon, by several of the show's characters.

It's not cynicism for cynicism's sake, or just to be edgy. The dystopian feel that the series imparts isn't corny or overdone. I imagine this is how a world with superheroes would act/react.

What other anime do you have in mind? You're ignoring a lot of series to get that impression. Most anime are based on manga out of Shonen Jump, which follow Jump's guidelines of friendship, adventure, and overcoming obstacles through teamwork.

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