Saturday, April 7, 2012

Review- THE BOYS VOL. 1: THE NAME OF THE GAME (LIMITED EDITION)


THE BOYS VOL. 1: THE NAME OF THE GAME (LIMITED EDITION) (Dynamite, 2009; Hardcover)

Collects The Boys Nos. 1-6 (cover dates October, 2006- February, 2007)

Writer: Garth Ennis

Artist: Darick Robertson

I have too many irons in too many fires to keep up with everything going on in this hobby, case in point being The Boys. Everyone was raving about this series when it first came out, and I just shrugged my shoulders and kept on reading whatever I was reading at the time. This was a birthday present last year, and now I can finally comment on the book. First of all, I find it lame when thinly veiled movie pitches like this are made. They “cast” that Shaun of the Dead dude in a role which, in my opinion, detracts from the reading experience, not adds to it. I dislike many modern movies, and when a comic books does it's best to be a storyboard for a modern style movie, then it already has a strike against it in my book.

That said, The Boys was still mostly enjoyable. The basic premise is solid enough: A CIA sponsored team of superhero “police” are formed to keep the ever expanding and increasingly arrogant and reckless superhero population in check. There's a bit more to it than that, but I am not one to give a detailed synopsis in my reviews. You can go to Wikipedia for that sort of thing.

The gripe, with S P O I L E R S- Comics like this are branded as being For Mature Readers, which typically means that there is excessive violence, gratuitous nudity, and profanity. Think of it as the R rating for movies. The incident where they lost me is when the superheroes in The Seven required Starlight to give them fellatio in order to join the team. I understand that this was done to show what sleazeballs these guys are, but Ennis lost me there. That scene wasn't mature, it was fanboy* pandering crap. (*Term fanboy used in its original, pejorative sense.)

I don't hate superheroes. I don't think that superheroes are a tired or outdated concept that I'm too cool for. This comic book is for those still reading comic books to say “Yeah, I read them, but I am so cool that I am totally over superhero comics.” I am out for volume 2. I will not support this series financially. Consider this a rental. I may borrow my friend's hardcovers at some point if my curiosity eats me alive, but I refuse to support this series, even though I enjoyed it.

The OCD zone- This hardcover does have sewn binding, but it is glued flush to the spine. The paper is extremely thin, bordering on being a coated tissue paper, so the result is that it does indeed lay flat. It can be read comfortably with one hand, which is the desired result for enjoying a book, at least in my OCD world. So yeah, it is a decent package overall, even if the paper kind of sucks.

3 comments:

  1. I have the first 2 absolutes, but like you said, the whole over the top scenes are keeping me from getting volume 3. The back story is good, but the comic focuses too much on the "fanboy" garbage.

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  2. Too bad about the paper stock. I was thinking of getting these two HCs and then vol 2 and 3 of the OHCs -- I think instocktrades still has them. Would I be better off with just the trades all around?

    I like the series; I have read most of it. I mentioned on MMW -- noetichatter -- that I thought it has run its course and could have been 50 issues just as well as 75 + minis, or whatever it ends up being.

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    Replies
    1. Go for the OHCs. No idea how the paper in the trades are, but it certainly can't be any worse. It all really depends on your OCD level's comfort zone.

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