I grow weary waiting for Garth Ennis to grow the fuck up.
I read The Boys One and Two [sic].
Garth Ennis has some interesting and possibly even insightful things to say about subjects like honor, duty, God, institutions, and the union of love and sex. He doesn't say them here. He's more interested in women begging to be degraded and dogs that have been trained to rape on command.
And, of course, slagging on superheroes. It does, however, tend to diminish the impact of anything you're trying to say about superheroes when the very first thing that happens with respect to superheroes* is, in fact, nothing that would ever appear in any superhero comic book whose purpose wasn't to tear down superheroes, specifically the dismemberment of a sympathetic character at a tender moment by the carelessness of a superhero during a superspeed pursuit.
*Not counting the lead character seeing superheroes fly overhead and remark, "I'm going to have you, you cunt."
In other words, Ennis has erected a straw man. He's not interested in pointing out or addressing any real problems the superhero genre might have.
I'll also add that the dismemberment serves to motivate a character into "The Boys", and it seems evident that he's meant to be taken as a wanker before and "The Boys" are going to turn him into a Man.
This juvenile, misogynistic, rape and revenge fantasy has no redeeming features whatsoever. It is shit, and it's an embarassing and condemnatory blot on the career of a man thirty-year-old boy with so much potential.
Posted by Greg at September 12, 2006 10:10 AM