By Travis Johnson
Having successfully mounted a television version of Preacher that bears only a cosmetic resemblance to its comic book forebear, producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Eric Kripke look set to repeat the trick again with another Garth Ennis book, as word comes to us that Amazon have ordered an eight episode first season of The Boys.
Stunningly violent and frequently scatological in tone, The Boys is set in a universe all but overrun by superheroes, and follows the exploits of the titular covert strike team, whose remit is to keep the cape ‘n’ cowl crowd in line, using lethal force if necessary. It’s a savage indictment of superheroes as a concept and Ennis, along with artist Darrick Robertson, delighted in depicting thinly-veiled analogues of famous heroes as sociopaths, addicts, perverts, and worse (infamously, their version of the X-Men were a pedophile ring).
As you can probably guess, it was a controversial book, but it has its fans (personally, I think it hits more than it misses), and the broad humour and fearlessly offensive tone will certainly be a better fit for Rogen and co.’s sensibilities than Preacher, a more complex and thoughtful work than the frequent gore and dick jokes might have you believe.
This news follows years of possible screen adaptations of The Boys, with Adam McKay trying to get up a movie version back in 2010, and Rogen’s crew developing their take since 2015. Will it be any good? Possibly. At any rate, it can’t be worse than the Preacher TV series.
Seriously, Preacher sucks. Go read the comics instead. They’re amazing.
