Boy, Oh, Boys!

Long overdue, on this blog 

-this neck o' the woods 

in the cyberspace identifying as 

TLB Prime Network 

subsidiary of the 

Luminous World Order- 

...well, then... 

THE BOYS 

in their prime on 

the other Prime 

~ Amazon Prime ~ 

FINALLY GET THEIR DUE 

and all that's coming to them 

courtesy of *me* 

✨️ Luminous Luciano ✨️

NOW REMEMBER, 

BOYS - 

*THE FAIR USE ACT* 

for the purpose of reviewing, 

analyzing, pondering the 

impact such things have 

on society, the world of 

entertainment 

AND MORE...! 

THIS IS WHAT THIS IS! 

Let's get to it then: 

Since its very inception as a comic-book, 

a lifetime ago it seems, via the queer quill 

of one Garth Ennis, THE BOYS 

have been, primarily, a distorted 

and perverse twist on DC's 

time-honoured Justice League. 

For, you see now, 

Ennis has it for his former employer, 

it would appear... 

That'll teach DC 

to hire hacks like that 

instead of wordsmiths such as 

Mike... Ty... and ME!!! 

But that's another story... 

He's not that good at avoiding, truly...

 

That is the guy - the originator 

of this dreadful dreck 

that somehow inspired -heck, saved- 

showrunner extraordinaire 

Eric Kripke... 

Because, let's face it now: 

if not for those Boys, 

what would Kripke be doing?!? 

THIS was the SAGA for him 

~ tailor-made... 

Kripke strikes me as, equal parts 

Lex Luthor and Dr. Sivana 

all wrapped-up as a 

geeky version of 

Zack Snyder. 

And the "saga" he's told here 

-after years of his Supernatural- 

is one rife with bad taste, 

skin-crawling horrendousness 

and stomach-turning moments 

- as the source material 

put out by Ennis 

always was and always will be. 

It could, perhaps, pass 

on the comic-booky page 

but, really now ~ 

this sick material 

(which routinely inspires 

even sicker ideas for Kripke) 

didn't deserve the transition 

so to be made "more real" 

as it's given life on Prime... 

Wasn't there any other comic-booky 

you could've pilfered instead, Eric? 

As it is, this sick "saga" starts out, 

in its Prime live action 

adaptation anyways, 

with the tragedy 

of a guy who loses his girlfriend 

in the most awful, disgusting 

and unexpected way... 

After that, Hughie (the guy; 

although I keep calling him 

Meg Ryan's bastard son!) 

begins seeing his girlfriend's ghost 

but just for a while there... 

that doesn't last very long at all  

as the show's writers lose interest 

very quickly (so much for the 

poor actress' job security! 

She never had any, of course - 

she was killed off in the 

very first episode!!!) 

And, soon enough, Hughie is involved 

with a superheroine; 

the neophyte of the Seven team, 

Starlight! 

Now ~ we mentioned creator Garth Ennis'

willingness/obsession with DC's 

Justice League when he 

came up with "The Seven" ~ 

but fanboys of The Boys 

see a lot of other influences there 

- in peripheral characters too 

and all over the place: 

Kimiko - a real killer  (she's the former Katana, too; so I call her "K.K." - 

it could be worse, you know!

A third K could so easily be thrown in here, just for good measure: given that 

her real name is Karen 

And she has proven to be one...) 

with a killer healing factor as well 

- so they say she's a female take 

on Marvel's Wolverine. 

That's it. Unilaterally. And without 

any nuance, actual depth, nothing! 

No Lady Shiva. No Vixen. 

No other female character 

could have possibly inspired her... 

No. It's all Logan. 

What a lack of imagination!!! 

Starlight is not Stargirl or Captain Carol Danvers Marvel - no, that would be too easy (?) as well as too accurate, perhaps? Fanboys would rather call her an 

unlikely amalgam of Mary Marvel 

{lest you call her Sally Shazam now ~ 

like I do!} and Marvel's mostly 

useless & irrelevant Dazzler!!! 

Again: a lack of imagination 

but in a different way... 

Black Noir has some Batmannish aura, sure, but his invulnerability (though erratic - very much so) 

would make me think of the DCAU's 

Amazo or Forager or Ferro...?

However, the similarities with both 

Snake-Eyes and Deathstroke 

are right on! 

The Deep is obviously inspired by 

Aquaman in style and Namor 

in all of his irksome traits! 

Overall, he is more Marineman gone bad ~ it's just so unfortunate that the actor reminds us so much of one-time Aquaman Justin Hartley (a twisted funhouse mirror image of him) and he's the one who got to portray his seaborne character for the long term while Justin's honest-to-gosh take was a one-off pilot episode some turds now claim never even existed and must be just fake A.I. fare...!!! 

IMDB exists for a reason,  

you idiots! 

Double, triple, quadruple & quintuple 

check, you lazy bums! 

None of you ever saw Hartley's 

interview with Larry King 

where he reveals how he was preparing 

to build his entire life (read: deals and sponsorships and stuff!) around 

🫧✨️ BEING THE AQUAMAN ✨️💦

It truly is a shame it's gotten to this as 

Hartley's Aquaman was the best too; 

better than Alan Ritchson's 

on Smallville and better than 

Momoa on the big screen!!! 

But that's another story... 

QUEEN MAEVE, of course, is 

a mostly lesbian (in the comic-bookies, Ennis made her far more promiscuous and in a bisexual way) 

non-related to Greek mythology 

alternate Wonder Woman. 

Me, I am amazed the fanboys 

don't pretend there's 

inspiration here from 

Marvel's Valkyrie... 

Or Thundra (rather than DC's Barda) 

Or Marvel's new acquisition: 

Angela! 

Red Sonja, while you're at it!

Sheena of the Jungle?!? 

What is Ka-zar's wench's name, again?!? 

But we're getting carried away... 

The royalty here was present only as 

a former flame of Homelander 

and exited the show as quickly 

as possible... 

{Though she should reappear in the 5th

and last season ~ and surely will.} 

The super tyrant (though a man-child 

at best ~ alas, one with super powers) 

was given other flings, by Kripke's 

writer team tinkering with 

Ennis' comic-booky lore... 

Homelander is a vain evil Superman 

- one that you cannot ever think of 

capable of a redemption arc. 

Then again, the idiots behind Invincible 

did redeem the ignoble Omni-man 

who slaughtered his whole version 

of the League... 

So anything is possible 

especially in the realm of "supes" 

where nothing is sacred 

{oftentimes if not always} 

no one stays dead 

and everything (else) is relative 

the queer quills behind Prime's Boys 

and its unlikely spin-off  

might have something just like that 

all planned up and ready to go indeed... 

The female (twist on) Stormfront 

was mercifully taken out of her misery 

and various other characters were 

killed throughout four seasons 

(so many actors freed from this hell; 

a body count, verily, as heavy 

if not heavier than The Sopranos!) 

but, alas, there remains a cast 

of mistreated characters 

who don't always get to lash out 

back at their sicko scribes 

like The Deep got the chance to 

at the end of season four... 

Scenes like these {as much as the 

enduring mistreatment of characters} 

reflects back on the original characters 

that these guys are the distorted clones 

of, in a funhouse mirror of horror way! 

A-Train is a poor man's Flash; 

a character unfortunately named Ezekiel 

was actually just another Elongated Man;

Soldier Boy is Captain America 

(not Commander Steel; not Americommando and not General Glory!) gone seriously bad; 

Termite was a disgusting take on Ant-Man (leave the Atom out of this one, too!) 

and of course there's The Deep 

who is the one lucky boy here 

-out of all of these characters- 

to get this golden opportunity 

to lash out right back at 

the sad excuses for  

*storyteller* 

that DC/Marvel/ETC 

have given the chance to 

mistreat and misuse 

ALL of those characters 

at different times; 

the originals as well as the clones. 

And, yes, seeing The Deep 

punch a hole through 

that sad excuse for a scribe 

- as horrible as it was - 

felt like just and sweet revenge 

for not only Deep but 

for Aquaman and Namor as well! 

Both of them have been poorly treated 

over the years, by their respective 

publishers and editors 

- publeechers and preditors - 

and this was like both guys 

using The Despicable Deep's voice 

(and fist!) to finally fight back! 

It was like Aquaman punching Jeph Loeb 

or Namor... well... everyone who's 

ever written Namor could only 

do him dirty, as he is the lousiest 

anti-hero there ever was... 

Maybe he'd punch Bill like that? 

But that's another story... 

The actual "BOYS" of the show, 

of course, are the non-powered, 

overall pathetic A-Team wannabees 

whose hatred of the "supes" is so visceral they are willing to risk it all 

just to off a single one of them! 

{They do, mind you - and ridiculously easy too, very early on; when they take out the Invisible Man stand-in 

(to call him a lookalike would be odd)

immediately avenging Hughie's 

girlfriend, in effect... 

That seems so long ago now ~ 

with all the gross demises 

that have been enacted 

in the course of some thirty episodes 

The Boys' leader reminds me of 

an insignificant Marvel mutant character 

barely remembered in X-Men continuity: 

Black Tom Cassidy? 

And they call him "Butcher" ~ eh? 

To make it interesting, he gains powers temporarily and is able to tango 

that way, mano-a-mano, with 

the likes of Homelander 

and Soldier Boy... (!) 

Garth Ennis' chaotic and creepy comic-booky undergoes continuous changes under Eric Kripke's live action 

serial adaptation; 

as we saw a mere moment ago, 

Stormfront became a female character 

so that Homelander could have a 

girlfriend, for a time... 

Soldier Boy wasn't Homelander's father in the comic-bookies --- 

it would be like saying 

Captain America is Superman's dad 

and even a weirdo like Ennis would have never uttered such heresy! 

{At the same time, DC has flirted with 

various evil Supermen takes; 

and they finally had a Nazi 

Aquaman in a recent 

Justice Society animated 

feature released at the height 

of The Boys craze...!!!

But #that'sanotherstory!} 

Amazon Prime's THE BOYS 

(along with their spin-off) 

are their own {very nasty} beast! 

The tortuous journey of those Boys 

is finally coming to a conclusion now 

(cannot use the word climax here) 

WITH SEASON FIVE (5) 

for which there will surely be

five trailers as well... 

The apocalyptic storyline it has 

cornered itself into 

comes to coincide 

with the chaos prevalent right now 

in the real world ~ ironically, 

most of all in the USofA 

on top of Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, 

Russia, Iran... etcetera.  

At blogging time, this is more than enough to wonder -in a Luminous way; 

not like Yahya and the FEIGEBOT- 

whether the Apocalypse will be said 

and done on Prime first 

Or will it get going in RL first!? 

The Boys have become, 

perhaps against their own will, 

forerunners of the Endtimes! 

It certainly cannot be credited 

to either Eric Kripke or Garth Ennis 

- much less the latter, yeah! 

It's just one of those epic coincidences 

THAT'S ALL: 

Homelander ~ take it home... 

The Golden Age (sort of) predecessors of The Seven 

are a squad of mercenaries that strike several key tones: 

the team's name being PAYBACK is one thing... 

Their leader being a Captain America type is another. 

(Invaders, much? Meh. Not so much! Nutso, really! 

A nutso take on the Liberty Legion, perhaps? 

Because these losers are no All-Star Squadron! 

They're no "All-Winners Squad" either! 

More like a Task Force X/Suicide Squad 

that doesn't quite gel, ever!) 

Overall, they're like an adult, very twisted take on 

Super Friends - complete with their own set of twins! 

The clone of Bucky being so inept and incompetent 

is truly the most precious thing, for me...! 

The Boys 

replaced, 

for that briefest of moments 

in TV lore and time, 

that trendy, grimey, hip new show 

that just came down the pike - 

or pile of shows that executives 

decided to green lit, 

with a wiley "ohh, let's give this 

a shot, why not!!!" 

And it snowballed ~ somehow...! 

It was *that show* - for at least 

two of its four seasons there... 

The must-see shocker! 

The one testing boundaries. 

The show people will talk about. 

The one made for binging, also. 

Though it was not fit for TV at all, 

it stands that comparison. 

Moreso than True Blood! 

Considerably moreso than Westworld! 

{But not quite in GOT league!}

It was The Sopranos with 

Super Powers! 

And it didn't reinvent anything 

when you look at it that way... 

All three of the HBO MAX classics 

(especially The Sopranos) 

stand the test of time 

{It obviously goes a hundred-fold 

for the damned GOT...!!!} 

and they can be watched again and again 

while once you've subjected yourself 

to one binge watch of these BOYS 

you never want to see it again 

EVER - NEVER AGAIN!!! 

Even though streaming makes it 

SO DAMN EASY NOWADAYS... 

Streaming killed network TV 

-as sadistically as The Deep 

finished off that writer there- 

But, ultimately, it all stays 

THE SHAME!!! 

🏳️‍🌈