‘The Boys’ Omnibus Volume Two – Ennis, Robertson, Higgins (Dynamite)

 


Page Count: 376 Pages

Just a quick one today as I’m trying to wrestle work into shape before I head out of the door; oh yes, and try to sort my CV out as well. Fun times :o)

This is the furthest I’ve ever made it into ‘The Boys’ though (at least until I can make it back to my flat and grab Volume Three) so I wanted to get something posted here before I have to get to grips with the other stuff.

So, with that said…

Desperate to understand the world that he’s now a part of, Hughie turns to the man behind it all – the bizarre figure known only as The Legend. Sixty years of the Vought-American corporation’s superhero agenda for America are soon revealed, with the worst of the secret of all beginning on 09/11/01. As Hughie’s affair with the beautiful young Annie January blossoms into love, The Boys take a run at Vought’s number one franchise, the G-Men, but neither they, G-Force, G-Coast, G-Style, G-Wiz nor the G-Nomads are about to give up their slice of the G-Pie. For the worst reasons in the world, their millionaire leader John Godolkin must be protected… even unto death.

Includes the stories ‘Good for the Soul’, ‘I Tell You No Lie G.I’ and ‘We Gotta Go Now’.

I’ve got the Omnibus Collection sat on my shelf, all waiting patiently to be read, so I already knew that reading this series was going to be a bit of an undertaking. Volume Two really pushes that message home though… We’re still tidying up, after the events of Vol. 1, but at the same time, there’s still a lot of introductory world building to get through, all of it drawing sweet parallels with ‘real life’ comics and having something to say about them at the same time. The parallels aren’t exactly subtle (I mean, ‘G-Men’?) but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Ennis has got something to say about super-heroes and he’s going to show us by making us look through a twisted lens at the comics we all love. I think that when you’re looking at a group of highly powered, violent (and possibly deviant) superheroes, the delivery of the message has to match the attitude of the cast. Ennis continues to do that very well here with a good mix of commentary set against a backdrop that, ‘supes’ to one side, felt real enough to make me feel a little uncomfortable reading (even while it remained very easy to keep turning the pages).

It’s ‘The Boys’ that we’re talking about here so any warnings I mentioned, in my last post, obviously still very much apply here. I had fun with it but you may not, just bear that in mind. What I would say though is that by keeping the focus solely on the Seven, the parallel with 9/11 was somehow delivered as garishly as you’d expect but, at the same time, very respectfully done in relation to the real life events.

There’s still a lot of ‘set-up’ to get through then but it’s so much fun to read that I was fine with it. Vought-American is starting to stir, in the background, as well and I’m hoping that this plot-line comes to the fore a lot more in Volume Three. I’ll let you know how it goes.

It’s still early days but my feeling, at the moment, is that I’m glad I bought all the Omnibus editions at once. Now I’m into ‘The Boys’, I don’t want to waste too much time trying to find the books… :o)

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