Mango

5y

I find it insidious when media is superficially progressive while reinforcing s*** like the CIA. See: Black Panther

Everest

5y

· edited

Damn that fight with Mark vs. Conquest

Whenever they get to that on the show, they gotta nail it & make that one of the craziest fights in tv history

theboy

5y

Oh yeah that I get

Idk it’s not like media can just start quoting Fred Hampton into the camera but Mark does go independent later and the final arc is about how Cecil’s dreams of a one world government kept in check by overwhelming force is ultimately bad

Mango

5y

Effective propaganda is implicit. You can establish worldviews that are built into a premise which makes them kind of invisible. Like you might not notice the comic wasn't very representational. You might not notice the show is representational, unless you're a reactionary bigot, until you set it beside the comic. Of course, Kirkman is trying to say something now by making it diverse. What you forget is that he was implicitly saying something when it wasn't diverse. He acknowledges that.

My point is that art doesn't have to be woke or agree with me politically. Don't care. But when something panders to wokeness while the rest of its ideology is pretty reactionary and vile, that's something I do find unsettling. The CIA does recruitment ads that target POC and marginalized people to legitimize an institution that has wrought nothing but horror. The fact they show up in stupid comic s*** as the good guys is gross.

The fact Omni Man is pretty much a Nazi, thus far, is the easy answer even Captain America uses to push back on its chauvinism and imperialism. "At least we aren't Nazis". Of course, key members of the CIA like Allen Dulles actually loved Nazis. The US hired a bunch after WWII. These are not distinct ideologies.

Also, I'm curious if the comics actually do eventually critique his work as an arm of the government. Lots of times they just turn it into a dynamic of "good actors vs bad actors" without an institutional critique. Alan Moore and Garth Ennis both understand that superheroes are inherently reactionary weapons. Any hero media that doesn't contend with that is telling you a lot.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy dumb superhero stuff. I just think the ones that take themselves a bit more seriously, like this show apparently does, need to be held to a higher standard than like Batman The Animated Series.

ragedsycokiller

5y

Read the whole series before you get into critiques like this. Cause again I don't want to spoil anything for half of the things you mention

SABMAN TURNT

5y

half the critiques in there were so off-base lmao

Mango

5y

Why can't any of you weirdos read a paragraph and take it as a whole? I don't care if they gender and race and sexuality swap everybody. Not the issue here. I don't find source material sacrosanct. The Boys doesn't even follow the comic at all. So when this does follow the comic with a few key changes, I notice the key changes. I also notice the nature of those changes.

Somebody said the story does get more critical of the nationalistic and militaristic stuff. That's the issue. Just stapling representational stuff onto that isn't an adequate redress. So that was my critique. Do you get it?

I read 4 volumes of the comic. Obviously I'm not aware of the plot turns you guys spoiled for me.

Josh

5y

oh you’re getting into the s\*\*\*s then. It starts getting crazier from there lmao. I don’t know how Kirkman is gonna do the next seasons, like if it’s 8 episodes per season but Angstrom deserves a whole season imo

Everest

5y

I was thinking a cool season 2 cliffhanger would be mark finding omniman on that planet with his son

but Omni-man has been a huge part of why this show is blowing up, I can’t see them having him gone for a whole season. Maybe S2 will be that stuff and then the cliffhanger will be something to do with Angstrom

Mango

5y

Starts with an attack on the White House where you get a secret service agent being humanized in a really cloying way who later shows up critiquing British aristocracy (while having defended a building that is meant to evoke the same power over the people). His life is threatened in that confrontation in a really manipulative way. Heroes being arms of the state goes examined. Same in the comics. They use Omni Man's imperialist ambition and racial supremacy as a way to paint this US intelligence network as ambivalent. But the show also starts doing a lot of representational recasting to obfuscate it further. Turning William gay, Amber black, the mother Korean. It's rather coercive and thin and uninspired. Maybe the comic and show turns into something more self-aware? If not it's pretty naive.

Feels like Amazon trying to compensate for The Boys being so cynical of power while copying its over-the-top violence right off the bat. It's like edgy Marvel I guess. I'd be okay it if the show offered something to compensate for it. It doesn't look great. The comic does, and it's a vision completely bereft of contemporary superficial pandering unlike the show.

Mango

5y

Starts with an attack on the White House where you get a secret service agent being humanized in a really cloying way who later shows up critiquing British aristocracy (while having defended a building that is meant to evoke the same power over the people). His life is threatened in that confrontation in a really manipulative way. Heroes being arms of the state goes examined. Same in the comics. They use Omni Man's imperialist ambition and racial supremacy as a way to paint this US intelligence network as ambivalent. But the show also starts doing a lot of representational recasting to obfuscate it further. Turning William gay, Amber black, the mother Korean. It's rather coercive and thin and uninspired. Maybe the comic and show turns into something more self-aware? If not it's pretty naive.

Feels like Amazon trying to compensate for The Boys being so cynical of power while copying its over-the-top violence right off the bat. It's like edgy Marvel I guess. I'd be okay it if the show offered something to compensate for it. It doesn't look great. The comic does, and it's a vision completely bereft of contemporary superficial pandering unlike the show.

SABMAN TURNT

5y

maybe don’t critique the overarching themes of the series until you actually know how they end

otherwise, people who do know how it ends will tell you how wrong you are & you’ll feel like things have been spoiled

Mango

5y

Everybody else has also formed opinions on a show/comic that they either haven't finished or isn't finished in its run. Just because other people either don't think about these things or don't care about them doesn't mean I won't share my thoughts in real time. That's what everybody else in this thread is also doing.

I've also been pretty amicable to the possibility that the story eventually gets around to addressing those issues. I even suggested that there are ways to do that which in fact are not adequate. For instance, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and plenty of other espionage thrillers just turn US intelligence into "these good guys" vs "those bad guys". That's not a valid institutional critique to me to say "only the good CIA can save us from the bad CIA" or whatever. There is no "good CIA". I also loved The Winter Soldier. There's no reason for anybody to get their feelings hurt about it.

SABMAN TURNT

5y

go ahead & share your thoughts in real time, i’m not discouraging that

i’m just saying that going into deeper a***ysis & engaging in discourse about it before finishing isn’t a good move, since it invites people who have read the whole thing to disagree & potentially spoil things for you

Mango

5y

I don't really care about spoilers. I'm probably not reading 20+ volumes of a superhero comic. Show is uglier so I'm not watching that until I read the comic, which I probably won't.

I'm not interested in cheerleading art. What should I be doing? Coming in here like "this is good I love it"? Why? This is discussion forum. Either a***yze art or talk about something else

SABMAN TURNT

5y

?? you said you’ve read 4 volumes of it & got spoiled, that’s what i’m basing my replies here on. i thought you were upset about getting spoiled from replies in this thread lol

& i don’t think you can accurately a***yze a story if you don’t actually know the full story, which is especially true for the government stuff you were critiquing earlier. if you’re just critiquing season 1 there, then sure. but if you’re trying to apply that to the full story from the comics..

Mango

5y

Now we're just going in circles. Go back and read my replies if you want to say the same things over.

Pretty easy to say: "those things do become relevant" without spoilers.

Also, this show isn't finished and the comic is 25+ volumes. So nobody post until the show is finished or you read it all. This makes sense to me.

ragedsycokiller

5y

He only said think once. People ruining the meme