The Boys Is Less Realistic Than Marvel In One Important Way
The Boys often feels a lot more like the real world than Marvel does and that’s by design. But there’s at least one way in which Marvel’s Cinematic narrative handles violence a lot more realistically. While the MCU films and shows do a fairly good job in showing public consequences for heroes going too far with criminals and/or unintentionally hurting civilians, in The Boys even the grisliest violence from the supes is almost completely ignored unless the threat of public disgrace serves the plot.
Serving The Plot
Sure, there are instances of Supes in The Boys facing public scrutiny for their violence, like in Marvel, but it’s only when that scrutiny serves the plot.
Perhaps the most famous example is when Homelander murders a protester in The Boys Season 3 finale. This helps set up the political battle—mirroring our own political divides—in Season 4.
There’s another example in Season 2 when, while hunting a rogue supe in Africa, Homelander accidentally kills a civilian and a video of the event leaks online. The PR mess Homelander finds himself in afterward helps bring him closer to Stormfront, their relationship emboldens Homelander to become more possessive of Ryan, which in turn makes Butcher and Becca more desperate to stop the pair.
So yes—the supes’ violence in The Boys have consequences, but only if those consequences help push the story forward.
Supes In The Boys Kill Criminals In Horrific Ways
In The Boys it’s perfectly acceptable for supes to murder criminals in the most horrific ways they can come up with, unlike in Marvel, and usually without any kind of reaction from the public.
This begins in the opening scene of The Boys series premiere. Queen Maeve and Homelander team up to stop some bank robbers. After Maeve takes out their truck, two of the robbers take a pair of boys hostage.
Homelander disarms one of the robbers by heating up his gun with laser vision. He picks up the second robber and hurls him into the air. While he’s taking selfies with the boys he saved, the robber lands on a car a quarter mile away.
Later that season Homelander pushes his hand into a shooter’s chest and in Season 2 of The Boys Homelander needlessly crushes a robber’s skull while’s he’s being pleasured by Stormfront.
Even Homelander’s son, Ryan, accidentally kills a supposed kidnapper—actually a stunt coordinator in a staged kidnapping—when he throws him against a wall.
In spite of some of these examples unfolding around plenty of people taking pictures and videos, nothing ever happens as a result.
Marvel Heroes Kill Too, But Not If There’s Another Way
We’ve seen plenty of Marvel heroes kill in the MCU, but not when there’s another way to get the job done. If they do kill without need, unlike in The Boys, they’re made to answer for it.
When an amped up John Walker goes wild and kills a terrorist in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it doesn’t go well for America’s new super soldier. He ultimately loses both Captain America’s shield and his status as the new Captain America.
Civilians
Being an innocent civilian in The Boys doesn’t appear to be any safer than being a criminal. For example there’s the 55 people Stormfront kills while chasing Kimiko’s brother Kenji. Or there’s all the professional ice skaters Homelander carves up with his laser vision in Season 4 while trying to kill Hughie.
But because it wouldn’t serve the plot we never hear of any public outrage, legal ramifications, lawsuits, nothing.
You can only explain so much with payoffs and cover-ups, especially when we live a world in which most people are carrying smart phones that can carry enough evidence to bury a careless supe. If Christian Bale can’t browbeat a director of photography in private, then you can bet killing a few dozen people in a major city is going to result in a few leaked recordings.
Civil War
In the meantime, Marvel built one of their biggest blockbusters—2016’s Captain America: Civil War—around the premise of the Avengers accidentally killing civilians.
Sure, like in The Boys, those deaths take place to push the plot forward, but the difference is you don’t see it happening all over the MCU without consequences.
Understand—while The Boys may no be as realistic as Marvel when it comes to civilian death and unnecessary violence against criminals, I don’t necessarily mean that as a mark against the show. I just find it ironic that a show know for feeling a bit too much like the real world at times, is less realistic in one way than the world of Captain America and Thor.
