Issue #64: Three Word Recap!

[statsman]

Sure. If only MM had gotten through three minutes sooner. It's a device to build artificial suspense.

I'm reminded of Pauline Kael's quote- "Movies are so rarely great art, that if you can't enjoy great trash, there's almost no point in going." I'm really enjoying this series, still. Ennis is not a great writer, but he is a fun writer.

Besides, is Ellis a great writer? I really liked "Planetary", but come on- the Randall Dowling character wouldn't kill Isaiah when he had the chance? Isn't that a little, "I'd like to stay and watch you die, Batman, but I have to run across town to rob a bank!" And how the series ended, with a huge hole opening up and them all falling in it? Really? Nevertheless, it was n enjoyable series.

This is great trash, and I am really expecting an exceptional issue #65. After all, it will have troops fighting, and this is Ennis after all.

Why revisit this? Becauee I just figured out that the lame conclusion to Planetary isn't lame at all. It was a joke (which, of course, I'm spoiling by explaining it). The setting- the US desert. The characters- Randall Dowling, holding all the cards and ready to settle his score with Snow once and for all. What happens? A hole opens up, and Dowling falls into it!

IOW, Dowling is the coyote, and Snow is the roadrunner. Ellis snuck in one final pop reference, picking one that highlights the frivolity of all this. All that was missing was for Dowling to somehow survive enough to pick his head up, only to have it dashed in by an "Acme" anvil.

So...your take on the effectiveness of this is probably dependent upon your opinion of Ellis as a writer. If you like him, you might think it's brilliant. If you don't, you might think it's insipid and a cop out.

[Garth]

Absolute power makes everyone absolute c***ts. Or does it? Butcher was who he was before he ever encountered superhumans. Hughie killed A-Train, but like the death of Blarney Cock, it may be unintentional. Hughie's problem has always been that he won't even try to take responsibility for the power he now has, he thinks it's too much for one man and would rather pretend the problem wasn't there, so he may well have kicked A-Train's head off without meaning to.

Frenchie may be a nutter in combat, but I think he was probably like that before the V too, and the story of him and the Female is one of power gradually being tamed by humanity, rather than corrupting it. Finally, Mother's Milk is definitely one of the good guys. MM is one of the most interesting characters in the Boys because he doesn't hate supes as such, what he hates is the corporation behind them. It was Voight who destroyed his family, one way or another, and I think that's as close as Ennis comes to a moral here. Corporate power corrupts absolutely, and the supes are the ultimate proof of that.

Butcher's lesson about power was learned at the hands of his father, and that's part of the reason he hates Homelander so much. I think that to Butcher, the Homelander is his father in many ways. HL dominates everyone around him, and holds them in contempt for it. In Butcher's own mini-series his Dad's final taunt is that Butcher would have loved to have taken him on in his prime, but now he'll never get the chance. I think that Butcher confronting Homelander is him taking that chance. If BN takes it away from him there will be hell to pay!

You're a bit smarter than I am, Sigmund, mate