The Boys #66 Recap, Live As It Happens!

[Simon Rogerson]

I think Hughie is for the chop too, all that "the little brother I always wanted" was just Butcher manipulating his victim. Butcher, we now know, had a baby brother once, so he can't have always wanted one, can he? Maybe the only reason Hughie was recruited at all, was just to use up the CIA's last supplies of the only V that worked.

Well, Hughie's fate could go any way. For me the obvious route is for him to be the one to finally stop Butcher, but with Ennis at the wheel anything could happen.

But I think the situation with Hughie and Butcher is more complex than you suggest. Butcher went out of his way to recruit Hughie because he wanted someone who had felt the cold disdain of the Supes, and someone who had felt the same loss of a loved one. We know that Butcher generally only makes a disclosure when it's in his interests, but the 'little brother' aside was hardly a deal-maker for Hughie. It was the last vestige of Butcher's sentimentality showing through, and also an unspoken indication of the role Butcher wants Hughie to embrace.

Look at what Ennis has explicity shown us. Yes, he said he wanted a little brother, but he obviously didn't want to have to explain to Hughie that he once had a brother who was killed in a meaningless accident. So you just get this seemingly throwaway line early in the book, that he always wanted a younger brother. What he wanted to say, but couldn't, was that he wanted someone to inhabit the little brother role. That's why Hughie's on the team. If Butcher had just wanted to make up numbers, he could have recruited another soldier, psycho or strategist. When Monkey asks why Butcher needs a fifth member, he is just told to shut up, because Butcher cannot justify it to himself, let alone Monkey.

Then later, in a key section of the Butcher mini, we hear Butcher say, in a way he barely understands himself, that once his brother was gone, there was no-one to stop him. And that's all you need to know about the little bro's character right there. He could stop Butcher. We've had a glimpse of Butcher's self loathing, and deep down I think he wants someone with the moral strength to stand up to him. And he's torn between corrupting Hughie and having him there as some missing aspect of his life, his conscience. Well maybe I've gone a bit too far here, but you get the idea. To put is more concisely, I think Hughie was hired because deep down, Butcher wants to be stopped... not by his adversaries, but by someone he likes.

[ambaxtoxin]

Obviously the Hughie / Butcher showdown will be interrupted by Annie, who'll blind Butcher long enough to let Hughie get the killing blow in. With a little diatribe from all the characters involved in what ought to be an all-out brawl.

Am I wrong?

[Mark B]

Oh God. And it will be seeing that Hughie is prepared to put a scaffolding pole through someone's chest (or whatever...) when the chips are down, that makes Annie realise Hughie is a real man after all.

[Dannycat]

And it ends with Hughie realizing he has bloody semen.

[ambaxtoxin]

Oh God. And it will be seeing that Hughie is prepared to put a scaffolding pole through someone's chest (or whatever...) when the chips are down, that makes Annie realise Hughie is a real man after all.

I can see it now:

Butcher: Let's 'ave 'it then, Hughie, y'little fuckwit. Blah blah military talk, blah, blah, cunt. So sorry mate, gonna 'ave t'lop yer 'ead off. For the good o' mankind an' all that.

Hughie: You killed my [not really-]friends! FUCKER! JINGS! KEN?

Butcher: Always been a pussy, ain't ya? {Insert convoluted explanation of Butcher's retarded motive}

BUTCHER kicks seven shades of shit out of WEE HUGHIE. Somehow, in spite of him having taken out M.M., FRENCHIE and THE FEMALE in a total of 5 pages*, HUGHIE simply will not be decapitated.

ANNIE JANUARY flies into view, en route to the local Wal-Mart. She sees the ensuing carnage and decides to step in. ANNIE dashes toward the melee, landing mere feet behind BUTCHER. NOBODY notices.

Butcher: This is like beatin' up me little bruvver... but fuck it, I'm the bad guy now, et cetera.

Hughie: You fuckin'... You alright, love? Can we hel-... Annie? Annie? Is that you?

BUTCHER turns around with that HOMELANDER glare. ANNIE gets her tits out (or whatever the fuck it is she does to blind people ineffectively.) BUTCHER is blinded, and falls to the floor in agony.

Butcher: Aaaargh! Cunt! Bitch! Yanky doodle septic dandy riding on a pony!

Annie: Kill him.

Hughie: Wh-what?

Annie: Just do it. I can't be fucked to be in this series for much longer. We've an epilogue of you and I lying in bed with only your fat fucking hamster left for comic relief to get through yet, so just get this over with. Come on. Be a man for once.

Hughie: So shouldn't we just... y'ken... leave him be? Spice up that #72?

Annie: Don't be absurd. How many good epilogue issues have you ever read?

Hughie: Transmetropolitan?

Annie: Shut up. Kill him. We're breaking the fourth wall here, they're going to be pissed.

Hughie: Alreet then, hen. But don't forget I'm gooin' t'be remindin' you o' that time you sucked off The Homelander's retarded clone 'til the day ye die!

HUGHIE suddenly spasms and drops to his knees.

Annie: Hughie! What's wrong?

HUGHIE groans. His testicles graphically quadruple in size. They appear to be glowing blue.

Annie: Well, that took long enough.

Hughie: The Compund V... it... I...

Annie: Just fucking kill this Cockney already. Then we can go drain those things.

ANNIE winks.

Hughie: Jings.

HUGHIE swings his humongous balls in BUTCHER's general direction. Although the actual impact is not seen, the implication is that BUTCHER is killed.




...and so on and so on and blah.






*the last page of #68 and the first four pages of #69 respectively (incidentally meaning that anyone who reads the preview for #69 has no reason whatsoever to read the rest of it)

[blarneycock]

You guys are so cynical, haven't you realised that the blood-flecked-semen-wanker is Mr. Potamus?

[Dannycat]

You guys are so cynical, haven't you realised that the blood-flecked-semen-wanker is Mr. Potamus?

What if the twist ending is that it was Butcher masturbating in front of Hughie's door the entire time.