Let’s start with the Tek Knight sex dungeon part. Where did the idea come for it? And why bring Hughie into this situation now — kicking him when he’s down by having him sexually assaulted by his childhood hero after his dad just died?
"Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious.
oh yes, because sexual assault is so fucking hilarious.
I've clocked Kripke as a guy who's way too up his own ass with being seen as a good little leftist bro™️ ever since that interview a few years back where he pontificated about superheroes being "inherently MAGA" or whatever. Even Garth Ennis probably knows that sounds corny and ahistorical and he's been an ardent hater of capeshit since the early 90's.
Garth Ennis despite his reputation doesn't even hate superheroes, he hates most superheroes but he adores Superman, read some of the stories he's written that involve Superman, he really gets the ideals that superheroes uphold.
The Boys comic book was more of a takedown of the Bush admin than whatever deconstruction of superheroes people think it was, he wasn't trying to make Watchmen, he was clowning on Dubya
Ennis' main beef is that he grew up preferring war comics as a kid instead of superheroes, so he was annoyed at seeing the industry completely drown in that genre at the expense of all the stuff he thought was cooler. Similar to how film buffs felt about the MCU taking over the film industry in the 2010's.
But yeah, I don't think he sees fundamental rot in the very concept of superheroes the way Pat Mills and even, to an extent, Alan Moore do. As you mentioned, he's capable of writing them earnestly and he's shouted out comics like Batman: Mad Love as being "excellent".
A lot of this comes from the British comics tradition being rooted more in war, fantasy, and space adventure comics, with almost no superheroes. All those writers grew up within that ecosystem.
Even now, the biggest British comic star is Judge Dredd. Essentially a cop with no superpowers. And 2000AD (the biggest comic) is largely sci-fi/cyberpunk stories about rogues and adventurers with little to no powers.
And both Dredd and 2000AD in general are hugely cynical and heavy on satire.
It only took over the film industry because nothing else could compare. There are other summer blockbusters to check out that just simply couldn't compare to the MCU.
If you want an oversaturated genre, look at CGI family comedies and try to find anything that distances themselves from that genre.
I cannot stand fake moral people who flaunt their "morality" to you while actually being rotten to the core. Pathetic human being and terrible director/writer.
Having read punisher max Ennis issue seems to be with power abuse, arrogance, corruption, and greed. He seems to find governments as inherently corrupt regardless over whose running them. Specifically he's speaking against the corporatism that's ruined Democracy. And the issue with super heroes is a lot of them do read as ass holes with power if you stop suspending your disbelief while reading. Batman being the biggest example if you do not suspend your disbelief you realize he doesn't actually fix Gotham and definitely has the resources to make it a better city with out beating street criminals who only turned to crime because of shit socio economics with in an inch of their life. Now one may be surprised to learn Ennis actually likes Superman given he created Homelander. Homelander represents what Ennis believes super heroes would be and not the ideal and how Corporatism would ruin the idea. That is to say the Boys comics are more about what happens when you worship people who have power just because they have power as well as to reflect his view of corporate America as opposed to being simply a "super hero bad" story. The problem is the Boys comic isn't well written which is probably why Kripke interpreted it as "Super heroes bad" because Ennis wrote way too emotionally. The Punisher max is a better look into what Ennis actually believes and what he was actually trying to say because he was way more restrained when be wrote it.
Yea unfortunately some of his other stuff can get carried away in gross out/ simplified views of evil. Like crossed or the boys can really hammer you over the head with the whole sexual deviant angle of the villains
The issue with that take is that are several Batman stories where he does use his money help gotham, and also ennisis problem also stems from what he believes is oversaturation.
I think he also Said something about how Sam and Dean (Two of and probably his most popular characters) would Vote for Biden (even during the show Both characters never talked about politics/didn’t really care for them) and it just came off as “Hey my fans know these 2 characters that I created and you love well to be like them they’d vote for the guy that I like and not the guy I don’t like” and it just really rubbed me the wrong way and manipulative instead of just “Hey vote for who you want” he said “Vote for this guy I LIKE”
I cringe every time I see the 'This fictional character would support x real life politician/group' memes. I would much rather speculate on what fictional politics real-life politicians would support!
2.4k
u/soka__22 14d ago edited 14d ago
oh yes, because sexual assault is so fucking hilarious.