The Boys successfully adjusted to the rise of Marvel, but failed to adapt to the rise of Trump

Slate

"On the one hand, The Boys is an expert deconstruction of superhero stories, with an appropriately wintery view of institutional power, be it corporate, governmental, religious, or caped," says Matthew Dessem. "On the other hand, it’s an adaptation of a comic book series that launched in 2006, and to watch it in 2019 is to be forcibly reminded how much things have changed since then." He adds: "In the comic books, it’s the president who’s a ruthless Halliburton stooge and the vice president who’s a moron, but everyone operates under the assumption that if the president’s corruption or the vice president’s stupidity were publicly exposed, it would hurt them. The public simply wouldn’t stand for it." But in the Trump era, that kind of storytelling isn't believable.

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