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Popular Culture Review
Transmetropolitain or Frank Miller’s acclaimed Sin City series have done away
altogether with a narrative universe centered around super-powered individuals,
and demonstrate by their very existence that the medium is no longer the
property of one single, morally bankable genre. More significantly yet, some
works go as far as openly confronting and challenging fundamental notions
regarding superheroes, in a sort of meta-fictitious rebellion, as best exemplified
by Moore’s and Gibbon’s well-known Watchmen: heroes are no longer “super,”
but rather humanized to the point of becoming simple masked vigilantes, more
or less intelligent, as Ozymandias, bitter, as Rorshach, or violent, as The
Comedian. The only notable exception is, of course. Dr. Manhattan, a true
superhero who grows more and more disconnected from human concerns as the
narration progresses and ends up leaving for another galaxy. The emotional
separation from human beings which characterizes Dr. Manhattan, his inability
to relate to un-powered human beings puts forth a very natural, albeit carefully
overlooked notion regarding the very essence of the superhero; in a move
opposed to that of Superman, who comes from the outside and embraces the
human cause. Dr. Manhattan comes from the inside—^he was human— but
grows irremediably detached from Humanity. The character of Dr. Manhattan
points out a narrative contradiction at the heart of the superhero genre, that of
the identification of a super-powered individual with simple human beings,
contradiction without which the genre would quickly lose its moral base: in its
traditional representation, the superhero spontaneously espouses the system of
values enforced by the majority, which is to say that the most exceptional
individual feels the irresistible need to be at the service of the most common
collective entity, and that implies a serious a leap of faith. In this sense.
Watchmen is canonical for it is one of the very first comic books that literally
unmasks superheroes by un-covering the narrative paradoxes of the genre.
The case of Garth Ennis’s and Darrick Robertson’s The Boys constitutes
perhaps the most remarkable and explicit example of the aforementioned
narrative rebellion against the ruling genre, for it represents, on many different
levels, the struggle of U.S. comic books to break free from the domination of
super-powered individuals in tights. For starters, the narrative premise of The
Boys is the surveillance of superheroes, who are portrayed as a reckless,
dangerous lot, directly responsible for more human and material collateral
damage than the evil that they are supposed to defeat.'^ In a complete subversion
of the superhero narrative paradigms, the five members of the Boys are
vigilantes in their own right whose archenemies happen to be the superheroes
themselves, and just as Superman or Spiderman are in charge of cleaning the
streets of thugs and gangsters, the Boys’ mission is to protect society of the
latent menace created by super-powered individuals: the superheroes have
finally become the super-villains. Leaving no room for ambiguity. The Boys
introduces caricatural superhero organizations very reminiscent of Marvel’s
“The Avengers” or of DC’s “The Justice League,” such as “The Seven” and
“Teenage Kix,” the members of which are for the most part drug addicts and sex