Now that most of you have finally come to the realisation that Super hero movies aren't all that, you look to fill the void left by not watching the next Marvel movie. And this is where The Boys and Invincible fit in, as they are super hero movies but they subvert expectation - except I don't feel like this solves the problem.
The main problem with both of these TV Series is that they end up asking the exact same question:
What if you had Superman - but he was bad?
Now, this conundrum is all well and good to mull over for a few minutes but when it comes time to draw out a multi-hour, multi-season runtime, I'm not sure we really care about the answer. In both series we ramp up the gore and show the results from unbridled super powers. That may be fun for a moment but then we need filler to pad out the runtime until the next sadistic expression of bad taste is realised.
I would say that both TV series are best watched solely for the first season. Whereas The Boys focuses their time on following a rebellion against 'Supes', Invincible focuses on what possibly could be the reason that 'Superman' killed all the other super heroes in the first episode. Both make for compelling watching, as we know that the rebellion will need to use their wits to get through while Invincible is more about waiting for when Omni-man (AKA Superman) will finally be discovered and what will happen as a result.
And then, due to the success, Season 2 (etc.) was made
This is when both series began to fall down. You cannot continue a story once the novelty of the question has worn off. This is when they are forced to start padding out the story with more characters, more less-compelling questions and *snore* relationships and double-crosses. I would argue that both TV series would be significantly better if they had concluded by the end of the first season. I would say that The Boys fared slightly better than Invincible, as they did have better writing and performances - I'm pretty sure JK Simmons read his lines while driving to the supermarket whereas Karl Urban maintained his intensity - but both seasons were incredibly pointless.
The Boys just leans into shock value with puerile examples like:
- Mini dude kills his boyfriend by sneezing on cocaine while inside his colon
- Mini chick needs to puke (i.e. bulimia) to get small and then plays with her boyfriends' (now) giant dong
- Superman has a mommy fetish
- Some bad dude has a tentacle porn extendo dick
Invincible just bores you to death with stupid conundrums like:
- Can't maintain superhero persona and school life (snoooorrrre)
- Can't maintain superhero persona and girlfriend (uggggghhhh)
- Invincible kills a bad dude who was trying to kill his family - and then feels really bad
(move over, mini chick) - 90% of the season does not actually progress the plot
In conclusion, I don't have anything which doesn't end up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Both series would be better as a one-page answer to the initial question than something which can scrutinised over multiple seasons. The one thing I can say is that we perhaps need to move back to a world
where story is front-and-center. We have exhausted all things super at this point - subversion or naught - we cannot continue forwards with this futile effort just because in prior years we had found success. Spectacle means nothing if we all know that it's not real. Jackie Chan falling off a building has far more gravitas than knocking a superhero through a planet. We have all become desensitised when it comes to the fantastical whereas good storytelling remains as compelling as the day it was first invented.
