*Huge-ass post incoming.*
Watched most of it last night.
The highs were very high, but it's still an uneven series. I have my issues with Ennis, but most of the issues I have with him were actually exacerbated by the show rather than tempered. You'd think an entire team of people could've added to things rather than just subtracted.
I wish I had more to go on, but it feels like Seth Rogen's responsible. I appreciate him expanding his range though, and I don't wanna pass blanket judgement without knowing more like Yahtzee did with Team Ninja for
Other M only to get it wrong completely.
An Ennis series shitting on religion in general and Christianity in particular isn't a "stray". Preacher was a very anti-Christian work the entire way through.
The problem with it was that Ennis doesn't actually know that much about religion generally, knows less about particular religions, and doesn't have much interest in learning.
But Ennis himself is still more thoughtful than the writing team for
The Boys. I haven't read much of the series, but from what I have read, many of the changes were for the worst,* including the ones I understood why they changed.**
* There are supervillains in the original from the start, which makes significantly more sense. The Female works with them from the beginning, which also makes more sense. The Boys have actual government support from the beginning, whereas they actively turn it down in the show.
** Butch beating Homelander's rape baby to death after it killed his wife was extremely gruesome, but it's also the prime reaaon he hates supes on principle. The hijacking the supes fuck up stopping was 9/11 in the comics (I believe they cause the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge instead); but it just doesn't make sense for anybody, especially not Americans, to not fight terrorist hijackers to the death after 9/11 (which only worked because people back then expeced the hijackers to want to survive, and not to turn the plane into a missile).
She's not a virgin in the comics, even before she got blowbanged by supes, but they already changed enough of her character to where they can't argue fidelity is a priority. Making her one, and having her betray her values by sucking off a supe for money and fame, would've added some punch that they took away by making it just one guy instead of three.
They also greatly cut down on Starlight's religiosity in general. Ennis may be uninformed about religion, but he at least tried. The writing team for the show didn't even go that far, as if they couldn't imagine how someone from that background could actually buy into any of it.
What's sad is that the Christian Rally was very clearly supposed to be based on Hillsong, which is an extremely sinister organization
founded by an Australian Pedophile named Frank Houston. Shaun Benson's character is very clearly based on Pastor Carl Lentz, who currently heads their NYC chapter,
and is credibly rumored to be one of the many men fucking Justin Bieber in the ass and mouth. They're ripe for takedowns, but almost all the people who do the best job with it come at it from a Christian perspective that is deeply alienating to progressives, secularists, and postmodernists, so I doubt they read anything like
this blogpost eviscerating Hillsong before writing the episode.
She could've walked away in the comics, too. But three guys are a lot more intimidating than one, especially since the three guys who did it in the comics (Homelander, Black Noir, and A-Train) actually could've easily destroyed her physically, whereas she's blatantly way more powerful than not-Aquaman even in Episode 1.
To be honest, Starlight is my least-favorite thing about the show. Dominique McElligott's a fucking babe, but she doesn't really seem to understand how a character like Starlight would actually behave. Even more unfortunately, nor does the writing team.
