The BOYS - Ten

I've caught up with the BOYS since my review of the trade paper back, and now the latest issue has come out. It concludes the latest storyline mocking Batman and Nightwing and dealing with the gay community and the perspectives that people have towards gay characters in comics. Since it's the conclusion I'm not really going to give you to many details about the actual book but I will tell you about the storyline. Basically The Legend (mock up of Stan Lee) asks Butcher to find out who killed a young gay man who had been seen last with Swingwing a costumed superhero. Swingwing = Nightwing just in case you couldn't figure that one out yourself. Well after going down several wrong paths Hughie ends up steering the team in the right direction and solves the case. I can't say that the storyline was fantastic, but it was still rather good. It seemed as if Ennis was just using it to as kind of a breather from the beginning and to get himself use to the characters again. But I have to say this issue felt really rushed and with both the writing and art.

Not only were Hughie and Butcher the only characters seen, outside of two panels with Mother's Milk, but they just seemed out of character the whole time. It was like Ennis had a good idea and probably could have done more with it at Wildstorm, but now he has to worry about DC suing him so he's pulling back and not giving us the good stuff. As for the art Robertson was very loose on his details and Dynamite doesn't seem to have the inkers to clean up the book and keep the feel the first six issues had. There were also a couple of bad proportions on Butcher, but in general the two men really changed a lot from page to page which distracted from the story and really was just a let down. I understand the Dynamite wants to pump a lot of books out and on time but never surrender quality over quantity you'll lose out every time. Dynamite needs to understand that they're dealing with super stars now, this book has the potential to be huge but it needs to be treated right. Get a better inker and a more consistent colorist for starters that's just good business for you're biggest book out right now. Second let them go at their own pace,
Ennis is a machine and there's never going to be any worries of him running out of ideas to play with and map out, but artist need time to make the book look right and Robertson's relatively new to star-dome so he needs to be put in the right environment to continue producing at the level he was when the book first came out. I'm really hoping Dynamite doesn't screw this book up or I'll be forced only to read the Trades, well my friends Trades at the very most.

I have to say Ennis did a good job of bring to light, how most Comic Companies deal with the Gay community and makes a lot of valid points using Hughie as his voice but next time I hope Ennis won't forget that he still has an accent when he's mad. Next month starts a new storyline and hopefully a turn for the better, the teams going to Russia and I swear Ennis just loves Russia, he seems to take everyone there on their four or fifth story arc, but whatever the man's untouchable right now. Here's some pages but be warned I think they spoil the ending!