All signs point to superhero fatigue becoming more and more real with every passing month, but Amazon’s two relatively recent comic book properties have been doing great, actually.
We’re talking about The Boys and Invincible, both of which are more mature takes on the genre and have enchanted millions of viewers worldwide. The uniqueness of the former might be starting to wear off though.
Variety revealed on Tuesday that The Boys is set to expand its universe once again, this time with a spinoff series set in Mexico, after the huge success of Gen V, which was essentially season 3.5 of The Boys (not a knock against its quality, which was fine). Sources say that Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Blue Beetle) is attached to write, with Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal joining the regular producers behind The Boys universe as executive producers, under their La Corriente del Golfo banner. Moreover, they could have roles in the show if their schedules work out.
While the idea of having a big-budget, Mexico-set satire of the superhero genre sounds cool, at the same time, we have to wonder what’s up with The Boys universe. The main series – as well as Gen V – is happy to regularly throw Marvel and DC under the bus, pointing out the many faults of modern franchises and excessive cinematic universes.
Some of the harsher scenes that made fun of such ventures explicitly referenced (as much as they could without getting into legal troubles) Batman v Superman and the infamous work Joss Whedon did on Justice League when the phone rang. Now, The Boys has put out one collection of animated shorts and a spinoff series which ultimately serves the main one, with another of these on the way. Those jokes don’t really work anymore, do they?
We don’t actually care about The Boys becoming yet another big multimedia franchise. If the interesting stuff is there and it manages to retain its raunchy voice and bloody tendencies, that’s more than enough to separate it from the competition.
But hey, you’re literally backed by one of the biggest companies on the planet, a company that more often than not sounds like Vought International. Drop the ‘cool and different kid’ act, please.