Garth Ennis’ satircal masterwork, The Boys, featured quite a few various sorts of monsters all through the comic’s run, but the most disturbing of them by far serves as a potent metaphor, 1 which explains how fans are seriously supposed to see Homelander, and certainly all the Supes who aid to enforce Vought-America’s vision for America.

The Boys: Highland Laddie #3 – written by Garth Ennis, with art by John McCrea and Keith Burns – continues the spin-off miniseries’ tale of Hughie’s time away from the group. In the situation, Hughie tells a story from his childhood about coming face-to-face with a tapeworm, a genuine-life parasitic creature that reflects superheroes part in The Boys.

Though Hughie’s story’s gross-out aspect reflects the general gore-heavy style of The Boys – as it is far from a series for the squeamish, or faint of constitution – it is also notable for this deeper relevance it holds to the general trajectory of the series.

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Hughie’s Tapeworm Story Reflects Homelander’s True Nature As A Parasite

The Boys: Highland Laddie #3 – Written By Garth Ennis Art By John McCrea &amp Keith Burns Color By Tony Aviña Lettering By Simon Bowland

While no-1 could contact the original The Boys comics subtle – Billy Butcher and his black-clad group invest a small also a great deal time beating superheroes to death with crowbars for that – Garth Ennis’ series did provide a constant viewpoint on corporate misbehavior, political corruption, and the poisonous influence of unchecked energy. That message was hammered house in quite a few strategies all through the series 1 specifically stand-out instance came in the Highland Laddie miniseries, when Hughie connected the story of his Auntie Mary, a loved ones relative and home guest who was ultimately located to be infected with a tapeworm.

In time, the tapeworm grew to gigantic size, as a outcome of communication concerns that prevented her looking for aid. The young Hughie was unfortunate adequate to come face-to-face with the seventeen-foot-lengthy parasite, and was so severely traumatized that he did not speak once again for an whole year. It’s a grim story, but it really is not incorporated in the series for the sake of pure physique horror. Rather, the tapeworm is 1 of The Boys’ most visceral metaphors for each Vought-America’s Supes and the business itself.

The tapeworm is a parasite which is stealing the nutrients from its host, causing immense discomfort and suffering without having becoming detected by everyone but the particular person it is hurting. This procedure is inherent to the parasite’s nature, just as all through The Boys Garth Ennis repeatedly argues that Vought-America will take what ever it can to additional its interests unless stopped by an outdoors force. Similarly, just as Butcher argues all Supes need to have to be stamped out, since the effective will generally take benefit of the powerless when provided the opportunity.

The Boys’ “Supes” Are A Critique Of Unchecked Power

Always Taking, Never Giving

Homelander is the most apparent instance of The Boys’ themes, as the unkillable Superman-pastiche realized more than the course of the story that no-1 – which includes his corporate handlers – could quit him from undertaking what ever he desires. Ultimately, on the other hand, Homelander was a living lie. While the public have been told he was a savior, the most significant challenge he faced was quietly killing off disobedient supes just before they saw him coming. Homelander gave nothing at all to the men and women who like him, and in return he demanded to have his each and every need to have quickly met, responding to any aggravation with the violent impatience of a kid.

This model of corrupt energy was shown all through The Boys, as the effective took what ever they wanted, whilst providing nothing at all back to the globe they have been taking benefit of. The tapeworm metaphor from Highland Laddie #3 has a specific tie to Homelander, on the other hand, due to the Supes’ hidden origin, exactly where Vought-America forced a lady with no loved ones into providing birth to their most current experiment. As grotesque as it may perhaps sound, Homelander’s metaphorical status as a parasite has a literal connection to his gruesome character origin.

The Boys‘ handling of these stories, and these themes, was far from fantastic the series was frequently cavalier with its depictions of cruelty exacted on vulnerable men and women. That mentioned, Garth Ennis chose each and every detail of The Boys deliberately, in order to speak to the bigger themes at play in his superhero satire. The tapeworm anecdote from The Boys: Highland Laddie #3 is a specifically emphatic instance of that. It presents readers an chance to connect a genuine-globe horror to the speculative threat posed by the series’ superheroes in a concrete, productive way.

The Tapeworm Is An Unexpected Key To Understanding The Boys

Unlocking The Metaphor

One notable takeaway from the tapeworm metaphor for The Boys supes, introduced in Highland Laddie #3, is the concept of how parasites like Homelander and Vought thrive in secrecy and silence. While The Boys may perhaps be “about” superheroes on the surface, its underlying thesis is that they are a multicolored lie employed to make brazen, predatory behavior palatable to an uninformed public. As the most effective, and most prominent super-powered figure in the series, no character embodies this extra than Homelander himself.

At various points, The Boys employed supes as metaphors for corruption in enterprise, crime, government, and even organized religion. In turn, the tapeworm is 1 of the comics’ most deliberate keys for interpreting the superheroes themselves. This is since it tends to make a raw, uncomfortable analogy about what the story’s creators believe is so disgusting about the abuse of energy. Though it is understandable that quite a few readers may well have overlooked the significance of this concept upon initially reading the Highland Laddie spin-off series, but in retrospect, it is foundational to understanding Garth Ennis’ general project.

For much better or worse, Superheroes are an vital aspect of modern culture, a position shaped more than the course of a century consequently, Garth Ennis employed them as the fantastic implies of commenting on the troubles in modern culture. By taking them out of their frequently-idealized context, and imagining a extra “realistic” – that is, dysfunctional and oppressive – superhero method, Ennis supplied a revolutionary take in The Boys, some thing that was keenly, if unexpectedly, articulated by Hughie’s tapeworm story in Highland Laddie #3.

The Boys

The Boys is a superhero/dark comedy satire series developed by Eric Kripke primarily based on the comic series of the very same name. Set in a “what-if” globe that reveres superheroes as celebrities and gods who encounter minimal repercussions for their actions. However, 1 group of vigilantes headed by a vengeance-obsessed man named Billy Butcher will fight back against these super-charged “heroes” to expose them for what they are.

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Next: The Boys’ Herogasm Has a Dark Secret Purpose (To Kill Homelander)