Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
The Boys #61
Dynamite Entertainment
Ennis, Braun & Robertson
The Boys is such an odd book sometimes. Ennis tends to build up to something big and the payoff makes the lead-in issues so worth the wait. However, in the moment, the building up can be a painful process. This issue is almost entirely set-up and it drags way too much for my tastes. Ennis provides a good cliffhanger but it isn't enough to make this issue above average.
The book opens with Hughie and Annie again having discussions about their relationship. This was the worst part of the book. Not only have we seen an entire six issue mini-series devoted to this but we've seen this dealt with in so many issues of the main book. I was very surprised to see this continue to fester.
Next up are a few pages that deal with Mother's Milk and his daughter. These pages confused me because they seemed to rush this subplot to an odd conclusion so quickly. I am struggling to see how this is every going to re-manifest itself over the next ten issues or so. And if it doesn't then I have no idea what the point of them were other than to crack a few jokes here and there for Butcher.
Then, we get a lot of Vought corporate shenanigans. Jessica Bradley and her boss meet up with a super-hero team of displaced sidekicks. This is the best part of the issue because Ennis shows his creative side with this cast of characters. There are definitely some funny moments in these few pages.
The rest of the issue has more Hughie whining and it gets more annoying as it goes on. Also, Ennis is building a relationship up between Bradley and her boss that, frankly, I can't understand why, as readers, we should care. It's just too late in the game for this level of slow character building moments.
Braun does a great job on the art. He's got a number of panels where he nails facial expressions that really sell Ennis' writing. His final page offers some of the finest character depictions I have seen in this book. The two panels really punctuate the moment well.
The Boys is down to the last dozen issues or so and should be in the mode of racing to a conclusion. However, the book is still in a very slow storytelling mode that just doesn't make any sense at this point. Not a lot happens in this issue as it seems to be setting up more for future issues. In the context of when this series is scheduled to end I wasn't thrilled with this issue's approach.
2 out of 5 Geek Goggles
