The Boys takes aim at Joss Whedon's Justice League and the Snyder Cut in season 2
The Boys season 2 episode 1-5 spoilers follow.
When asked to describe The Boys last year, showrunner Eric Kripke told EW: "Marvel’s real and the superheroes they have are real and they’ve taken over the world and that’s the show."
In truth though, The Boys actually draws far more inspiration from DC, Marvel's biggest rival. After all, it doesn't take much to see that The Seven are a direct parody of DC's "Big Seven", otherwise known as the Justice League.
The Deep is clearly modelled on Aquaman, Queen Maeve is a burned-out version of Wonder Woman, and every other member of The Seven directly correlates to someone in the Justice League. These parallels were first established in the comics, something which Kripke mentions in that previous interview with EW:
"Even at that time, they were more interested in taking shots at DC than they were at Marvel. I think, even then, DC people were held up as these gods whereas the Marvel heroes were always regular people."
Comic book legend Garth Ennis originally created The Boys to satire the cartoonish extremes of superhero stories, so it makes sense that DC's god-like vigilantes would be first in the firing line. Each member of The Seven is a corrupt, warped version of DC's finest, but none are more disturbed than Homelander.
If you imagine Superman and Captain America had a child who was raised by Nazis and casually drinks breast milk, then you're pretty close to describing Vought's premiere "hero". What's most unsettling is that the world at large has no idea how evil Homelander really is. As the leader of The Seven, Antony Starr's character is adored by millions, and even stars in his own beloved movie franchise.
Back in season one, eagle-eyed fans might have spotted that the poster for Homelander's movie deliberately spoofs Henry Cavill's take on Superman in Man of Steel. Season two extends this parody even further by introducing a new team-up movie called Dawn of The Seven. Both this title and the billboard which accompanies it are clearly meant to parody Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Since The Boys first parodied the Justice League back in 2006, recent DC films have started to edge dangerously close to parodies of themselves. Like it or not, Ben Affleck's homicidal Batman is more similar to Black Noir than perhaps even Garth Ennis could have predicted.
It's only natural then that the spoof films shot within The Boys universe would poke fun at the super serious tone of Zack Snyder's work. In fact, Kripke says, "Every time [Vought] make a superhero thing, they’re making a Zack Snyder movie" (Via EW).
"In the stuff that Vought makes, we were inspired more by DC than Marvel," Kripke continued. "The Marvel stuff is actually reasonably grounded, but the DC stuff tends to get a little pretentious, and we wanted the Vought superhero movies to be a little full of themselves."
So far, that air of pretension has been palpable every time we cut to the Dawn of The Seven shoot in season two. Episode five takes particular delight in this, skewering how companies commercialise queerness with Queen Maeve's new role in the film. And then there's that jab Homelander casually makes near the start: "This new Joss rewrite really sings, huh?"
For those lucky enough to have avoided the discourse surrounding #releasethesnydercut, Homelander is of course referring to Buffy creator Joss Whedon, who took over Justice League reshoots when Snyder left the project. Ever since that version of the film failed to soar with critics, outraged fans have demanded to see the 'Snyder Cut', a fabled edit which will finally be released in 2021, four years after the original Justice League hit cinemas.
Is Homelander's reference to Joss a direct dig at his work on Justice League, or is this a subtle jab at the fanbase who criticised the reshoots? It's worth bearing in mind that this particular "joke" was also designed to punish Maeve for hiding her sexuality. Joss Whedon doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to queer storylines, so this scene could be a play on that too.
Either way, we know two things for sure; Whatever comes out of Homelander's mouth is not to be trusted, and Dawn of The Seven is far more important than viewers might have thought at first glance.
Through this fictional film, The Boys parody of DC works two-fold, lampooning the superhero genre as well as darker themes of corruption which are all-too-familiar for many of us living in the real world. As Kripke said in that first quote, "Heroes are real," but sadly, many of the politicians and corporations we trust in 2020 are heroic like Homelander rather than his Justice League counterpart.
The Boys season two dropped on Amazon Prime Video on September 4 with episodes 1-3, and now continues weekly, dropping new episodes each Friday.
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