The first season of The Boys caught the attention of critics. In an audiovisual landscape dominated by Marvel and DC superheroes, with films often written in the same mold, the adaptation of the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson offered a hooligan vision of the genre. Characters like Homelander (Antony Starr), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) or The Deep (Chace Crawford) are not that they had chiaroscuro or were cretins but that they fit the definition of sexual aggressors, murderers or directly genocidal.
The initial success became a phenomenon with the second season. Amazon decided to broadcast five of the eight episodes on a weekly basis and thus channel the conversation of its audience instead of burning it in a weekend. In recognition, the series was nominated for an Emmy for best drama series and best writing. In parallel to this success, Sony began developing with Eric Kripke, the creator of The Boys, a spin-off focused on a superhero university to expand the universe. Amazon had a vein of gold on its hands, one cheaper than the later The Rings of Power, and it was time to capitalize on it.
Three years later, here we have the result: Gen V. It moves with the same ingredients: a hooligan sense of humor and often deeply unpleasant due to the generous doses of gore, a drama passed through the sieve of comedy, and some action scenes who do not skimp on expenses. There are visual effects to turn a man into a human torch or place a tiny superheroine climbing a normal penis to make her lover feel better about the size of her attributes. And, of course, there’s Vought International involved in everything.
Here the protagonist is Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), a teenager who has just come of age and who discovers that she has received a scholarship to enter Godolkin, a university that produces superheroes of the Seven, who fight against the crime or people with powers who go to work for Vought in any of its business aspects. What is her ability? Controlling blood, a gift she discovered when menstruating for the first time, which was a particularly traumatic experience.
In Godolkin he comes into contact with Emma (Lizze Broadway), his roommate, who has the ability to make herself small; Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who is the perfect student, all fire, and whose uniform is already being prepared to enter the Seven; his girlfriend, Cate (Maddie Phillips), who controls the will of everyone she touches; Jordan (Derek Luh and London Thor), who has two gender identities; and Andre (Chance Perdomo), who can transform metal.
With them, Marie soon learns that young superheroes can make your life difficult very quickly. And, while she looks for a way to navigate a university where she is not as special as she thought, the most popular at the institution begin to suspect that Vought is hiding something from them. With the arrival of Indira (Shelley Conn), the new director, the biggest problem for young people will not be so much passing their exams as surviving college: Vought is not a fan of those who meddle in their affairs.
Kripke conceived Gen V with two scriptwriters and producers of The Boys, Craig Rosenberg and Evan Goldberg, and with them establishes a complement to the main series: it is set parallel to the third season of The Boys already broadcast and constant character crossovers are expected. .
This creative team makes the spin-off feel comfortable within the parameters of the universe, repeating the aforementioned ingredients and at the same time presenting new characters, plots independent of the events of The Boys and using the classic teen of having as a differentiating element. to young people investigating a truth hidden by their adult references.
Also, understanding that her characters belong to another generation, she is more socially combative with Marie highlighting the disadvantages of being a black woman in a world of superheroes led by whites or Jordan hating that she will never be the first student on campus because Vought does not want to have to promote a superhero with two sexes in deep America.
However, the conversation that will likely have to be had in the coming weeks is whether, even by renewing plots and characters, Gen V sufficiently legitimizes its existence. The accumulation of unpleasant and difficult to justify characters is a characteristic feature of this fictional universe but also a procedure that we had gone through in The Boys, where at least Hughie and Starlight were there as brighter references to cling to.
And, even though the gory and crude scenes maintain their impact, a part of the brain already processes jokes around penises and superheroes as a repetition. Does it make sense to have two series produced in parallel with the same essence or can this exact harmony lead to fatigue due to accumulation? As we said, rarely has a spin-off been seen more comfortable in its presentation and relationship with the reference work, but the doubt is there, floating between bodies that explode like bags of blood, reckless homicides and disturbing sex scenes.
