The Boys Season 3 Upped The Stakes But Fluffed The Satire

thegamer.com:

The Boys has an interesting take on the superhero genre. The basic concept of ‘what if superheroes were arseholes?’ is not new by any means – in fact I’d argue that the cultural relevance of Watchmen, Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, The Umbrella Academy, Invincible, Doom Patrol, and Deadpool means that the ‘superheroes are arseholes’ take has moved from new, fresh, and countercultural, to fairly cliched.

However, The Boys takes things a step further, and also aims its laser eyes at the corporate capitalisation of superheroes by the likes of Marvel and Disney. It’s quite a meta analysis, but Stan Edgar’s Vought International is a brilliant satire of how corporations (and not just those running superhero properties) put profits before people, cater to the worst members of our society, and always think selfishly no matter how many social justice movements they co-opt.

Related: Hideo Kojima’s Take On The Boys Would Have Been Incredible

Spoilers for Season 3 of The Boys follow.

The Boys Season 3 upped the stakes dramatically. Homelander seized power of Vought, Butcher came face to face with his abusive childhood, and Soldier Boy was resurrected from a Russian laboratory with the power to destroy cities and relieve supes of their powers. Starlight tried to shed a light on Vought’s corruption from the inside, and her relationship with Hughie hit an all-time low as he desperately tried to save her, often putting himself in the line of fire to do so. As I said, the stakes have never been higher on both a personal level and a ‘the world needs saving’ level. However, among all this, the satire has slipped, and the execution of it has been fumbled.

The satire this season has mostly been aimed at the rise of the far-right in America, with