The Boys Shocking Return Mocks The MCU’s Death Obsession
Warning: SPOILERS for The Boys season 3.
While The Boys has no problem with killing off plenty of characters, the choice to bring back Stormfront in season 3 is a pretty pointed satire of the MCU’s treatment of death in superhero media. It is infamously hard to make death matter in superhero movies, comics, and television shows. While there have been some moving, poignant, and shocking deaths in superhero stories over the years, by and large, the fact that many superheroes are nigh-on invulnerable (combined with the fact that viewers want to see them succeed) makes the permanent deaths of characters the exception rather than the rule.
However, the MCU has spent the last few years working out a way around this issue. As a result, the MCU satire of The Boys season 3 has changed its approach to death, too. As proven by one shocking return early on in The Boys season 3, the show has managed to make a character not dying as effective and unexpected as a character being killed off.
Related: The Boys Season 3: Soldier Boy’s Weapon Has A Dark Hidden Meaning
The MCU has learned how to make death matter in a superhero franchise, a hard trick to pull off when many of its characters have varying degrees of plot armor. In contrast, The Boys has always had a much more cavalier, blackly comic approach to character deaths. For example, the events of the series are set in motion by The Boys’ parody of the Flash, A-Train, obliterating an innocent civilian by running clean through her while high on Compound V. Now, however, to effectively parody the MCU, The Boys season 3 needs to change its approach to major character deaths. The show pulls this off with Stormfront’s return, which refuses to give season 2’s biggest villain the dignity of
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