I guarantee that if the boys had used the original team name, there would be no adaptation for Amazon

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I guarantee that if the boys had used the original team name, there would be no adaptation for Amazon

Amazon The boys is one of the most successful shows on modern TV, but I’m convinced that if the team had used their original codename, the franchise would have been a failure. And although this nickname in the world is part The boys‘superhero media satire, we’ll also see behind-the-scenes details that show Butcher’s team was originally conceived as very different characters, complete with their own superpowers and even a superhero logo.

In John McCrea, Keith Burns, Garth Ennis, Tony Aviña and Simon Bowland The boys #55Hughie meets with the unit’s former leader, Gregory Mallory. Mallory explains the early days of the CIA-backed unit and the initial missions that should have shown him that Butcher would never be satisfied until all the Supes were dead. As part of the story, Mallory reveals what he originally wanted to call the unit.


the boys were almost called unit x

It turns out, but for Butcher, The boys would be known as ‘Unit X’. Fortunately, Butcher rejects the pretentious title, as it’s a fair bet that in 2024, a superhero TV show titled Unit X would be ridiculed in the room.

The boys’ original superhero logo was designed to give them costumes similar to Marvel’s Fantastic Four or DC’s Challengers of the Unknown.

The boys were almost ‘team X’

The name fits with how DC wanted the franchise to evolve

It may be a small moment, but I honestly believe that Mallory’s suggestion of ‘Unit X’ is packed with meaning. Firstly, it appears to be a take on the ‘X-TREME 90s’ when gritty, muscular superheroes ruled the industry. Titles like X Force, To generate, Storm Watch and Extreme Justice place heavy emphasis on macho heroes wielding deadly blades and gigantic firearms. While The boys Always provocative and sometimes puerile, it’s also incredibly dismissive of this era of superhero comics, directly parodying it in the armed cyborg team Paralytic. It doesn’t seem like an exaggeration to say that Butcher disapproves “Unit X” shows him rejecting the superhero genre at its most self-indulgent.


THE PARALYTIC BOYS

However, I think the moment also emphasizes Butcher and Mallory’s different perspectives. Although a skilled operator, Mallory was vulnerable to narrativizing events—telling himself a story that justified his decisions and his place in the world. Butcher is presented as much more perceptive and has no interest in the boys fitting into the existing status quo, when what he really wants is an excuse to deal violence against Supes. A pivotal moment in the story sees Mallory lecture Lamplighter about murdering her granddaughters, contrasting with an earlier moment in which Butcher tells Hughie that getting emotional over his target is not how professionals act. The idea of ​​having a ‘cool’ name draws a hard line between how Mallory and Butcher approach their roles on the team.


THE BOYS' BUTCHER LOSES FAITH IN MALLORY

Ennis called The Boys’ original shared superpower “the worst idea in history.”

Instead, Butcher suggests ‘The Boys’ as a reference to a term used by UK gangsters to euphemistically refer to their executioners – a term that makes clear that immense violence is about to be committed, but also implies that it is a daily occurrence. Ultimately, I read this moment as Mallory suggesting that Unit will try to inflict violence that won’t actually change much (for whatButcher has dark plans of his own.)

The Boys Originally Had A Lot More Superhero Clichés (Including a Team Superpower)

The team evolved into their darker designs, but violent violence was always key


Original boys Frenchie design with logo on coat

While “Unit X” may have been a dig at the ’90s comics, but it also fits the version of the team that the creative team initially envisioned. Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s original comic book series was always intended to satirize superhero media and its various clichés, however, it was also originally created to be set in the DC Universe, with Butcher and Homelander existing in the same world as Superman. Like Ennis’s earlier (and in some ways, significantly better) work on hitmaniconic superheroes intended to make a cameo.


HITMAN VS BATMAN

Because of this, the team was originally envisioned with its own superhero logo featuring Robertson’s sketches in The Omibus boys showing an inverted triangle combined with an eagle. In his creator notes, Robertson writes:

I imagined them having their place in the superhero world and being more public figures. I designed a symbol for their coats and collars for what I thought would be super suits underneath, like the Challengers of the Unknown or the Fantastic Four.

However, this design choice didn’t last long. Given that The Boys’ goal is to separate themselves from the world of ‘superheroes’, it was decided to give them matching boots and trench coats, but otherwise dress them like normal people. Ultimately this is the right decision – while I would love for there to be more fleshed out artwork of their original ‘costumes’, would be completely at odds with The boys‘disdain that superheroes dress them in real ‘costumes’.


THE BOYS WITH THEIR BLACK COATS

The team would also originally have a superpower that only worked when all members of the group were present, allowing them to disable Supe powers. This would have been instrumental in allowing them to harm DC’s heroes and villains, but was later replaced with them simply having greater strength and durability. On your own Bus notes, Ennis calls it “the worst idea in history” but reflects that it was the product of a concept that came to define the franchise, saying:

What I realized early on was that the action in The Boys shouldn’t involve “powers” ​​as such: it should be about the kind of violence that occurs outside bars at 2 a.m., where the victim is surrounded and oppressed by individuals who have the intention of attacking her. undoing. In other words, totally unfair and highly effective.

Ultimately, I think it’s clear that The boys struck the right countercultural tone, leading to a long-running comic book series and a growing TV empire. Differentiating the team from superhero tropes and aesthetics allowed the concept to survive changes in the same aesthetic as superhero films became the norm, while the franchise’s dark humor and focus on “unfair” violence survived intact. Although I personally would love to read an edition of Unit Xcomplete with the original costumes and powers of The Boys, the team behind The boys made the right decision with all the changes, focusing on the themes that define its story and the franchise’s sincere disdain for all things superheroes.

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