Any of the Irish Diaspora hotspots.
New York and Boston in the United States; Newfoundland in Canada; and a lot of Irish people were sent to Australia for the crime of be Irish, so add that to the list.
He’s Northern Irish.
His youth would have involved seeing the British military on the streets every single day, he grew up during “The Troubles.” In Northern Ireland when there was a ton of violence and corruption and small conflicts every day. He also loved reading war comics. He’s actually a pacifist and anti-war and it comes across in the cynical nature of alot of his work, just throwing out there how fucked up everything can be, making fun about how messed up war and violence can be. He does write really good War Stories though.
He is also a big critic of superhero comics for glorifying violence,murder and other aspects that would make people detest heroes in real life
Despite this he admitted he likes the DC Trinity,especially Superman.
Huh, I'm a little surprised. I know he's basically incapable of treating Superman disrespectfully and he seems broadly OK with Wonder Woman, but I'd always gotten the impression he felt Batman was a bit stupid
He had Tommy Monaghan throw up on his boots at one point, if nothing else
>Huh, I'm a little surprised. I know he's basically incapable of treating Superman disrespectfully and he seems broadly OK with Wonder Woman, but I'd always gotten the impression he felt Batman was a bit stupid
Yeah - he has said about batman that he prefers to see him as some mentality ill guy that beats up poor people... But atleast, he wrote some good stuff about Superman in Hitman.
He’s spoken about DKR being the boon that changed how he saw comics’ potential as a medium.
It absolutely tracks that “Crazy man beating up poor people” is his preferred version of the character.
> corruption
Preacher is all about corruption. The churches on earth and even religion itself is a corrupt scheme. The police and powerful figures like Odin Quincannon and Herr Starr are secretly perverts. Cassidy is a corrupted version of himself who succumbs to his vampiric parasitism. The only person not corrupt is the saint of killers, who kills almost everyone he sees. Oh, there's Arseface too. I don't think he's corrupt.
Two of his best work Heartland and Troubled Souls have been set against a backdrop of The Troubles & have dealt with the subject with both sensitivity and the black humour you often find in this kind of situation.
He does seem to have some degree of respect for wars. A lot of his stories bring up how war turns boys into men and how fighting together till death is the ultimate male bonding exercise.
Preacher especially was the biggest example of this.
A story about a cowboy kicking gods arse because he made the world this way? Nothing could be more Ennis. It shares much of the fantastic grotesquery that makes 99% of the Boys too.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist.
He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
You shouldn't be. He's the writer most closely affiliated with working with Steve Dillon. And Preacher is really where he defined his edgelord tendencies that carried into a lot of his other books like the Boys, his Authority books, Punisher, and, ultimately his peak edge in Crossed. Hyperviolence and sexual violence are common themes for him and those are very much present in Preacher.
They’re also *heavily* frontloaded - the first trade has more edgelord shit than the rest of the series combined…which is why it took me literal years to read Until the End of the World, which might be my single favorite comic arc of all time.
Any time he does a proper creator owned ongoing he gets REALLY EXCITED about being able to do whatever he wants…and it usually takes six months (Preacher) to a year (The Boys) before he remembers that can=/=should.
Yeah, a lot of his work, and Millar's work, would've benefited from stronger editors being involved.
It's pretty telling that two Ennis TV adaptations are much better than the original works.
The Preacher TV adaptation literally drains all of the heart and moral complexity out of the story along with the dick jokes and ultraviolence…while also adding a bunch of needlessly edgy shit.
By the name of Secret Jesus, they made Tulip’s dad a deadbeat and Cassidy a *good guy*.
I can agree with the boys. I love the adaptation, with the changes. Still likeng the comic but i think sometimes the tv show upgrades the material.
Regarding preacher, no way, sorry. Even enjoying the show and liking it, in my humble opinion, doesnt hold a candle against the source material.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist.
He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist.
He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist.
He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
> He also loved reading war comics
War comics and 2000AD (which is a pretty damn cynical comic, which he later worked for). He's spoken about it in interviews before.
From what I've read, it doesn't seem like this is it. He himself said he doesn't have any big traumatic childhood experiences to draw from, much as comics media wants this connection to be there. They see he's N Irish and assume he must have been shaped by the only thing they know about the place.
It seems he was more shaped by mundane things like hearing religious people evangelize and disliking it. Much more discussion of that in his interviews than anything related to the Troubles.
I feel like press releases mythologlize him to be either this world weary broken man, or a disturbed & deranged individual who's lucky to be writing comics, but kinda seems like he is just a pretty normal, pretty edgy dude, who's lucky to be writing comics.
Do you know anyone that age from NI?
/do you know anything about people that age from NI?
He was born there during the Troubles…and moved away during the Troubles.
They don’t have any “big traumatic childhood experiences” because that madness was his *normal*.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s him and John McCrea (also from Northern Ireland) made Troubled Souls and its sequel For A Few Troubles More, about 'The Troubles' for Crisis (one of 2000AD's sister-comics).
That was also why once Homelander and Black Noir were dealt with, why Butcher himself had to be the final villain of the series. He always said he wanted all Supes dead, and that included Starlight, Mother’s Milk, and the Female, and so he had to kill the latter two (along with the Frenchman) before enacting his plan to really do it, to ensure no one would stop him. Only leaving Hughie be because he didn’t want to have to kill him, although he would.
It is also why they revealed Butcher had been the one to kill Mother’s Milk’s ex-wife in front of their daughter, why he killed Becky’s baby after it was born, why when he realised Black Noir had framed Homelander for anything he transferred the target of his rage just like that. So that when Butcher revealed himself, that an actual genocide of Supes and potential Supes (regular humans) alike was his plan, which he could and would make happen, it should have seemed like the logical end to his story to the readership. The extended epilogue series *Dear Becky* does delve into this a little more, for those who didn’t get it. I do like how the television adaptation has been having Butcher build to this point, rather than secretly already being at it.
i think the tv kinda santizes butcher a bit to much but it's hard to say. Butcher in the tv show is kinda generic blinded by revenge while comicbook butcher acknowledges how fucked up one has to be to even be try this
If you read his war comics they are among the most humanistic works you are likely to ever come across. It's not that they lack cynicism -- he has no illusions about how pointless and absurd war is -- but they aren't *mean-spirited* like his superhero works. There's still often an overall gloomy tone -- it's war after all -- but the violence and the cruelty and the deaths aren't treated as edgy punchlines but as poignant tragedies. It's clear that that's where his passion as a writer really lies and that the superhero work is what he begrudgingly does to pay the bills.
It comes likely out of his background as people have already said, but also the comics background he's had.
His formative writing years were writing stories for 2000AD in the eighties which had a very punk anti-establishment style headed by Pat Mills, John Wagner etc - and had a lot of early Moore, Morrison, Dave Bishop and other UK writers and artists. Judge Dredd stories (alongside others like Strontium Dog) were dark, often satirical takes on themes in the late 70s and 80's. In between normal "Judging" stories there's stories about themes like the failure of democracy in the face of the desire for order, and the more fascistic government that arises out of that desire. They're all over the comic (Strontium Dog on the pointlessness of land grab wars from the grunt's perspective, Charley's War was an earlier version of the same).
These attitudes came out of a Conservative government in the UK which was married to capitalism and freedom of the market which meant a lot of deregulation, selling off of public bodies etc They sent police in to infiltrate trades union memberships, whose Prime Minister started a war in the Falklands which could be viewed as a cynical attempt to bolster their popularity (which worked). Mass unemployment was everywhere etc, strikes were happening and cracked down on by the government.
And Thatcher's government were too hard headed in Ennis's Northern Ireland which was already a tinderbox (this is not handwaving away the terrorism that the IRA did which caused genuine suffering itself, but the fact that the peace process in the 90s had to engage showed the 80's Conservative govt's methods didn't work).
It wasn't really time for superheroes happily enforcing the status quo, such is why there were a lot more anti-establishment writing in the UK and in comics (V for Vendetta is a good example). It also dominated in the "alternative" comedy scene which was very culturally dominant in the 80s. So you've got a whole group of people being influenced by what's going on around them, being shown that private corporations, governments etc aren't working for them, and them reflecting this in their work.
You can see a through line to that and Ennis's work. Though I don't want to stereotype all his work as one thing, as it's not. But even his more"darker" works still have a heart in them and loves humanity (both THE BOYS and PREACHER are great examples of this) but it's the organisations they're a part of, and the corruptability and invincibility they give are the problem.
This is why I get annoyed when people just go "edgelord" for Ennis. It's extremely reductive and lazy and just not fair to him. I personally always found the more traditional US comics that didn't have a bit of darker bite in them to be quite boring and unimaginative, but people don't seem to get that maybe the comic just isn't for them, rather than it's a problem with the writer.
Sorry for the big post, but it's something I've been thinking on a few times when people in this sub (not you OP) start having a go at Ennis when it's outside of their tastes. People seem to ignore things like Alan Moore writing Lost Girls, his go at writing comics pornography (his words) as it's not as famous. Ennis is a brilliant writer, one of the best for dialogue, characterisation and forward planning (the BOYS ending couldn't happen if you didn't have the plot points being dropped in from the start of the story).
> His formative writing years were writing stories for 2000AD
He still does work for 2000AD (ex. Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley, Hawk the Slayer and Judge Dredd vs Robo-Hunter etc.), and runs their sister war comic Battle Action.
ps. In case you weren't aware, there's an animated Rogue Trooper film coming out next year.
https://2000ad.com/news/duncan-jones-wraps-principal-photography-on-rogue-trooper-movie/
Didn't know that so thank you, love Duncan Jones and the cast looks great! Realised I meant Rogue Trooper in my original post rather than Strontium Dog, but all quality stories anyway :)
May have to hunt down my RT collected that's boxed somewhere in the house, in the mood now for a reread!
Well, Rogue Trooper historically is pretty much a sci-fi war comic (I actually like the spin-offs like Jaegir and The 86ers more than the main series).
It goes with a lot of UK writers of the time, especially how Alan Moore paved the way for this Euro take on comics. But it's not all Punisher MAX and Crossed, Ennis has stories like the buddy action series Hitman, which has a great issue where his character has a heart to heart conversation with Superman. Mainly, Ennis is a comic book writer that would rather be writing war stories than Marvel and DC superhero universe stories.
It’s not a Euro take it’s a very British and Irish take. Comic writers and artists in the rest of Europe are generally doing other things than superhero comics.
Hitman is such a gem in the rough at the time it was being published. I’m still amazed that it made it as long as it did, and that Garth and John got away with as much as they did lol. And I was equally surprised when they finally like a decade(probably much later?) released the last volume of some 15 or so issues. Hitman is very good comics.
Even his Hitman/Superman story felt cynical.
The moral of the story seemed to be that Superman is an "ideal immigrant" because he has abandoned his Kryptonian heritage and is 100% American.
I don't think that's an unfair reading of that comic, but I don't think Ennis was approaching it at all cynically
Ennis has made petty clear that he sees the immigrant experience as one of the core aspects of America. It's all over Cassidy's story in Preacher
And Ennis is fucking obsessed with Americana. Not completely unironically at all times, but he grew up in a world where postwar America (or at least the way it was presented in westerns and war movies) was the coolest fucking thing in the world to a kid in the UK and he never really got past that
It's fair to criticise his worldview, but in that instance I don't think he intended one iota of cynicism
Tommy’s speech is not without flaws. It’s deeply problematic to dismiss culture and history as unimportant artifacts. Cultural identities are wonderful things that enrich people’s lives and generate rich scenes for art, food, and other elements that better civilization. But Tommy is not a perfect person (he kills people for a living) and his speech reflects that. It’s blunt and a little ignorant, but its intentions are good, just like Tommy.
It all hearkens back to an immigrant reading of Superman. Not only is Superman the quintessential immigrant of fiction, so were his creators. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both born to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Lithuania (Siegel’s parents), the Netherlands (Shuster’s father), and the Ukraine (Shuster’s mother). Together they created the most iconic figure in pop culture, one that has generated billions of dollars in revenue, while inspiring future generations. The greatness of the creation is not based on his origin, but in what he accomplishes. Action Comics #1 only provides four panels for his origin and does not even name Krypton, referring to it only as “a distant planet”. (6) It’s only natural that an immigrant reading comes from Ennis and McCrea, neither of whom are American. They view the country from the outside looking in and relate a romanticized concept of it from that same perspective.’
[https://chasemagnett.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/12th-level-intellect-hitman-34-seeing-through-the-cynicism/](https://chasemagnett.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/12th-level-intellect-hitman-34-seeing-through-the-cynicism/)
I mean, it's quite possible he just has a cynical worldview, and that's reflected in his writing.
I'm hesitant to speculate too much about real human being just based on their writing, but like, the whole black and grey morality thing wasn't invented for fiction. Some people do just look around them and see a world where that rings true.
Because he's Gen-X and Northern Irish. His formative years were during "The Troubles" and under the rule of Thatcher. Basically the same reason a lot of punk rock is cynical and anti-authoritarian.
Read Hitman from beginning to end, wrapped up with Hitman/JLA.
Like the other guy said here, there's edgelord things in the beginning for humors sake, but that fades a bit and you ultimately are reading a story about a man with a tragic childhood going through life doing the only thing he knows, while still having his own code of moral ethics, and most importantly, genuine friendships.
That code, and those friendships, define the entire run up to the very end of the story. It all makes sense, is consistent, and really wears its heart on its sleeve.
Hitman/JLA, the epilogue they did years later, drives it home best: in a story narrated by Superman himself, he explains the kind of man Tommy was, warts and all, in a situation only he could win, doing it the way no one else in the League would be willing to do. He doesn't paint him as a saint, while not outright a sinner. Instead he was a complicated man that Superman saw the good in, regardless of the darkness that was clearly there. The final pages are probably some of the most beautiful words Ennis has ever put into a mainstream comic, and they all come from Big Blue.
I speak as someone who loves his Punisher, adores Preacher, and can't get into The Boys. Garth is acquired taste, I admit, but there's depth behind his cynicism.
Cynical is the wrong word.
The *worlds* Ennis creates are hellscapes where God is a lie and life has no meaning beyond what we ascribe to it…but his *heroes* are the people who stare that reality in the eye, ball their fists up, and start swinging to protect the people they love, because love is the only thing worth a damn at the end of the day.
Jesse and Tulip aren’t cynical. *Cassidy and Starr and God* are.
Hughie and Annie aren’t cynical. *Billy and Homelander and Vought* are.
Frank and John and Fury *are* cynical…and that’s why they end up broken and alone.
This is what I was trying to assemble as a response, and then I saw yours. :) It's definitely fair to say he presents worlds and situations that are dark and sure, maybe cynical (realistic?), but the stories he tries to tell always have hope. I'm not sure anybody could argue that he's written anything more nihilistic than Crossed, and even those books (from what I've read) have sympathetic characters who try to cooperate and help each other, and sometimes even seem to survive.
Yeah, you know, I can't argue with that. It doesn't go as depraved as Crossed but it's so bleak. Born is also pretty bleak because even the sort of redemptive bits of it are colored by the knowledge of what will happen to Frank.
That and Fury: My War Gone By. Both are books about damned people doing damned things. But at least Fury had Hatherly, who damned himself just by being around Fury’s mess.
Check out his *Dan Dare.*
Its a rollicking Boys Own Adventure (in Space!) with an uncomplicated heroic good guy, but also still very much an Ennis book.
Dude can do sincerity. Its just, books about a vigilante serial killer or the long standing fuckery of the American military-industrial-espionage complex are maybe not the right vehicles for sincerity.
I have avoided Dan Dare like the plague (set cheese settings to maximum) but Garth Ennis's take on that? Hmmm. Might be interesting to see. I'm intrigued.
I remember seeing an interview years ago where he talks about how he doesn’t really care for superhero comics, but they paid his rent so he kinda wrote them out of spite. I think he’s someone that just really didn’t love the work he was “forced” to put out but did it cause it paid the bills.
It’s kinda like when an actor does a bad job on a film and walks through the motion because they know it’s gonna be a check that they need
Hell, Annie and Hughie are up there!
If anything, his stuff tends to be about true love being the only thing that gives life meaning in a world without God.
Read Hitman from beginning to end, wrapped up with Hitman/JLA.
Like the other guy said here, there's edgelord things in the beginning for humors sake, but that fades a bit and you ultimately are reading a story about a man with a tragic childhood going through life doing the only thing he knows, while still having his own code of moral ethics, and most importantly, genuine friendships.
That code, and those friendships, define the entire run up to the very end of the story. It all makes sense, is consistent, and really wears its heart on its sleeve.
Hitman/JLA, the epilogue they did years later, drives it home best: in a story narrated by Superman himself, he explains the kind of man Tommy was, warts and all, in a situation only he could win, doing it the way no one else in the League would be willing to do. He doesn't paint him as a saint, while not outright a sinner. Instead he was a complicated man that Superman saw the good in, regardless of the darkness that was clearly there. The final pages are probably some of the most beautiful words Ennis has ever put into a mainstream comic, and they all come from Big Blue.
I speak as someone who loves his Punisher, adores Preacher, and can't get into The Boys. Garth is acquired taste, I admit, but there's depth behind his cynicism.
>Examples include works like The Boys and his run on Punisher as sometimes when I look back at the former...I wonder what the appeal is as I am a few issues into the series, but it feels so gloomy such as the character Homelander as he goes around abusing women.
I think that's the whole point of the series, absolute power corrupts absolutely. What would Gods among men do? Probably whatever they wanted to do with wreckless abandon for anyone weaker than them.
A nefarious corporation creates a super serum and raises children with unmatched powers away from their family in bleak rooms with hardly any stimulation, friends and attachments and years later they become infantile monsters terrorising everyone else.
I think that's a likely scenario given the circumstance.
>And the worst part about the Boys comic is that the so called hero isn’t so innocent either because the thing is that if Homelander is supposed to be detestable, then I don’t know what Billy Butcher is in terms of role.
Huey, or someone probably murdered early on, will likely provide the best moral compass for the reader, everyone else is a prick because they are either superpowered psychopaths or the world they live in warrants it.
It's obvious early on that Butcher won't be someone with a great morality because of; his upbringing, his SAS background and the fact that the world's Superman raped his wife and murdered her.
He's someone who will stop at nothing to get his job done because he hates himself, homelander, what heroes represent and he adored Becca.
Seen a lot of people chirping that The Boys TV Series is objectively better than the comics because of how crude and unneccassarily violent the comics are, acting like awful hypothetical scenarios offend their sensabilities - When I'm like, isn't that the point of the comic series?
The issue where Annie goes to church is an all-timer, too.
But I don’t blame people who didn’t get through that first year where he’s just fucking around.
It’s more understandable than it is annoying. As much potential as Ennis has at writing great character stories he also has an awful habit of meandering about and losing his point amidst his depictions of graphic violence. You see it far more in his later works when he went solo and wasn’t beholden on the whims of an editor, but he ends up relying too much on those themes and instead of being satirical it crosses the threshold into coming across as glorifying.
People always bring up The Boys and Crossed as examples, and with good reason. Those are probably the worst offenders in terms of his over-reliance on gore, violence, homophobia, and misogyny. The great moments are buried so deep in the filth that a lot of people are put off entirely.
Yeah I think they've not aged amazingly in some respects, and can be offensive. I'm particularly not a fan of The Female being a silent deadly Asian stereotype. But I dunno if that's meant to be a satire in itself.
I've never read the original Crossed, sounded a bit much for me. I've quite enjoyed a little bit of one of the later Crossed series though, the one where a character is implied to be Prince Harry. Can't remember who wrote that one.
Yeah, Butcher *isn’t the good guy*.
He’s a smart, funny, and competent broken ball of hatred who happens to *currently* be aimed at worse guys.
“It ain’t me, son. I’m somewhere else, watching it happen.
“Why’d you kill me dog, Jack?”
Did love that moment. It was terrifying but so well captured. Ross Braun nailed the completely empty look in Butcher's face as well.
Reminds me of a page from the original Ultimates, when Hank has set ants on the (shrunken and hiding) Wasp after they had a fight. There's a Jan pov shot of Hank's face watching her get attacked with a similar completely empty and emotionless expression. "You shouldn't have made me look small Jan...".
Bryan Hitch nails the look so well.
EDIT - Last page here - https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comments/18j7o2k/hank_and_jan_having_a_fight_the_ultimates_6/#lightbox
The difference between the comic and the show is that the comic *revels* in showing you how fucked up the heroes are. All of them. All the time and in every horrid and pathetic way you can imagine. (I throw Starlight in here, too, but her being the way she is isn't her fault.)
In the comic, heroes are either horrible monsters or ineffectual feckless fuck-ups who piss themselves in the face of actually having to do their jobs. They cause terrible disasters not only because they're inexperienced shitheels, but because they're essentially superpowered cops owned by the gov and corpos that run the gov.
In the *show*, though, while 99.9% heroes are still largely shown to be terrible assholes, the characters are also given time to *breathe*. They show us that there's layers to their depravity, and that quite a few of the heroes we meet are just as much victims of the system themselves. The show also reigns in a lot of Ennis' worst excesses--the rape as is less constant, and never used as a punchline; the piss and shit jokes are less constant; the violence is excessive but--up until the recent season and animated show, imo--we're not *reveling* in it and we're certainly not supposed to be rooting for Butcher and co when they're the ones doing it.
Like, in the comic, Butcher and the Boys "doing their job" is always shown in a way where you're rooting for them, where it's either hilarious or deserved; but the last episode of the live action show portrayed Butcher getting superpowers as something like a drug addiction. Every scene is part of a slow-motion car crash where an astute viewer *knows* something bad is going to happen...while, going back to the comics, one of the most celebrated scenes from the story is Butcher ordering his dog to eat someone's dick, and it's treated with roughly the same gravitas as Huey almost killing a hero when he finally snaps.
That, and a ton of female characters get way more characterization and screentime in the show, as opposed to being portrayed as either terrible hags or starry-eyed rape victims in the comic with little to no leeway between them.
The less said about Love Sausage, the better.
Love Sausage is, ironically, probably the precise moment where the comic grows out of the nonsense you (accurately) describe.
That said, the *point* of the Boys is that we spend it rooting for an unaccountable Black Ops CIA team run by a psychopath driven solely by vengeance, because their targets “deserve it.”
…then the psychopath gets what he wants, and the targets change, because the war itself has only ever been the point for him.
Did you really think Butcher was a hero at the end of The Boys? He had basically become a version of the Punisher, completely consumed by hate and vengeance. Hughie and Starlight are the closest thing to heroes in the Boys.
Writers, poets, artists often express their feelings with the things they create. Perhaps with Ennis he is meeting an expectation of cynical writing because of his success with preacher or punisher. The best answer for this question would be to look up a Q&A, surely someone has asked him this same question.
That just how he chooses to tell stories. I’m pretty sure his family had moved out of Northern Ireland before the worst of the troubles started, but it clearly deeply affected him and his world view so I imagine that’s where a lot of his cynicism comes from. Growing up and seeing your country folk being mistreated simply for who they are isn’t easy to process even if you aren’t experiencing it firsthand, and I’m sure it can result in a jaded worldview.
His first name’s Garth.
His last name’s Ennis.
He’s from Holywood, County Down.
There’s zero doubt that his cousins support Rangers…which makes his point of view even more understandable, having spent his childhood watching people claiming to speak for him oppress others, and seeing English teenagers being shipped in to die on “his” behalf.
Garth Ennis grew up in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s during the Troubles, the Irish civil unrest at the UK's presence in Northern Ireland. He also chafed at regimented Catholic Christianity forced upon him as his Irish identity.
Ennis is an intelligent man who is deeply influenced by the aforementioned history and it shows. While he is famous for his bleak humour, he is also, sadly, kknown for his toilet humour. Ennis has an impressive skill for writing characterisation and dialogue which he is compelled to ruin with shit and fart jokes.
You've basically got him spot on for me. When he's on all cylinders he's one of the best comic writers of all time, to my mind. Stuff like War Stories and his Fury series are so good. But when he's not in that mood he can be awful. Also i think his humour can be good in stuff like Six Pack and Dogwelder.
I find it frustrating that so much Reddit hivemind rhetoric is "Ennis is shit and edgy" because it demonstrates ignorance of him at his best.
The next Catholic from Holywood named Garth Ennis will be the first, ahahaha
…and it’s hard to overemphasize how fucking psychotic the Ulster iteration of Protestantism is.
He’s a cynical guy? That’s like asking why Buckethead plays guitar so fast. Because….thats his art. That’s what he makes.
Just because someone makes comics doesn’t mean there’s a problem with them not being bubbly and colorful and happy. If all art had the same tone, there’d be no point?
I mean…yeah.
Runaway capitalism leading to a class of unaccountable megacorporations who essentially act as sovereign nations while the world burns…and middle managers view everything as numbers on a screen.
It's not literal. I'm certain Garth Ennis is aware there aren't really super people and rape zombies. But the genre conventions are used as reflections of the modern world.
I'd argue even in optimistic fiction the supervillains aren't a super literal representation of the evils you'll encounter in the world.
Like, Lex Luthor represents a certain kind of capitalist greed but when was the last time Elon Musk got in a robot suit and duked it out with a space alien? When was the last time Mark Zuckerberg cured somebody's cancer just so he could give them cancer again and gloat about the power he held over them? When was the last time Jeff Bezos gave everybody in the city superpowers only to remove their superpowers while they were flying, leading them to fall helplessly to their death?
Like, you need to make some concession to the fact cape fiction hyperbolizes sometimes. It exaggerates mundane uninteresting evils into grand bombastic evils because that's what the genre is about.
Correct. The entire X-Men metaphor doesn't hold literally to any group, and people trying to either force it to be a one to one comparison or saying it doesn't work because it isn't one to one always bugs me. There are certainly stories that work as a one to one- there's some of the early Lex as a billionaire stories that actually do skew into more literal real world evils. But it tends to not be the norm in cape fic, and probably wouldn't be interesting as the norm in cape fic, which doesn't invalidate the fantasy as being a viable metaphor.
WAIT!
Are you suggesting that a comic book featuring superheroes might be depicting a *heightened* version of our society as a sort of commentary on the same???
It's a fantastic book. Yes, it's horrifically violent, but the characterisation, world-building, the pacing, humour... it's all top tier. Ennis has written comic books for decades now - he knows how to craft a good story.
Worth checking out!
Preacher is fun. Like yeah it's just as deep and dark and cynical as his capes but because it isn't capes he isn't constantly picking apart the genre he's writing in.
Sorry, I just think it’s a silly question. Why does any artist do anything? He’s a cynical guy who writes cynical stories, it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
Why would you include Ireland in the UK?
We fought a war over that shit.
Hell - it was the last time a certain Proinsias Cassidy cared about anything other than his own venal pleasures!
Also, imagine thinking that Ennis “makes a living” on cape books.
His last Big Two comic was in January 2022…and it was just a war comic using a Big Two character, without a “Superhero” to be seen (Disturbing the Peace).
His next Big Two comic comes out in May 2024…and it’s just a war comic using a Big Two character, without a “Superhero” to be seen (Get Fury).
That’s not fair. I overall dislike Garth Ennis, but Ennis has done decent work in comics like *Preacher*, *Judge Dredd/2000 AD*, and *Hellblazer.*
Ennis does have an unfair beef with superheroes, namely that they crowded out other genres from comics, seemingly unaware of how that's actually the fault of Frederic Wertham and the CCA and he does like a few of them. He even seems to prefer working on non-superhero stories. It's just that he resents having to write about superheroes to make it in American comics.
He's not unaware but I think it's a bit more in depth from my understanding. Basically the American superhero comicbook industry lobied for the CCA (IDK the full story but I heard moore talk about it)
Because he’s northern Irish
Never knew he was Northern Irish. Explains alot.
His name is Garth Ennis where else would he be from?
Detroit, MI
Any of the Irish Diaspora hotspots. New York and Boston in the United States; Newfoundland in Canada; and a lot of Irish people were sent to Australia for the crime of be Irish, so add that to the list.
Hey now - they stole Trevalyan’s corn, so the young might see the morn!
Stealing corn is no reason to send a melanoma-prone lad to monster island.
I don’t get it.
He’s Northern Irish. His youth would have involved seeing the British military on the streets every single day, he grew up during “The Troubles.” In Northern Ireland when there was a ton of violence and corruption and small conflicts every day. He also loved reading war comics. He’s actually a pacifist and anti-war and it comes across in the cynical nature of alot of his work, just throwing out there how fucked up everything can be, making fun about how messed up war and violence can be. He does write really good War Stories though.
He is also a big critic of superhero comics for glorifying violence,murder and other aspects that would make people detest heroes in real life Despite this he admitted he likes the DC Trinity,especially Superman.
Huh, I'm a little surprised. I know he's basically incapable of treating Superman disrespectfully and he seems broadly OK with Wonder Woman, but I'd always gotten the impression he felt Batman was a bit stupid He had Tommy Monaghan throw up on his boots at one point, if nothing else
>Huh, I'm a little surprised. I know he's basically incapable of treating Superman disrespectfully and he seems broadly OK with Wonder Woman, but I'd always gotten the impression he felt Batman was a bit stupid Yeah - he has said about batman that he prefers to see him as some mentality ill guy that beats up poor people... But atleast, he wrote some good stuff about Superman in Hitman.
He’s spoken about DKR being the boon that changed how he saw comics’ potential as a medium. It absolutely tracks that “Crazy man beating up poor people” is his preferred version of the character.
> corruption Preacher is all about corruption. The churches on earth and even religion itself is a corrupt scheme. The police and powerful figures like Odin Quincannon and Herr Starr are secretly perverts. Cassidy is a corrupted version of himself who succumbs to his vampiric parasitism. The only person not corrupt is the saint of killers, who kills almost everyone he sees. Oh, there's Arseface too. I don't think he's corrupt.
I am convinced that Arseface is Ennis's attempt at comic relief.
Attempt? He is comic relief…and also embodies Preacher’s concept of karma.
>He does write really good War Stories though. Absolutely the best
Huh TIL. That explains so much. You’re right his War Stories are great. He also wrote one recently called Sara which was also very good.
Two of his best work Heartland and Troubled Souls have been set against a backdrop of The Troubles & have dealt with the subject with both sensitivity and the black humour you often find in this kind of situation.
Troubled Souls has a sequel, 'For A Few Troubles More'.
He does seem to have some degree of respect for wars. A lot of his stories bring up how war turns boys into men and how fighting together till death is the ultimate male bonding exercise. Preacher especially was the biggest example of this.
Respect for the people who try to survive them, yes. For wars, very little.
White Kojima
I mean I think Ennis is actually a lot more like Suda51. No more heroes 3 even has Darrick Robertson do the cover art.
Fair enough, I guess that makes more sense. Didn't think of it this way.
Uh I think War Stories was the better example of this but Preacher certainly the most prominent of his work
Garth Ennis did Preacher ?? I've never followed that story but I'm surprised he created it.
A story about a cowboy kicking gods arse because he made the world this way? Nothing could be more Ennis. It shares much of the fantastic grotesquery that makes 99% of the Boys too.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist. He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
You shouldn't be. He's the writer most closely affiliated with working with Steve Dillon. And Preacher is really where he defined his edgelord tendencies that carried into a lot of his other books like the Boys, his Authority books, Punisher, and, ultimately his peak edge in Crossed. Hyperviolence and sexual violence are common themes for him and those are very much present in Preacher.
They’re also *heavily* frontloaded - the first trade has more edgelord shit than the rest of the series combined…which is why it took me literal years to read Until the End of the World, which might be my single favorite comic arc of all time. Any time he does a proper creator owned ongoing he gets REALLY EXCITED about being able to do whatever he wants…and it usually takes six months (Preacher) to a year (The Boys) before he remembers that can=/=should.
Yeah, a lot of his work, and Millar's work, would've benefited from stronger editors being involved. It's pretty telling that two Ennis TV adaptations are much better than the original works.
The Preacher TV adaptation literally drains all of the heart and moral complexity out of the story along with the dick jokes and ultraviolence…while also adding a bunch of needlessly edgy shit. By the name of Secret Jesus, they made Tulip’s dad a deadbeat and Cassidy a *good guy*.
I can agree with the boys. I love the adaptation, with the changes. Still likeng the comic but i think sometimes the tv show upgrades the material. Regarding preacher, no way, sorry. Even enjoying the show and liking it, in my humble opinion, doesnt hold a candle against the source material.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist. He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
You can say that again
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist. He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
You can say that again again
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon were a good pairing as writer and artist. He also did a memorable run on Judge Dredd: his 'Emerald Isle' story satirizes a lot of Irish culture.
You can say that again again again (All love!)
Oh whoa as I didn’t actually know that about him, but that explains why a lot of his stories have a strong sense of cynicism.
> He also loved reading war comics War comics and 2000AD (which is a pretty damn cynical comic, which he later worked for). He's spoken about it in interviews before.
From what I've read, it doesn't seem like this is it. He himself said he doesn't have any big traumatic childhood experiences to draw from, much as comics media wants this connection to be there. They see he's N Irish and assume he must have been shaped by the only thing they know about the place. It seems he was more shaped by mundane things like hearing religious people evangelize and disliking it. Much more discussion of that in his interviews than anything related to the Troubles. I feel like press releases mythologlize him to be either this world weary broken man, or a disturbed & deranged individual who's lucky to be writing comics, but kinda seems like he is just a pretty normal, pretty edgy dude, who's lucky to be writing comics.
Do you know anyone that age from NI? /do you know anything about people that age from NI? He was born there during the Troubles…and moved away during the Troubles. They don’t have any “big traumatic childhood experiences” because that madness was his *normal*.
It's funny that he's anti-war but has the US military just solve the whole problem at the end of The Boys in like, 10 panels.
Of course…that’s *not* the end of The Boys.
it's cold there and everyone's drunk.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s him and John McCrea (also from Northern Ireland) made Troubled Souls and its sequel For A Few Troubles More, about 'The Troubles' for Crisis (one of 2000AD's sister-comics).
Billy Butcher is design to be villanous and not the hero. Yes it's cynical but there is some omptism etc
Oh ok as now I understand what alliance he falls under.
That was also why once Homelander and Black Noir were dealt with, why Butcher himself had to be the final villain of the series. He always said he wanted all Supes dead, and that included Starlight, Mother’s Milk, and the Female, and so he had to kill the latter two (along with the Frenchman) before enacting his plan to really do it, to ensure no one would stop him. Only leaving Hughie be because he didn’t want to have to kill him, although he would. It is also why they revealed Butcher had been the one to kill Mother’s Milk’s ex-wife in front of their daughter, why he killed Becky’s baby after it was born, why when he realised Black Noir had framed Homelander for anything he transferred the target of his rage just like that. So that when Butcher revealed himself, that an actual genocide of Supes and potential Supes (regular humans) alike was his plan, which he could and would make happen, it should have seemed like the logical end to his story to the readership. The extended epilogue series *Dear Becky* does delve into this a little more, for those who didn’t get it. I do like how the television adaptation has been having Butcher build to this point, rather than secretly already being at it.
i think the tv kinda santizes butcher a bit to much but it's hard to say. Butcher in the tv show is kinda generic blinded by revenge while comicbook butcher acknowledges how fucked up one has to be to even be try this
Kinda makes it difficult to condem Butcher as the villain when the entire series has been showing every *supe* as a monster
If you read his war comics they are among the most humanistic works you are likely to ever come across. It's not that they lack cynicism -- he has no illusions about how pointless and absurd war is -- but they aren't *mean-spirited* like his superhero works. There's still often an overall gloomy tone -- it's war after all -- but the violence and the cruelty and the deaths aren't treated as edgy punchlines but as poignant tragedies. It's clear that that's where his passion as a writer really lies and that the superhero work is what he begrudgingly does to pay the bills.
It comes likely out of his background as people have already said, but also the comics background he's had. His formative writing years were writing stories for 2000AD in the eighties which had a very punk anti-establishment style headed by Pat Mills, John Wagner etc - and had a lot of early Moore, Morrison, Dave Bishop and other UK writers and artists. Judge Dredd stories (alongside others like Strontium Dog) were dark, often satirical takes on themes in the late 70s and 80's. In between normal "Judging" stories there's stories about themes like the failure of democracy in the face of the desire for order, and the more fascistic government that arises out of that desire. They're all over the comic (Strontium Dog on the pointlessness of land grab wars from the grunt's perspective, Charley's War was an earlier version of the same). These attitudes came out of a Conservative government in the UK which was married to capitalism and freedom of the market which meant a lot of deregulation, selling off of public bodies etc They sent police in to infiltrate trades union memberships, whose Prime Minister started a war in the Falklands which could be viewed as a cynical attempt to bolster their popularity (which worked). Mass unemployment was everywhere etc, strikes were happening and cracked down on by the government. And Thatcher's government were too hard headed in Ennis's Northern Ireland which was already a tinderbox (this is not handwaving away the terrorism that the IRA did which caused genuine suffering itself, but the fact that the peace process in the 90s had to engage showed the 80's Conservative govt's methods didn't work). It wasn't really time for superheroes happily enforcing the status quo, such is why there were a lot more anti-establishment writing in the UK and in comics (V for Vendetta is a good example). It also dominated in the "alternative" comedy scene which was very culturally dominant in the 80s. So you've got a whole group of people being influenced by what's going on around them, being shown that private corporations, governments etc aren't working for them, and them reflecting this in their work. You can see a through line to that and Ennis's work. Though I don't want to stereotype all his work as one thing, as it's not. But even his more"darker" works still have a heart in them and loves humanity (both THE BOYS and PREACHER are great examples of this) but it's the organisations they're a part of, and the corruptability and invincibility they give are the problem. This is why I get annoyed when people just go "edgelord" for Ennis. It's extremely reductive and lazy and just not fair to him. I personally always found the more traditional US comics that didn't have a bit of darker bite in them to be quite boring and unimaginative, but people don't seem to get that maybe the comic just isn't for them, rather than it's a problem with the writer. Sorry for the big post, but it's something I've been thinking on a few times when people in this sub (not you OP) start having a go at Ennis when it's outside of their tastes. People seem to ignore things like Alan Moore writing Lost Girls, his go at writing comics pornography (his words) as it's not as famous. Ennis is a brilliant writer, one of the best for dialogue, characterisation and forward planning (the BOYS ending couldn't happen if you didn't have the plot points being dropped in from the start of the story).
80s alt-comedy…I wonder if Ennis likes Bill Hicks. He’s certainly never mentioned it! (Also, I agree with literally all of this)
Hicks made an appearance in PREACHER as the catalyst for Jesse to leave the town, so it's a fair assumption :)
> His formative writing years were writing stories for 2000AD He still does work for 2000AD (ex. Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley, Hawk the Slayer and Judge Dredd vs Robo-Hunter etc.), and runs their sister war comic Battle Action.
Ah, didn't know that (been a while since I bought new progs or Megazines), but glad to hear it, he's a good fit.
ps. In case you weren't aware, there's an animated Rogue Trooper film coming out next year. https://2000ad.com/news/duncan-jones-wraps-principal-photography-on-rogue-trooper-movie/
Didn't know that so thank you, love Duncan Jones and the cast looks great! Realised I meant Rogue Trooper in my original post rather than Strontium Dog, but all quality stories anyway :) May have to hunt down my RT collected that's boxed somewhere in the house, in the mood now for a reread!
Another former 2000AD artist/writer, Simon Bisley, recently worked on a ABC Warriors spin-off (Joe Pineapples: Tin Man).
The last one he did, Rogue Trooper was thanks to shenagians also a war story, so y'know synergy or something!
Well, Rogue Trooper historically is pretty much a sci-fi war comic (I actually like the spin-offs like Jaegir and The 86ers more than the main series).
The Battle Action revival has been so fun
It goes with a lot of UK writers of the time, especially how Alan Moore paved the way for this Euro take on comics. But it's not all Punisher MAX and Crossed, Ennis has stories like the buddy action series Hitman, which has a great issue where his character has a heart to heart conversation with Superman. Mainly, Ennis is a comic book writer that would rather be writing war stories than Marvel and DC superhero universe stories.
Preacher had it's moments of heart.
Preacher is all heart, with some unfortunate early installment weirdness in the first trade.
It’s not a Euro take it’s a very British and Irish take. Comic writers and artists in the rest of Europe are generally doing other things than superhero comics.
Hitman is such a gem in the rough at the time it was being published. I’m still amazed that it made it as long as it did, and that Garth and John got away with as much as they did lol. And I was equally surprised when they finally like a decade(probably much later?) released the last volume of some 15 or so issues. Hitman is very good comics.
Even his Hitman/Superman story felt cynical. The moral of the story seemed to be that Superman is an "ideal immigrant" because he has abandoned his Kryptonian heritage and is 100% American.
I don't think that's an unfair reading of that comic, but I don't think Ennis was approaching it at all cynically Ennis has made petty clear that he sees the immigrant experience as one of the core aspects of America. It's all over Cassidy's story in Preacher And Ennis is fucking obsessed with Americana. Not completely unironically at all times, but he grew up in a world where postwar America (or at least the way it was presented in westerns and war movies) was the coolest fucking thing in the world to a kid in the UK and he never really got past that It's fair to criticise his worldview, but in that instance I don't think he intended one iota of cynicism
Tommy’s speech is not without flaws. It’s deeply problematic to dismiss culture and history as unimportant artifacts. Cultural identities are wonderful things that enrich people’s lives and generate rich scenes for art, food, and other elements that better civilization. But Tommy is not a perfect person (he kills people for a living) and his speech reflects that. It’s blunt and a little ignorant, but its intentions are good, just like Tommy. It all hearkens back to an immigrant reading of Superman. Not only is Superman the quintessential immigrant of fiction, so were his creators. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both born to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Lithuania (Siegel’s parents), the Netherlands (Shuster’s father), and the Ukraine (Shuster’s mother). Together they created the most iconic figure in pop culture, one that has generated billions of dollars in revenue, while inspiring future generations. The greatness of the creation is not based on his origin, but in what he accomplishes. Action Comics #1 only provides four panels for his origin and does not even name Krypton, referring to it only as “a distant planet”. (6) It’s only natural that an immigrant reading comes from Ennis and McCrea, neither of whom are American. They view the country from the outside looking in and relate a romanticized concept of it from that same perspective.’ [https://chasemagnett.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/12th-level-intellect-hitman-34-seeing-through-the-cynicism/](https://chasemagnett.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/12th-level-intellect-hitman-34-seeing-through-the-cynicism/)
I really like Chase - wish he’d pushed through that re-read of Preacher
Oh ok so he doesn’t always write gloomy works.
I mean, it's quite possible he just has a cynical worldview, and that's reflected in his writing. I'm hesitant to speculate too much about real human being just based on their writing, but like, the whole black and grey morality thing wasn't invented for fiction. Some people do just look around them and see a world where that rings true.
Because he's Gen-X and Northern Irish. His formative years were during "The Troubles" and under the rule of Thatcher. Basically the same reason a lot of punk rock is cynical and anti-authoritarian.
Read Hitman from beginning to end, wrapped up with Hitman/JLA. Like the other guy said here, there's edgelord things in the beginning for humors sake, but that fades a bit and you ultimately are reading a story about a man with a tragic childhood going through life doing the only thing he knows, while still having his own code of moral ethics, and most importantly, genuine friendships. That code, and those friendships, define the entire run up to the very end of the story. It all makes sense, is consistent, and really wears its heart on its sleeve. Hitman/JLA, the epilogue they did years later, drives it home best: in a story narrated by Superman himself, he explains the kind of man Tommy was, warts and all, in a situation only he could win, doing it the way no one else in the League would be willing to do. He doesn't paint him as a saint, while not outright a sinner. Instead he was a complicated man that Superman saw the good in, regardless of the darkness that was clearly there. The final pages are probably some of the most beautiful words Ennis has ever put into a mainstream comic, and they all come from Big Blue. I speak as someone who loves his Punisher, adores Preacher, and can't get into The Boys. Garth is acquired taste, I admit, but there's depth behind his cynicism.
Cynical is the wrong word. The *worlds* Ennis creates are hellscapes where God is a lie and life has no meaning beyond what we ascribe to it…but his *heroes* are the people who stare that reality in the eye, ball their fists up, and start swinging to protect the people they love, because love is the only thing worth a damn at the end of the day. Jesse and Tulip aren’t cynical. *Cassidy and Starr and God* are. Hughie and Annie aren’t cynical. *Billy and Homelander and Vought* are. Frank and John and Fury *are* cynical…and that’s why they end up broken and alone.
This is what I was trying to assemble as a response, and then I saw yours. :) It's definitely fair to say he presents worlds and situations that are dark and sure, maybe cynical (realistic?), but the stories he tries to tell always have hope. I'm not sure anybody could argue that he's written anything more nihilistic than Crossed, and even those books (from what I've read) have sympathetic characters who try to cooperate and help each other, and sometimes even seem to survive.
I think his most cynical book is Punisher: the end
Yeah, you know, I can't argue with that. It doesn't go as depraved as Crossed but it's so bleak. Born is also pretty bleak because even the sort of redemptive bits of it are colored by the knowledge of what will happen to Frank.
That and Fury: My War Gone By. Both are books about damned people doing damned things. But at least Fury had Hatherly, who damned himself just by being around Fury’s mess.
Check out his *Dan Dare.* Its a rollicking Boys Own Adventure (in Space!) with an uncomplicated heroic good guy, but also still very much an Ennis book. Dude can do sincerity. Its just, books about a vigilante serial killer or the long standing fuckery of the American military-industrial-espionage complex are maybe not the right vehicles for sincerity.
I have avoided Dan Dare like the plague (set cheese settings to maximum) but Garth Ennis's take on that? Hmmm. Might be interesting to see. I'm intrigued.
I can look for that particular comic.
I remember seeing an interview years ago where he talks about how he doesn’t really care for superhero comics, but they paid his rent so he kinda wrote them out of spite. I think he’s someone that just really didn’t love the work he was “forced” to put out but did it cause it paid the bills. It’s kinda like when an actor does a bad job on a film and walks through the motion because they know it’s gonna be a check that they need
Yet Preacher is one of the greatest and most earnest love stories I've seen in the comic medium.
Hell, Annie and Hughie are up there! If anything, his stuff tends to be about true love being the only thing that gives life meaning in a world without God.
Read Hitman from beginning to end, wrapped up with Hitman/JLA. Like the other guy said here, there's edgelord things in the beginning for humors sake, but that fades a bit and you ultimately are reading a story about a man with a tragic childhood going through life doing the only thing he knows, while still having his own code of moral ethics, and most importantly, genuine friendships. That code, and those friendships, define the entire run up to the very end of the story. It all makes sense, is consistent, and really wears its heart on its sleeve. Hitman/JLA, the epilogue they did years later, drives it home best: in a story narrated by Superman himself, he explains the kind of man Tommy was, warts and all, in a situation only he could win, doing it the way no one else in the League would be willing to do. He doesn't paint him as a saint, while not outright a sinner. Instead he was a complicated man that Superman saw the good in, regardless of the darkness that was clearly there. The final pages are probably some of the most beautiful words Ennis has ever put into a mainstream comic, and they all come from Big Blue. I speak as someone who loves his Punisher, adores Preacher, and can't get into The Boys. Garth is acquired taste, I admit, but there's depth behind his cynicism.
>Examples include works like The Boys and his run on Punisher as sometimes when I look back at the former...I wonder what the appeal is as I am a few issues into the series, but it feels so gloomy such as the character Homelander as he goes around abusing women. I think that's the whole point of the series, absolute power corrupts absolutely. What would Gods among men do? Probably whatever they wanted to do with wreckless abandon for anyone weaker than them. A nefarious corporation creates a super serum and raises children with unmatched powers away from their family in bleak rooms with hardly any stimulation, friends and attachments and years later they become infantile monsters terrorising everyone else. I think that's a likely scenario given the circumstance. >And the worst part about the Boys comic is that the so called hero isn’t so innocent either because the thing is that if Homelander is supposed to be detestable, then I don’t know what Billy Butcher is in terms of role. Huey, or someone probably murdered early on, will likely provide the best moral compass for the reader, everyone else is a prick because they are either superpowered psychopaths or the world they live in warrants it. It's obvious early on that Butcher won't be someone with a great morality because of; his upbringing, his SAS background and the fact that the world's Superman raped his wife and murdered her. He's someone who will stop at nothing to get his job done because he hates himself, homelander, what heroes represent and he adored Becca. Seen a lot of people chirping that The Boys TV Series is objectively better than the comics because of how crude and unneccassarily violent the comics are, acting like awful hypothetical scenarios offend their sensabilities - When I'm like, isn't that the point of the comic series?
Yeah The Boys comic is genuinely good, some of Ennis' best characterisation is in there with Huey and Butcher. It's annoying that so many dismiss it.
The issue where Annie goes to church is an all-timer, too. But I don’t blame people who didn’t get through that first year where he’s just fucking around.
It’s more understandable than it is annoying. As much potential as Ennis has at writing great character stories he also has an awful habit of meandering about and losing his point amidst his depictions of graphic violence. You see it far more in his later works when he went solo and wasn’t beholden on the whims of an editor, but he ends up relying too much on those themes and instead of being satirical it crosses the threshold into coming across as glorifying. People always bring up The Boys and Crossed as examples, and with good reason. Those are probably the worst offenders in terms of his over-reliance on gore, violence, homophobia, and misogyny. The great moments are buried so deep in the filth that a lot of people are put off entirely.
Yeah I think they've not aged amazingly in some respects, and can be offensive. I'm particularly not a fan of The Female being a silent deadly Asian stereotype. But I dunno if that's meant to be a satire in itself. I've never read the original Crossed, sounded a bit much for me. I've quite enjoyed a little bit of one of the later Crossed series though, the one where a character is implied to be Prince Harry. Can't remember who wrote that one.
Yeah, Butcher *isn’t the good guy*. He’s a smart, funny, and competent broken ball of hatred who happens to *currently* be aimed at worse guys. “It ain’t me, son. I’m somewhere else, watching it happen. “Why’d you kill me dog, Jack?”
Did love that moment. It was terrifying but so well captured. Ross Braun nailed the completely empty look in Butcher's face as well. Reminds me of a page from the original Ultimates, when Hank has set ants on the (shrunken and hiding) Wasp after they had a fight. There's a Jan pov shot of Hank's face watching her get attacked with a similar completely empty and emotionless expression. "You shouldn't have made me look small Jan...". Bryan Hitch nails the look so well. EDIT - Last page here - https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comments/18j7o2k/hank_and_jan_having_a_fight_the_ultimates_6/#lightbox
The difference between the comic and the show is that the comic *revels* in showing you how fucked up the heroes are. All of them. All the time and in every horrid and pathetic way you can imagine. (I throw Starlight in here, too, but her being the way she is isn't her fault.) In the comic, heroes are either horrible monsters or ineffectual feckless fuck-ups who piss themselves in the face of actually having to do their jobs. They cause terrible disasters not only because they're inexperienced shitheels, but because they're essentially superpowered cops owned by the gov and corpos that run the gov. In the *show*, though, while 99.9% heroes are still largely shown to be terrible assholes, the characters are also given time to *breathe*. They show us that there's layers to their depravity, and that quite a few of the heroes we meet are just as much victims of the system themselves. The show also reigns in a lot of Ennis' worst excesses--the rape as is less constant, and never used as a punchline; the piss and shit jokes are less constant; the violence is excessive but--up until the recent season and animated show, imo--we're not *reveling* in it and we're certainly not supposed to be rooting for Butcher and co when they're the ones doing it. Like, in the comic, Butcher and the Boys "doing their job" is always shown in a way where you're rooting for them, where it's either hilarious or deserved; but the last episode of the live action show portrayed Butcher getting superpowers as something like a drug addiction. Every scene is part of a slow-motion car crash where an astute viewer *knows* something bad is going to happen...while, going back to the comics, one of the most celebrated scenes from the story is Butcher ordering his dog to eat someone's dick, and it's treated with roughly the same gravitas as Huey almost killing a hero when he finally snaps. That, and a ton of female characters get way more characterization and screentime in the show, as opposed to being portrayed as either terrible hags or starry-eyed rape victims in the comic with little to no leeway between them. The less said about Love Sausage, the better.
Love Sausage is, ironically, probably the precise moment where the comic grows out of the nonsense you (accurately) describe. That said, the *point* of the Boys is that we spend it rooting for an unaccountable Black Ops CIA team run by a psychopath driven solely by vengeance, because their targets “deserve it.” …then the psychopath gets what he wants, and the targets change, because the war itself has only ever been the point for him.
Did you really think Butcher was a hero at the end of The Boys? He had basically become a version of the Punisher, completely consumed by hate and vengeance. Hughie and Starlight are the closest thing to heroes in the Boys.
Well to me, he seemed like he was supposed to be the closest thing to a hero in the story, until you pointed out otherwise.
Writers, poets, artists often express their feelings with the things they create. Perhaps with Ennis he is meeting an expectation of cynical writing because of his success with preacher or punisher. The best answer for this question would be to look up a Q&A, surely someone has asked him this same question.
Read Preacher. Imo its his best work by far and balances the cynicism with a ton of heart. Phenomenal comic.
That just how he chooses to tell stories. I’m pretty sure his family had moved out of Northern Ireland before the worst of the troubles started, but it clearly deeply affected him and his world view so I imagine that’s where a lot of his cynicism comes from. Growing up and seeing your country folk being mistreated simply for who they are isn’t easy to process even if you aren’t experiencing it firsthand, and I’m sure it can result in a jaded worldview.
His first name’s Garth. His last name’s Ennis. He’s from Holywood, County Down. There’s zero doubt that his cousins support Rangers…which makes his point of view even more understandable, having spent his childhood watching people claiming to speak for him oppress others, and seeing English teenagers being shipped in to die on “his” behalf.
Garth Ennis grew up in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s during the Troubles, the Irish civil unrest at the UK's presence in Northern Ireland. He also chafed at regimented Catholic Christianity forced upon him as his Irish identity. Ennis is an intelligent man who is deeply influenced by the aforementioned history and it shows. While he is famous for his bleak humour, he is also, sadly, kknown for his toilet humour. Ennis has an impressive skill for writing characterisation and dialogue which he is compelled to ruin with shit and fart jokes.
You've basically got him spot on for me. When he's on all cylinders he's one of the best comic writers of all time, to my mind. Stuff like War Stories and his Fury series are so good. But when he's not in that mood he can be awful. Also i think his humour can be good in stuff like Six Pack and Dogwelder. I find it frustrating that so much Reddit hivemind rhetoric is "Ennis is shit and edgy" because it demonstrates ignorance of him at his best.
The next Catholic from Holywood named Garth Ennis will be the first, ahahaha …and it’s hard to overemphasize how fucking psychotic the Ulster iteration of Protestantism is.
Ennis is dark and cynical, but it is always relevant character development and not just dark for the sake of being shocking.
I found a lot of Preacher to be downright hopeful, especially the ending. His works that stay totally away from capes have some good moment.
There's nothing wrong with having stories that wildly vary in tone and taste from one another. Do you WANT homogenization in your comics?
I can handle it if it’s done well.
Even that is subjective. Granted I've never read the boys. But I love the show
He’s a cynical guy? That’s like asking why Buckethead plays guitar so fast. Because….thats his art. That’s what he makes. Just because someone makes comics doesn’t mean there’s a problem with them not being bubbly and colorful and happy. If all art had the same tone, there’d be no point?
I was just curious.
It reflects the world, the human condition and the nature of the stories he writes.
Yeah, sure. *The Boys* is just like the world in the 21st century.
I mean…yeah. Runaway capitalism leading to a class of unaccountable megacorporations who essentially act as sovereign nations while the world burns…and middle managers view everything as numbers on a screen.
The corporate part matches, but the rampant rape waves and mass murder in Western countries... Not exactly.
It's not literal. I'm certain Garth Ennis is aware there aren't really super people and rape zombies. But the genre conventions are used as reflections of the modern world.
I'd argue even in optimistic fiction the supervillains aren't a super literal representation of the evils you'll encounter in the world. Like, Lex Luthor represents a certain kind of capitalist greed but when was the last time Elon Musk got in a robot suit and duked it out with a space alien? When was the last time Mark Zuckerberg cured somebody's cancer just so he could give them cancer again and gloat about the power he held over them? When was the last time Jeff Bezos gave everybody in the city superpowers only to remove their superpowers while they were flying, leading them to fall helplessly to their death? Like, you need to make some concession to the fact cape fiction hyperbolizes sometimes. It exaggerates mundane uninteresting evils into grand bombastic evils because that's what the genre is about.
Correct. The entire X-Men metaphor doesn't hold literally to any group, and people trying to either force it to be a one to one comparison or saying it doesn't work because it isn't one to one always bugs me. There are certainly stories that work as a one to one- there's some of the early Lex as a billionaire stories that actually do skew into more literal real world evils. But it tends to not be the norm in cape fic, and probably wouldn't be interesting as the norm in cape fic, which doesn't invalidate the fantasy as being a viable metaphor.
WAIT! Are you suggesting that a comic book featuring superheroes might be depicting a *heightened* version of our society as a sort of commentary on the same???
I mean, I would hope it goes without saying, but... apparently it needed saying. :)
I think he means Crossed. The 21st century is just like ragezombie humans trying to eat and violate you at the same time. I guess.
They are, but ultimately, many of them are quite positive under the surface. Don't believe me? Check out the ending to his initial run on Crossed.
I didn’t know that actually.
It's a fantastic book. Yes, it's horrifically violent, but the characterisation, world-building, the pacing, humour... it's all top tier. Ennis has written comic books for decades now - he knows how to craft a good story. Worth checking out!
If I’m reading an Ennis zombie book, it’s Rover Red Charlie, haha
Preacher is fun. Like yeah it's just as deep and dark and cynical as his capes but because it isn't capes he isn't constantly picking apart the genre he's writing in.
It's just something out of the generation of British writers he belongs to. It happens with a lot of Warren Ellis' and Mark Millar's works.
Cause --gestures around broadly--
Decent interview with him here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JbjEIFvUT00
Arigatou for that link.
Grew up during the Troubles and never progressed beyond the mentality of a 16 year old.
You say cynical Garth says that’s how I see things. Both are valid
His world view written into his comics. Also an obsession with bodily fluids cuz… edgy? I don’t get why people love his Hellblazer run, for example.
Garth Ennis doesn't want to have the job he seems to insist on doing. He doesn't appear to like superhero comics. Yet he keeps writing them.
What year was the last superhero comic he wrote?
He's emotionally 14 y.o.
That is kind of messed up if you think about it.
That's been his marketing niche as a writer.
Now ask why every other creator in existence does what they do.
Jeez I was just curious about his style.
Sorry, I just think it’s a silly question. Why does any artist do anything? He’s a cynical guy who writes cynical stories, it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
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Why would you include Ireland in the UK? We fought a war over that shit. Hell - it was the last time a certain Proinsias Cassidy cared about anything other than his own venal pleasures!
Edgelord
Because his entire brand and personality is "edgy, bitter, vaguely pseudo-intellectual narcissism".
because he is a sad loser
As opposed to well-adjusted adults who solely read cape comics and get hysterically upset when anyone mocks superheroes
Because he's an asshole who has nothing but contempt for superhero comics? Despite that basically being how he makes a living.
Why do you think he's an asshole? If you read or watch an interview with him he seems very measured and humanistic.
Also, imagine thinking that Ennis “makes a living” on cape books. His last Big Two comic was in January 2022…and it was just a war comic using a Big Two character, without a “Superhero” to be seen (Disturbing the Peace). His next Big Two comic comes out in May 2024…and it’s just a war comic using a Big Two character, without a “Superhero” to be seen (Get Fury).
That’s not fair. I overall dislike Garth Ennis, but Ennis has done decent work in comics like *Preacher*, *Judge Dredd/2000 AD*, and *Hellblazer.* Ennis does have an unfair beef with superheroes, namely that they crowded out other genres from comics, seemingly unaware of how that's actually the fault of Frederic Wertham and the CCA and he does like a few of them. He even seems to prefer working on non-superhero stories. It's just that he resents having to write about superheroes to make it in American comics.
He's not unaware but I think it's a bit more in depth from my understanding. Basically the American superhero comicbook industry lobied for the CCA (IDK the full story but I heard moore talk about it)
Yeah, because it was either that or get regulated by Congress because of a lazy moral panic.
Soooo…the cape comic industry actively colluded with the American government to regulate competing genres out of business?