As politics become more important for The Boys‘ plot, sometimes it feels like the show’s superhero satire took the passenger’s seat. However, Season 4, Episode 5, finds the time to joke at the expense of both Marvel and DC.
‘The Boys’ Season 4 makes fun of the MCU overplanning…
In the latest episode of The Boys Season 4, Vought is burning its money in a huge convention called Vought52, which is supposed to get fans hyped about superheroes. Since Vought’s profits come mainly from the mediatic machine they built for their flesh-and-bone Supes, the convention is about announcing new movies and TV shows.
As soon as the episode starts, we are taken to the main stage of Vought52, where The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) kick off the festivities. The Deep quickly reveals to the crowd that they will present their cinematic universe’s roadmap for “Phases 7 to 19.” Coleman adds that they’ll go over everything “in exhaustive detail.” As if the reference was not explicit enough, the massive screen behind The Deep and Coleman shows a timeline that reuses the template of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Part of what makes the MCU so enticing is that every movie and TV show is connected into one big overarching story, as characters cross the barriers between franchises to show up in other heroes’ productions. However, in recent years, Marvel Studios has been too eager to keep expanding, with more movies and TV shows added to their bloated slate with each new announcement. Of course, the strategy has blown up in the studio’s face multiple times, as they are forced to change plans due to the bad reception of some projects, or even the death of key cast members.
Getting fans excited about the future is essential to keeping an IP alive. However, overplanning can harm a brand, especially when you need to do homework to understand all the “exhaustive details” of the MCU’s future Phases.
A closer look at Vought52’s slate reveals several fake movies inspired by Marvel properties. “G-2: G-Men” is a nod to X2: X-Men United, and “G-Men: Days Past From the Future” refers to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Also, “A-Train: Into the Multiverse” echoes the MCU’s current obsession with parallel timelines.
Still, it’s not only the MCU that gets a poignant parody in Episode 5 of Season 4. The Boys also land some precise blows on DC.
… But also of DC’s lack of direction
During the Vought 52 conference, Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) goes on stage to tell fans that it’s been two years since his last movie, so it’s time to reboot the franchise. The new production will be called “The Tek Knight,” with the “The” marking the creative team’s commitment to doubling down in making the story darker and grittier than before.
Tek Knight is The Boys’ version of Batman, a rich and spoiled white man with a taste for gadgets who poses as the world’s best detective. That means his speech during Vought 52 parallels DC’s complicated cinematic history.
While Marvel Studios has been guilty of overplanning, Warners Bros. Discovery has constantly sabotaged every effort to build a cohesive DC cinematic universe. Moved by market research and investors’ interests, Warner Bros. Discovery never allowed the creative minds behind the DC movies and TV shows just to do their work, which resulted in abominations such as The Flash and 2017’s Justice League. Because of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has a tradition of rebooting live-action adaptations of DC superheroes every few years, especially Batman.
Tek Knight’s speech also pokes fun at DC’s tradition of being “dark and gritty.” DC movies tend to be exaggeratedly dark just for the sake of being dark, and even the best movies featuring DC heroes struggle to escape these expectations. For instance, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is a phenomenal production that sticks to the depressive version of Gotham Christopher Nolan popularized and Zack Snyder deepened. It’s no wonder the Tek Knight reboot also has a “The” in its title.
Finally, the name of the convention, Vought 52, refers to the New 52 initiative from DC Comics. While Marvel Comics has kept a continuous universe for decades, DC Comics has rebooted its story multiple times. One of the most famous comic book reboots was the New 52, in which DC erased the whole canon – except for Batman, for some reason. So, since The Boys is pointing at DC’s inability to maintain a proper cinematic universe, they also underlined how this tradition started in the comic books. Hopefully, James Gunn will clean the house and turn DC into the cinematic giant it deserves to be.
