What's the best deconstruction of the superhero genre?

>>87899829
There are very few if any deconstructions of the superhero genre.

/co/ thinks anything self-aware, critical, and/or dark is "deconstruction", which is just bullshit.

Even Watchmen is arguably not a deconstruction (though that's closer than most).

The Boys sure as fuck is not.

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>>87901828

And on the other hand, we have the best RECONSTRUCTION of the superhero genre, which is much more necessary at this point than a deconstruction.

>>87900108
The Boys is pretty much why I avoid most of Ennis' stuff like the fucking plague. It is so fucking bitter. I don't mind dark stories, but Boys is just... shitty.

It just comes as a bitter and cynical bastard trying to say that the world is the way that he perceives it. In that world, nearly everyone is a piece of shit and those who aren't pieces of shit are idiots.

Watchmen had a vast array of characters who were nearly all flawed, but there was something more to them most of the time. They weren't just bastards, they were people.

>>87899829
Batman v Superman.

Plebs were just too unenlightened. They didn't understand it, therefore they hated it, the exact problem Batman had.

Pure kino at it's finest.

>>87901968
The Boys is hilarious if you're not too in love with superheroes

>>87900108
How is Watchmen not a deconstruction?

>>87903046
Define deconstruction, because if Watchmen is a "deconstruction" of a genre then Don Quixote is a "deconstruction" of another genre, which its not, its a subversion and satire of tropes. Same with Watchmen, they are a subversion of an idea.

What do people mean when they say something is a deconstruction if not the subversion of certain accepted ideas within a genre?

>>87903142
It was my understanding that subverting "expected" tropes in a certain genre is exactly the definition of a deconstruction.

>>87901851
I didn't get why people like this so much.

Explain "deconstruction" to someone who isn't a student of the literary arts.

>>87902085
I'm most definitely not in love with superheroes, I haven't read any superhero comics since I was a kid, but despite that I agree with that guy. It's so bitter that it just becomes shit for 90% of the run. There were some bits that were funny and some bits that were good for the story, but ultimately it drowned in bitterness and edginess that went too far to be any kind of decent critique or deconstruction of the cape industry. It's just the same with a bitter slant.

>>87901968
You took it too seriously, I thought ennis was kinda like Moore in that he thought people took comics too seriously. Think of the boys as giant joke or parody, like a couple pints you were around ideas about what if super man was a Nazi who raped people to death and the only person who could stop him was that guy from hot fuzz

>>87906036
DUDE
FEELS
LMAO

>>87906105
I sure didn't get any. Zibarro was a cool guy though.

>>87901968
There are plenty of perfectly likable characters in The Boys who aren't pieces of shit or idiots. Heck, Hughie is easily the most morally sound protagonist Ennis has ever written.

>>87906080
Probably my biggest complaint about the boys was that it just felt lazy at some points. Like with the X-men parody, I thought ennis would do something subverting the whole persecution of mutants issue but no, he just made Charles Xavier a pedophile because it's edgy.

>>87906132
I only read about half the boys, but Hughie never felt like a character to me, he was just kinda the everyman who reacted to everything that happened without much depth or development throughout the story.

>>87906114
Muh pa and suicide girl, you heartless swine.

>>87906203
>Muh pa
Such a dumb time-loop.
>suicide girl
Maybe it would've had more impact if I hadn't seen the parody version before reading it.

>>87906179
Hughie gets a lot of development and backstory in the second half of the story, probably about where you dropped it. He pretty much transforms into the hero that the story was lacking beforehand.

I'd give it another chance. If anything, the entire series is worth it just for the ending.