The Boys Creator's New Comic Gives The Vought Treatment To Dungeons & Dragons

Writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson created comic book series "The Boys" to satirize how their industry was ruled by corporate greed. The lifeblood of that greed? Superhero funny books (a genre Ennis has never liked). In 2019, "The Boys" leaped to television, with its thesis rejiggered around the oversaturation of superhero movies.

"The Boys" is one of the most popular Prime Video shows streaming (though that won't stop it coming to an end with season 5). Thanks to the TV adaptation, "The Boys" is currently the most talked-about Ennis comic, even if the show does take plenty of liberties with its source material. ("The Boys" TV show creator Eric Kripke told /Film he regularly consults with Ennis and Robertson.)

Ennis' body of work has running themes: vulgarity and violence; distaste for power whether it be political, corporate or religious; resolute warrior men who destroy themselves etc. Ennis is a leftie but also an edgelord, and watching those two parts of him wrestle on page can be either distasteful or fascinating. With little interest in writing superheroes, Ennis bounces across plenty of different genres. "Preacher" defies easy genre classification, but it has the soul of a Western. Jesse Custer may be a minister, but it's not God he looks to for guidance; it's John Wayne. My favorite Garth Ennis-written comic, "Sara," follows Red Army snipers during World War 2 and it's far from his only war comic.

His latest comic, the upcoming six-issue mini-series "Babs" (drawn by Jacen Burrows) sees Ennis turning to fantasy and bringing his trademark no limits sense of comedy with him. Babs is a treasure hunter with a talking sword (Barry, who has a hilt shaped like two middle fingers) and a mouth like Billy Butcher. 

AHOY Comics shared an advance copy of "Babs" #1 with /Film. Here are our first impressions of it, and how it compares to other irreverent Ennis comics.

The defining image of sword and sorcery stories is a lone warrior — either armored or half naked, and always with a sword — wandering an agrarian landscape. That's the image you think of for "Conan The Barbarian," "Red Sonja," "Berserk," etc.

"Babs" evokes this imagery in its opening pages; a gold-bikini-bound woman rides a horse through a forest, slowly making her way into a close-up. The text boxes, though, strike a sardonic tone and immediately suggest this isn't as straightforward as it looks. The narrator describes Babs as "fair of face yet s**t of luck." Once she gets her close-up on page 2, her first full words are: "This goddamned scalemail's going to chew my f***ing nipples off."

Next, Babs is swapping stories with her drinking buddy Izzy, who lost a score to a crowd of "Leprec**ts." (Ennis, who's from Northern Ireland, often isn't kind to Irish stereotypes — especially Irish-Americans with little grasp on actual Irish history.)

Speaking to Comics Beat, Ennis suggested that "Babs" came from the same place as "The Boys" — he's parodying a silly genre he regards as too self-serious for its own good. Ennis likes fantasy more than he likes superheroes, though (he calls his feelings "fond disdain" and says he genuinely loves "The Hobbit"). So, while "The Boys" is a vicious parody, "Babs" is an affectionate one.

Like "The Boys," contrast is the key of the satire. "The Boys" has superheroes in bright and colorful costumes that are also debauched and violently killed. Burrows draws "Babs" like a traditional fantasy book; there's dragons, orcs, knights, whimsical forests, shantytown pubs, etc. An alternative cover of issue #1, drawn by Chris Burnham, features a stern-faced Babs raising her sword like Conan The Barbarian.

AHOY Comics

The speech bubbles, though, are filled with Ennis' usual blend of dialogue. His flippancy is about as far from the formal archaic style associated with fantasy works as you can imagine. "Babs" (comic and character) look like typical fantasy, but they don't act like it.

One of Ennis and Burrows' previous partnerships was "The Ribbon Queen," an eight-issue mini-series published in 2023. NYPD Detective Amy Sun finds herself in the center of a murder spree targeting her colleagues. Sounds simple, right? Not exactly — the cops die when their skin starts peeling off their body like strands of loose thread. "The Ribbon Queen" was one of Ennis' more straight-faced comics; it had the usual cursing, but not the crude humor. The book is the product of a nation deeply in need of, and crying out for, police reform. The cops in "The Ribbon Queen" are all bullies or too cowed by complicity. 

Ennis, with Amy's mouth, tells Irish-American cops that they've all become the Black and Tans their ancestors were escaping. The Ribbon Queen herself is the embodiment of feminine rage towards violent men. She was created when a woman, fleeing pillaging Vikings, ran through a forest of thorns and emerged with her skin torn off. Wonder Woman is one of the only superheroes whom Ennis appreciates as having worthwhile ideas buried in her character. The Ribbon Queen feels akin to George Perez's concept that the Amazons were all reincarnated souls of women abused by men in life — for Ennis, though, liberation sometimes takes violence, as ugly as it is. 

Though it has the same team as "The Ribbon Queen," "Babs" is not like that. As Ennis told Comics Beat: "Her motivation is to get rich and live a life of unimaginable luxury. She honestly hasn't a hope." (The title of "Babs" issue #1 is "And I'm A Material Girl," referencing Madonna's song about how diamonds are the key to a girl's heart.) When Babs accidentally runs into a hungry bear, she doesn't stand her ground, she hightails it away. 

Between its lead character and sense of humor, "Babs" is a sister work of another recent Ennis comic: "Marjorie Finnegan, Temporal Criminal" (drawn by Goran Sudzuka).

"Marjorie Finnegan, Temporal Criminal" is Ennis' spin on "Doctor Who." It might be his most farcical comic. Even though Ennis' sense of humor often rubs me the wrong way, this book is a fun time.

The title tells it (almost) all. The eight issues of "Marjorie Finnegan, Temporal Criminal" follow two sisters as they travel across time. One of them, Marj, gleefully kills, steals, and f*cks her way across recorded history. Her escapades range from crashing the Crucifixion just to say "He's just some dude and there's nobody up there" to pegging Henry VIII. Her uptight, eye-patched sister Harriet Finnegan is a time cop assigned to bring in her sister. Once they get wind of an evil plot to rewrite history, they have to team up.

I've noticed in his recent works that Ennis tends to make his leads women. They can be grouped in two boxes: Sara and Amy Sun are stern women of action who fall down into disillusionment; Marj Finnegan and now Babs are greedy and carefree spitfires. There's a telling scene in "Babs" #1 which reveals why Ennis is writing this story about her and not, say, a direct Conan parody.

In "Babs" #1, Babs and Ennis get confronted by a small crowd of orcs and men. They believe, mistakenly, that Babs is "Grizzlok The Barbarian," a woman who killed her warrior father and took his name. Babs isn't — the confusion arises because all warrior women look alike, bikini armor and all — but the crowd still (to their regret) tries to kill her because they liked it better when Grizzlok was a man as he's "supposed" to be.

The Boys" has a problem with right-wing fans misunderstanding its text. Even if he's only a consultant on the show, I now can't help but wonder if Ennis has noticed this. "Babs" #1 is a refreshing reminder that not every boundary-pushing writer out there thinks "cancel culture" is an extinction-level event.

"Babs" issue #1 is available in comic stores on Wednesday, August 14, 2024.