Title: The Boys #71
Writer: Garth Ennis
Art: Russ Braun, Tony Avina, Darick Robertson
Publisher: Dynamite
This issue contains a couple of great payoffs. The Butcher / Hughie conflict comes to an end, and the motives behind the Vought American employees are revealed. Those have been building for a hell of a long time, and both uncovered pretty satisfying revelations.
Spoilers below etc etc.
First off, Butcher’s end was pretty fantastic. If The Boys were a 60′s sitcom, a random cast member would have slyly snuck in a “that’s our Butcher!” upon his final moments alive. After the fall from last issue, Butcher is paralyzed from the neck down. Knowing that its all but over, he tells Hughie to finish him off. True to his character, Hughie graciously declines the request… until Butcher reveals that he’s killed Hughies parents. He happily revels in his accomplishment, describing in great detail the entire ordeal and going so far as to note the pattern of the wallpaper in Hughies house.
Furious, Hughie drives a metal spike into Butchers heart, ending Butchers reign of terror. Of course, Butcher didn’t actually kill Hughies parents, which is immediately discovered after a quick phone call is made by Hughie.
Classic Butcher. When all the cards are face up on the table, he still finds a way to cheat. As he dies with a smile on his face, we’re left with Hughie covered in blood and not looking too well.
There’s still a lot to wrap up, most notably the VA stuff and Annie’s place in all of this. Everyone else is pretty much dead, or so it would seem. I don’t recall ever seeing Mallory’s dead body, so that might be something to revisit as well. All in all, this was a satisfying penultimate issue to one of my favourite books out there.
The only thing that was a little iffy in my books was the fall at the end of issue 70. It seemed a little too random, and to have the end of the series rest on a chance event kind of devalues everything that came before. The fact that it was a mistake by Butcher doesn’t make it any better. Having said that, it was still a hell of a lot of fun to watch how everything between Butcher and Hughie is unraveled.
However, you could certainly argue that the whole book was a series of random chaotic events, and so it’s a fitting end to the team. But let’s not scour the depths of philosophical implications here – lets wait until it’s finally over to do that.
The Boys is one issue away from the end. We’ve had some fun, naked and drug-filled times with the gang, but all good things must end, as evidenced by the cover for The Boys issue 72 finale below.
