the Boys #29 - Dynamite Entertainment

We've been following this story with the G-Men now for the last couple of issues. But I gotta say, this issue didn't go at all where I expected it to. I mean we know who these G-Men symbolize . . who they're a synonym for. But other than that similarity . . everything else . . everything is pretty whacked. Butcher and the Boys went to get Hughie out last issue and they ended up chasing a couple of the G-Men down through the woods. Jamal is the weak link, so they save him for questioning. Basically, he confirms all of their suspicions. Godolkin abducts these kids when their 6 or 7, promising them fame and fortune. I mean, when you were a kid what if someone stopped you on the street and told you that they'd make you a super-hero? Anyways, he lures them in, but he never lets them go. They start injecting them with compound-V, you know from Voight-American, and when their powers manifest they start training them. By this time they're all pretty much bought in because all of the other kids are their friends now. And besides that, the G-Men is the most profitable franchise ever, so . . they have everything they need, or could want . . video games, toys, comics, porn, drugs, alcohol . . pretty much anything. But as you know, people with this much power usually go astray somewhere. Godolkin is secretly molesting all of these kids. Well . . not so secret . . they all know about it. If somebody makes a fuss . . they're taken care of. If somebody doesn't want to stay . . their taken care of. If somebodies powers turn out to be something crappy . . they're taken care of. "See, they raise you . . they train you to protect the G-Men, that's like the number one priority no matter what . . . you know what bein' in the G-Men's all about. You know you ain't gonna be a superhero . . or maybe it's just you know what bein' one really means . . but you sure know what you got. An' you know what you'll do to protect it." But before he can go any further, someone pops in and shoves their fist through Jamal's head. "Siiiilence is golden!" This really pisses Hughie off, so he's ready to take them on all alone . . just for the principal of the thing. Eventually all the Boys join in, but in front of the mansion is every single G-Man waiting . . every single member, from every single group . . all standing there ready to face down the Boys. Butcher knows it's a hopelessly lopsided battle, but . . "Worse ways to go than slaughterin' twats like these." However, before they can do anything they hear choppers coming in. The representative from Voight-American is in the lead chopper so it appears that they've come to stop them. They get out of the choppers and immediately open fire . . on every single one of the G-Men. They shoot stingers after all the fliers. And then . . then they napalm everything that's left. The Voight-American guy comes over to Butcher and says . . "Just so you know . . . we can clean up our own shit!" That's definitely not how I expected all of this to end. Obviously it's not what the Boys expected either because the issue ends with them standing there with their jaws dropped. This is the kind of stuff I've been expecting to happen throughout this whole series, but . . you just never thought it would. You know? Wow! A pretty powerful ending. I love this book. I think Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson are doing a terrific job. I can't wait to see where we go from here.