89: The Boys Read The Boys Part 6

Summary
In this episode of the Comic Dudes podcast, the hosts discuss their thoughts on volume six of The Boys comic book series. They recap the main events of the volume, including the brutal fights between the Boys and Payback, the controversial treatment of Starlight, and the origin stories of the team. Overall, they express mixed opinions about the volume.

Chapters
00:00 Recap and Setting the Stage
11:26 Character Deaths and Escapes
13:22 Exploring Origin Stories
22:27 Discussion on Themes and Impact
24:09 Disliked Portrayal of M.M.'s Origin Story
29:20 Controversial Elements of Stormfront's Character
32:44 Inconsistency in the Boys' Level of Violence
37:44 Starlight and Huey's Meeting Place
39:52 The Most Outrageous Moment
46:02 The Frenchie Issue
50:47 Representation of Sexual Identity

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Original Music by Alex Productions
Show notes include some AI generated content

Transcript

Dave (00:09.966)
Welcome back to the Comic Dudes, a podcast where we read comic books that we really don't like in an effort to make sense of all of the things that we've read together collectively for all of you, despite the fact that none of us probably want to keep doing this. Yet here we are for another month of reading the boys. This month, it was volume six, the Self -Preservation Society. Before we get into that though, with me as always, my esteemed co -host, Matt, Matt, how are you?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (00:38.478)
Dave, I'm doing much better because I got to give you a big old love sausage like hug in person a couple days ago. So I'm feeling really good about where things are at.

Dave (00:48.654)
It was great. It was great. Yeah, it will get to that. Also with us because it's it's a boys episode is our friend Eric out in the Pacific Northwest. Eric, how are you?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (00:51.534)
I'm gonna go.

Death By Baguette (00:59.331)
I am doing well. Glad to be joining you from the Pacific Northwest. Wish I could have gotten to give you a love sausage hug too. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (01:08.558)
Me too, honestly. That's okay. In due time. I'll make my way up there at some point in the next year or two. This year's plans were foiled by buying the house. We just couldn't make it work.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (01:08.718)
you

Death By Baguette (01:14.019)
Yeah, eventually.

Death By Baguette (01:20.003)
shit happens. Listen, I'm forcing my other pod buddy to come up next month. So one at a time. Aaron. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (01:20.302)
That'll do it.

Dave (01:26.51)
Nice. Which one? nice. That's awesome. Well, yeah, so I was just in my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania. Shout out Erie P .A., shout out Book Sklore, shout out Bob Dobiez. Although I didn't make it into books, I'm sorry. Sorry, Bob, if you're ever listening to this podcast, which I know you won't, but I didn't get to come and see you. But Matt did come down because Matt lives close to Erie, Pennsylvania.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (01:41.866)
did you see him? I was gonna say you.

Death By Baguette (01:48.995)
.

Dave (01:54.958)
We used to live in your Pennsylvania at the same time and Eric also live at Erie, Pennsylvania at at the same time as we but not the same time as Matt. But we all are connected by a small town on the northwest corner of the state of Pennsylvania sitting right on a beautiful lake.

Death By Baguette (02:07.907)
There was no overlap in our time there, huh?

Dave (02:10.446)
I know Matt didn't come down to Erie until college, which is what like 2003, 2004, somewhere in there.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (02:16.75)
Yeah, no fault.

Death By Baguette (02:17.507)
yeah, I was gone. Yeah.

Dave (02:19.182)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so yeah. Yeah, we all have. We all have. Enough eerie time to have a conversation about eerie if we wanted to. I'm thankful that we don't. I don't have the capacity for that right now. And also I should remind everyone, since we're a couple minutes in already, you can follow us on Instagram.

Death By Baguette (02:22.019)
But we all lived there. That's close enough. We were there.

Death By Baguette (02:30.819)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (02:35.411)
No.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (02:36.334)
you

Dave (02:45.87)
And you can follow us on TikTok. We post semi -regularly on those platforms. The link to our Discord is also in the episode description. No one's joined the Discord yet. I'm starting to take it personal. So, you know, it'd be cool if you guys joined the Discord and talked to us about what you hear on the show. What you don't hear on the show.

Death By Baguette (03:04.483)
Shout out, Blade Brown. I know Blade Brown listens to every episode. I know Blade Brown loves Discord. Show up.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (03:12.11)
and show out.

Death By Baguette (03:13.507)
Yeah, I'm not asking, I'm demanding.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (03:16.91)
You

Dave (03:18.19)
Pressure's on, Blade. What are you gonna do?

Death By Baguette (03:19.619)
Yeah. Join the discord. I'm sure. Yeah.

Dave (03:23.118)
fucking better. Honestly if you don't it's okay I won't be offended. So we're reading the boys. If you don't know how these episodes go, I'll recap what we read hitting the high notes or in some cases the low notes and setting us up for discussion where we'll talk through the things that we liked, the good, the things that we didn't, the bad, and the things that were just too outrageous to classify into good or bad.

Death By Baguette (03:26.467)
You

Dave (03:49.614)
We'll also talk about our favorite and least likable characters from this month's read. Without further ado, or rather, is there any more ado that we need to do? Fellas. good, good, good, good, good. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Content warning and spoiler warning. This is going to spoil the boys comic book. It is also potentially going to spoil the boys TV show. Maybe because some of this stuff might make its way into the show. I don't know.

Death By Baguette (03:59.107)
Yeah, probably a content warning.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (04:02.286)
Look at that! Look at that!

Death By Baguette (04:03.107)
Yeah.

Dave (04:18.926)
Also, we're going to talk about a lot of really awful stuff. So typically I warn you about very, very graphic sexual content. We still have that. This month we also have ableism, homophobia, and a lot, a lot, I mean, a lot of racism. It's not the kind that we've had before. This one's perpetuated by an actual Nazi.

Which also if you're not comfortable talking about Nazis or hearing us talk about them out Go time to leave pack it in hit pause close Spotify close Apple podcasts. Whatever you listen to us on go go do something that you'll have much more fun doing But if you're cool with all that shit, just remember you're fucking warned

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (04:54.862)
you

Dave (05:10.094)
All right now no more adues thank you for the reminder that's that's important I tend to forget that for some reason. Before I get into the recap I would like to start with I read the digital trade paperback on comicsology unlimited. The forward. In this month's trade it was by a guy named Damon Lindelof if you don't know who he is he is one of the creators executive producers and head writers of the show lost which I.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (05:13.582)
It was close.

Death By Baguette (05:14.019)
You will.

Dave (05:39.214)
have a very large fondness for. His foreword is an absolute cringe fest. He wrote it like a teenager swearing for the first time and realizing that he can get away with it. It's just, it's so stupid. At one point, and this is a direct quote, a direct quote he wrote, and man, can he draw boobies when talking about Derek Robertson.

Death By Baguette (06:06.307)
Not true.

Dave (06:08.878)
I was already in a bad mood when I was reading this and starting off with this absolute like just cringe laden, really juvenile forward by a guy that was, I mean, I don't, he might as well have gone over to Garth Ennis' home with a bottle of lube and a smile because he did everything but physically jerk this man off. I couldn't handle it. So it set me off before I had even read

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (06:11.15)
Hehehehehe

Death By Baguette (06:12.067)
You

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (06:36.398)
You're dead.

Dave (06:37.614)
bubble one of this trade, which was again, eight issues long. The math does not math. It is 12 volumes long. Every single one of them is eight issues except for herogasm. At some point we had it, we got to get short ones or we're going to read 96 issues. It doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense. Okay. yes.

Death By Baguette (06:42.531)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (06:54.158)
many.

Death By Baguette (06:59.363)
doesn't make sense.

Dave, real quick before you do this, your volume, you're getting a little bit of distortion when you get loud. So I would say adjust your volume or adjust your mic position a little bit. Yeah, you'll be happy in the long run. Yeah, there you go. Cool.

Dave (07:10.446)
Okay.

Dave (07:14.51)
All right, we're gonna just move the mic away.

Yeah, I know. Thank you. Thank you. We'll fix that in editing a little bit, but not all the way. So apologies. I got a little excited. I was yelling a little bit. Sorry, everyone. I'm not going to edit that out. I'll fix the, I'll, I'll, I'll let, yeah, we're not, we're live ish and lazy. I'm not going to edit it out. I don't care. anyway, issue one starts with the boys.

Death By Baguette (07:28.451)
No, no, you're good.

you're gonna leave that in?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (07:33.55)
We did it, yeah, we did it.

Death By Baguette (07:37.603)
Okay, okay.

Dave (07:46.894)
beaten the absolute fuck out of some soup team that used to run with tech night. That's it. They just beat the shit out of them. It's great. We also find out that Vought is redoing the seven's costumes and the female gets ambushed by a hero named Stormfront. Hero should be in quotes here, but he is technically a soup and he technically fronts a superhero team.

Stormfront and the female have a very brutal fight. Stormfront says a bunch of racist shit because he's a literal Nazi. And he beats her so bad that she ends up hospitalized. However, turns out the hospital is fake. It's an ambush by Stormfront and his team, Payback. We get another like really brutal fight between the boys and Payback. Butcher kills a soup called the Crimson Countess because she tried to kill his dog, Terror.

and while all this is happening, we, we do some cutbacks to what's happening at, at the sevens tower. and star lights retcon is, I don't know how else to put this absolutely monstrous. they want her to wear a G string. They want her to have a new origin, one in which, she is raped and, and then turns to like, I don't know, a hypersexualized darker version of herself.

Classy as always, Mr. Ennis, thank you for that. Butcher single -handedly finishes off Payback, but Stormfront escapes during that fight. So Stormfront is still at large. The rest of Payback dealt with. By now, the rest of the boys have escaped. They got the female to a real hospital, and the rest of the team and Butcher are gonna settle up with Stormfront. While this is happening, we also have the...

I guess I think he's the president. Again, we've got white man with suit syndrome a lot here. I'm pretty sure it's the president and the head of Vought have a long conversation about sort of presidential oversight of what Vought American is doing. Talks about the G men stuff and all the things that are happening with the boys and also questions why payback is being sent to take care of the boys.

Death By Baguette (09:48.387)
Yes. Yes.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (09:48.59)
You

Dave (10:12.91)
more about that later on. We also see Queen Maeve stand up for Starlight in the tower while she's getting a lot of pressure to like put on the G -string and get a boob job and just be a ridiculous caricature of a female superhero. Nice to see Maeve doesn't do much in this comic. We're like halfway through our read through and Maeve has literally done fucking nothing. A stark contrast to her show character but we know that

There's not much to say here. I need to pause for a drink. I'm so sorry.

Death By Baguette (10:44.419)
Yeah, do it.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (10:45.23)
That is okay.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (10:49.518)
Well, Queen Maeve does do something. She drinks and smokes a lot. That's what she's done thus far. Like a lot. True.

Death By Baguette (10:52.643)
A lot, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Dave (10:54.126)
That's a lot of dudes too. She uses them. She uses those boys up. Good for her. so, the boys go back to paybacks headquarters. I guess they're just waiting for storm front, and love sausage returns and then love sausage and the boys, beat that Nazi fuck to death. The rest of this issue is really just a wrap up of, the self preservation society.

Starlight goes back to her old costume, not the one that Vought gave her, but the one that she was wearing when she showed up to the Seven. Again, I think this was the President. He dies in a spa after that conversation with the head of Vought, which I think we'll probably end up talking about that too, but if not, my take there, Vought obviously had the dude killed. The female wakes up and breaks Huey's arm, and we also find out that Butcher kept Soldier Boy alive.

to question him about who sent payback after the boys and I'm sure a whole lot of other things. That is the end of the first half of volume six. The second half, the last four issues, it's called Nothing Like It in the World. I do not know why this story is called that. It is essentially just three vignettes. We get Mother's Milk's origin first.

Death By Baguette (12:04.227)
you

Dave (12:21.198)
He's a natural soup as natural as you could be his mom worked in a contaminated like that food plant that was used as a vaught laboratory before She worked there so his brother has some mental disabilities and His powers activated and killed him Mother's milks manifested during an army boxing match so much later in life. He was you know in the military already and

And he punches this dude's fucking head clean off his body, which is where he and butcher cross paths for the first time and butcher recruits him into the boys. The second issue, the second part of nothing like in the world, we just get more of Mother's milk's origin. And some of the early days with with butcher. By the end of that issue, it also turns into like a 911 Memorial.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (12:54.574)
you

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (13:15.438)
Yeah, I was, yeah, that was weird. I don't know.

Death By Baguette (13:15.843)
Mm -hmm.

Dave (13:18.702)
Yeah, didn't know what to do with that. but it was a thing that happened. I'm not going to talk about Frenchies origin. it was obvious to me that, Garth Ennis thinks that the French are a joke and we're just going to move on. I know we'll get to it in other sections of this podcast. I think I'm just not going to recap it. It was stupid. the last issue is the females origin. It's fine. I guess.

Death By Baguette (13:33.027)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (13:47.918)
Yeah.

Dave (13:48.558)
Nothing really crazy happened there. It's it's not super dissimilar from the show. However, it was probably the most interesting origin, but she really just ends up like she's an accident. And then she gets captured and used as the science experiment until she escapes. That is the end of volume six. Not a lot happened yet again.

This was my shortest recap yet. Shortest one yet. I read this on a plane guys. The swastikas, the language. I honestly, at one point I like tapped forward to the, to the, I think it was the issue three cover of, and it was just like store in front with a, with a swastika on his back, like huge. And I was like, what the fuck? And I like turned my iPad off real quick.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (14:17.262)
That was very short. Yeah.

Death By Baguette (14:18.467)
Okay?

Death By Baguette (14:22.019)
Okay.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (14:25.294)
That had to be super uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

Death By Baguette (14:34.947)
yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (14:36.878)
Him on the... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Death By Baguette (14:37.603)
With the color in black and white. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dave (14:43.982)
was not stoked about that.

Death By Baguette (14:46.627)
I read it in a hotel room so nobody was around to see, which is the right place for it.

Dave (14:52.27)
Yeah, I really got to stop reading these things in public.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (14:54.798)
I don't know why you read the boys in public. That's not what I go. That's true.

Dave (14:57.902)
I had no choice. There's no, there was no way I was going to get it done before tonight. If I didn't read it on the plane on the way home yesterday. And it's a good thing I did because we got home and I was building. This is going to be. We're we're going sidebar hard guys. Sorry. So I'm going to back up. I got a shelf from Timo against all of my better judgment. It's actually not a shelf. It's a glass display cabinet.

Death By Baguette (15:23.171)
Teemu.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (15:27.534)
Yeah, you were telling me about this.

Death By Baguette (15:27.715)
Mm.

Dave (15:28.75)
Yeah, there's $274 regular price 1200 and it shipped for free. That should have been all the red flags I needed to not follow through. But I was like, how bad could it be? The answer is pretty bad. That part notwithstanding while we were building it last night upstairs, we heard what sounded like a thud and then the bell on our kittens collar jingle.

And he fell off the fucking balcony from our second floor all the way down to the first floor. He's fine. He's totally fine. But we had to take him to the emergency vet last night and we were there until two thirty in the fucking morning. So I never would have got it. I never would have got it right in time if I didn't do it yesterday. This cat is stupid as fuck.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (16:03.037)
Oof. He's a cat. He's got... Yeah, he's good. He's...

Death By Baguette (16:10.243)
shit.

Death By Baguette (16:18.115)
I mean, kittens, much like puppies, are gonna try everything and figure out, they're gonna fuck around and find out. Cats even more than dogs. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (16:18.286)
That's tough.

Dave (16:26.158)
Yeah. Yes, I've I've noticed he's down to seven lives at this point. The first one he used up in that car engine compartment when we found him. Number two was last night falling off that balcony. I. He's only 10 weeks in.

Death By Baguette (16:31.843)
No.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (16:32.334)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (16:35.555)
Right?

Death By Baguette (16:41.827)
Our cat Noah did that at our like old old house fell from the like second story balcony down to the floor.

I don't know. She Yeah, she's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was years and years ago. But you know, cats are running around acting stupid and they don't realize, you know, it's 20 feet.

Dave (16:51.47)
Was he okay?

it was a she, sorry. Sorry. I couldn't remember.

Dave (17:04.302)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, they did x -rays and all of the tests and no broken bones, nothing weird in his lungs. Like everything was fine. He just has like some soft tissue bruise. He has a tiny little limp. He has the painkiller and he's fine.

Death By Baguette (17:14.339)
Damn.

Death By Baguette (17:22.987)
Well, I'm glad. I'm glad he's okay. Yeah.

Dave (17:25.71)
Yeah, so are we. So are we. So yeah, don't know what to do when he's on the mend again. Like there's no way to like keep him from coming upstairs.

Death By Baguette (17:35.587)
I mean, that's I mean, but that's that's how you know, he learns he's like, I'm not gonna do that shit again. Yeah.

Dave (17:40.206)
Yes, well, hopefully he remembers. So anyway...

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (17:45.838)
Do you think, so like for good, for the good for me, I actually liked the origin stories. I was curious if like, you guys thought like placement wise, why they were, if Garth Ennis had a rhyme or reason to why, because normally I like to, I like to get origin stories relatively early on in a series. And this is, you know, they started in the later thirties of the series and

It doesn't have to be like the first arc. I don't need that. Like I like having some mystery, some intrigue around these characters, but like after like two years, I kind of want to know some of these motivations. So I did like that part. I was just curious if you guys had thought why now or why do them at all? You know, that was one thing.

Death By Baguette (18:34.179)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like these were probably mini series or something separate that I mean, I don't know. I don't know definitively if these were sequentially released after that the self preservation story or not. I prefer to get their origin stories revealed organically over time, I think.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (18:46.83)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (18:59.63)
Okay, like, yep.

Death By Baguette (19:00.803)
It feels weird for me to like be like, let's stop down right now and give you these origin stories. So

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (19:09.07)
I get that. There's a lot like that was like herogasm to, you know, I guess that was like an event, but it's just like, okay, the story's kind of progressing along. We're going to stop. We're going to do this herogasm thing. Then we're going to come back. Now we've come back for trade. Now we're going to stop. We're going to do this origin story thing. So I can see how that could definitely be like jarring or, you know, your approach might be a little bit better. I did like for me, issue 31, like the whole like storm front thing.

That was like the first real cliffhanger for me in this book where I was like, what's going to happen? Like what's going to happen to the female? Who is this character? Like, I wanted to actually read more after reading that issue. And that's like the first one that I can honestly remember where I was like, I want to keep reading. And like, I read through this relatively quickly, not, not due to, you know, me being a time constraint and we're like going to read and I procrastinated, but like, I actually like,

I read this a couple of weeks ago, so my memory is a little bit foggy, but like I actually breeze through that. With that said, like some of the origin stories, they're not, the story is not the most complex thing in the world. You know, it's very kind of in one ear, not the other. Maybe that's why I got through it so fast, but I did like that. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what happened. I don't know why, but I got through it, which I actually liked. and I, the butcher scene and like issue, I think it was like issue 33.

Dave (20:20.302)
It did read it read fast this time. I got through it real quick too.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (20:34.318)
When he was in there with like all the, with Payback and all those members, I love, I love anytime like one of our heroes or protagonists is like in the shit and they're like being like Shinobi, like taking people out, you know, the whole like, yeah, like the whole like Rorschach, you're locked in here with me kind of deal or like when that's in a Batman story and he just starts beating the shit out of people. Like I really just like whatever that.

Dave (20:48.91)
some Sam Fisher stuff

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (21:00.526)
Power Fantasy Arc is, I guess. I really liked that. I don't know why. So him killing Swato, which is also one of the funniest names I think ever, Swato and Mindroid or whatever. That, and would you say, I think, Crips and Countess, I forgot that one as well too. So thanks for the recap for that. But yeah, I enjoyed it for what it was. I guess one of them I did not like was that whole, I don't know, the whole Mother's Milk 9 -11 thing. That was just like a weird tack on, but.

Dave (21:24.43)
Whoa, whoa, we're still on the good. We're still on the good. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (21:30.222)
Alright, good. I'm done. I don't have a lot of bad at this. Alright, alright, I've jumped around. I'm excited. I'm excited. We're off schedule. I was just gonna go through my whole list. Like my whole report card. Okay, okay. Alright, my bad, my bad. It's been a while. It's been a while. Even as you explained it in the beginning. It's over.

Dave (21:32.59)
Yeah, keep it keep it in order man. And I know we didn't I know we're I know we're off schedule a little bit but hasn't been that long.

Yeah, no, that's never how we've done this. What are you doing? We're going to change up the format now just without talking about it first.

Death By Baguette (21:53.315)
This is new, this is still new. It's very fresh.

Dave (21:55.886)
Matches he's gonna run through the list and then all of a sudden he just leaves the room like camera cameras off like Matt leaves. I know you're not really feeling this this year, but like at least stick out the whole episode.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (21:57.71)
Alright, that's what she goes like.

Death By Baguette (21:59.011)
He's out.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:08.814)
Here's my report card and I'm gone. Bye.

Death By Baguette (22:11.203)
All right, so we jump to what favorite characters next.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:14.414)
Yeah exactly!

Dave (22:14.702)
Heheheheh

Go ahead, Eric.

Death By Baguette (22:20.707)
you I can talk about the good I actually I'll say I really enjoyed this trade until I didn't I really I love that the first half of this book was about fucking up Nazis. I love that. That was dope. I also like that butcher was john wick before john wick was john wick. They're like, don't touch the dog. And then it was like that was it that was the trigger.

Dave (22:23.278)
Yeah, I don't have a lot.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:31.982)
you

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:35.758)
Yeah.

Dave (22:38.254)
Yes.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:42.094)
Yes.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:45.774)
good.

Death By Baguette (22:46.978)
I mean, I mean, obviously, the female was was part of that, too. But the dog was the real trigger. And listen, white dudes in suits said, don't mess with the dog, but not not Scarlet Witch did it anyway. And it set up set them on a path. Here's it. Here's another thing that I like. I don't know if this was intentional or not. I'm thinking it may have been. But when soldier boy who is an analog of Captain America

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (22:57.038)
Hehehe

Dave (23:02.99)
It's very true.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (23:05.198)
Good point.

Death By Baguette (23:15.075)
gets his nose bitten off, he slowly looks more and more like Red Skull, which is kind of an interesting juxtaposition.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (23:18.83)
That's a good point.

Dave (23:20.398)
I didn't notice that.

Death By Baguette (23:22.659)
Yeah, as you get deeper into it, his whole face is red and his nose is missing. And I'm like, is this intentional? I'm not sure. But those were the things I liked. It was all from the first half.

Dave (23:26.35)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (23:31.118)
That's pretty cool.

Dave (23:37.198)
Yeah, I have even less. But also it's all from the first half. Again, there's a healthy distaste for Nazis here, which I love. Absolutely love that. Give me more of that. But we killed him. And the return of love sausage. That's my guy back from what volume two volume three is volume two. Was it three? Love love me some Vasili. Give me that love sausage. Give me all of it.

Death By Baguette (23:40.931)
Okay.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (23:57.358)
You're three, yeah. Two or three, yeah. Two or three, yeah.

Dave (24:08.206)
That's it. That's all I liked. Those are my goods. There's probably more, but those are the two that I wrote down.

Death By Baguette (24:09.123)
that's it. Matt, did you have more? Okay, Matt, did you have more? Or was that the one thing that you mentioned? Was that it? Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (24:10.926)
It was like a -

That was like a weird... More BADs.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (24:19.726)
For bad? No, I had a couple more bads. I love how the red skull thing, that's a really good point. But I thought of the whole fight with Stormfront when Love Sausage came back. It was literally like World War II. It was Love Sausage is the Russian, Butcher is England, and then Mother's Milk is the United States representing. So I thought that was just kind of funny how they did that.

Death By Baguette (24:23.267)
okay.

Death By Baguette (24:46.147)
That's cool. Yeah.

Dave (24:46.414)
It was clever. I'll give him credit.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (24:49.422)
That was my most perceptive Eric moment ever. Even though, like, Eric is way more perceptive.

Dave (24:53.582)
I think you've had more perceptive. I think you've given deeper insights than that in the last two years or so, but.

Death By Baguette (24:55.395)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (25:03.427)
No, that's cool. You know, I didn't even really think about that, but now that you mentioned it, I'm like, that's really cool.

Dave (25:12.206)
Where do we want to start? Can I start the bad?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (25:12.302)
bad.

Death By Baguette (25:14.147)
Do it.

Dave (25:16.558)
I didn't even try to read any of Soldier Boy's dialogue after Butcher bit off his nose.

Death By Baguette (25:19.971)
Same, I stopped.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (25:20.526)
Good point. Yeah, good. Good point. Good point.

Dave (25:22.51)
Terrible. I have and here's the thing. I have read enough Batman comics. And I have seen enough writers do the like noses broke dialogue. And it's there are ways to make that intelligible and legible. Garth Ennis did not know how to do that in whatever year this was printed. 2000 something mid 2000s. I don't know. Which again mid 2000s a little late for 911 memorials.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (25:33.774)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (25:51.363)
It was this was like, by this point, we've got to be in like 2007 because it started in 2006. Maybe even further 2008. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, it's gotta be Yeah.

Dave (25:52.302)
What the?

Dave (25:55.854)
Yeah, something like further than that then. Yeah, further than that. We're in the thirties now for the the numbering. So that's three years. Anyway, yeah, I fucking didn't. I tried for maybe two panels and I was like, nope, can't understand it. Don't care. Probably not. Probably not plot crucial. I just self selected out of that. Wasn't doing that. My my bads are like really, really specific. I cannot stand the way Derek Robertson

Death By Baguette (26:14.851)
Nah.

Dave (26:25.806)
draws the female's lips.

Dave (26:30.222)
Go back and look, they're some of the worst fucking lips you'll ever see. They look ridiculous.

Death By Baguette (26:33.571)
Okay.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (26:34.574)
Okay, we'll take your word for it. We'll take your word.

Dave (26:38.03)
They make her look like some kind of Muppet. They're bad, dude. They're bad. She got Muppet lips. Traditionally, Muppets don't have lips. I know this, but you'll just go back and look. You'll see what I mean. You're like, yeah, she's got a Muppet face now. Those lips are weird.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (26:41.966)
left to try to find it.

Death By Baguette (26:53.507)
There's that one Muppet in the band, like the female Muppet with the like long braids that has lips. That's the only one I can think of that has lips, obviously.

Dave (27:01.102)
I swear to God, if that Muppet is somehow the inspiration for the female, I'm going to lose my fucking mind.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (27:01.102)
You

Death By Baguette (27:06.435)
You

I hope not.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (27:11.053)
This is where we're at boys, this is where we're at.

Dave (27:15.118)
That you know we started on a high note in terms of like conversational. You know, like now now we're just like fuck these lips.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (27:19.342)
Yeah, yeah, no, no.

Lips, these lips.

Dave (27:25.966)
My last bad, and I could go on and for a while about the things I didn't like about this volume. I, and I seem to be the one that disliked it the most. Man, I kind of didn't like MMS origin at all. And I really kind of want your take on this, Matt, because I, there are some things going on in there that I was, I felt we were, we were doing some weird stuff.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (27:46.446)
Like the big mammy, the big black mammy thing. Like, yeah, I didn't love that. I didn't personally love that. Yeah. Didn't love that. But I, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll speak for the whole black delegation here for all. No, no, just kidding. No, like. No, I. Yeah, no, please no. Yeah, some of that was.

Dave (27:52.59)
huh. Yeah, like that felt a little blaxploitation verging on racist to me.

Death By Baguette (27:59.875)
a lot of sort of coded racism within the entire backstory. Yeah.

Dave (28:04.494)
huh. huh. A lot of it.

Yeah, well, that's what you're here for. So you're representing the entire race planet wide.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (28:20.014)
We need to go back to like episode seven where I've just become what you said, like not institutionalized, but I can't remember the cycles of abuse or whatever. Like I just turned some of that off, I guess, but no. His mother, whatever, I don't know of, no, no, no, like episode seven, like four or five of the boys, four or five of the boys. Yeah, yeah. Like episode four or five when he broke down the difference.

Dave (28:33.486)
Episode 7? I don't remember. We're on like 89. You can't possibly expect to remember what we did in episode seven.

Death By Baguette (28:41.443)
Well, this is, this is six. So I think it was four. Yeah.

Dave (28:46.894)
What the fuck is episode, what are you talking about episode seven?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (28:50.158)
I'm going - I'm from the future, I guess, apparently. No, like episode - episode four!

Dave (28:52.75)
We just read volume 6!

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (28:57.294)
I'm just becoming just, I'm used to the abuse now at this point, but that did kind of stand out to me. What? The abuse from Garth Ennis. Not from you, no, the abuse from Garth Ennis. It's just, you're always gonna get some ableism, some sexism, some racism. I mean, I'm just kind of used to it at this point, unfortunately. But yeah.

Dave (29:02.926)
What's that supposed to mean? What abuse?

Okay, all right. Yeah. Okay. I was about to take issue with that.

Dave (29:17.102)
Yep. Yep.

Death By Baguette (29:21.063)
Ha ha

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (29:27.214)
I didn't love that, that part. I like the... No, no, no. I like the part that his dad was like, you know, he was working the law angle to try to get like, get vaught for all the years of his life and all. Like, I thought that was kind of cool. Like an interesting thing, but...

Dave (29:29.23)
Alright, so it wasn't just me.

Dave (29:41.134)
Yeah, but still that even that was still a little like black man went to prison and got an education like it's a little. What are we doing?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (29:46.606)
Yeah, bro, you're a big Luke Cage guy. You're a big Luke Cage guy. One of the biggest Luke Cage guys in the business. So, I mean, that's part of his story too. So, I don't know. That's just how we're portrayed, Dave. I don't know what to tell you, unfortunately. It's how it is. Little blaxploitation.

Dave (30:05.39)
I mean, in 2024, I don't think that's the case. But from the big two in the 70s and even some of the 80s and definitely the 60s, yep, for sure. And whenever Garth Ennis writes a black character.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (30:09.902)
No, not so much.

Death By Baguette (30:21.891)
It's funny because Garth Ennis, I think is very aware of when he is writing something racist or homophobic or sexist or ableist. It's worse, though, when you can tell he doesn't realize he's writing something racist. Which a lot of .M.'s backstory felt like, do you? this is just how you think. This is your perception. OK.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (30:22.158)
there.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (30:28.078)
Yes.

Dave (30:46.318)
Yeah. Yeah.

Damon Lindelof in the foreword said that Garth Ennis is one of the best writers on the planet. Think about that and then think about if you still love loss as much as you did before I told you that because I don't know if I do.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (30:52.718)
I gotta read this forward now.

Death By Baguette (30:55.683)
Hahaha

Death By Baguette (31:03.587)
never seen.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (31:04.142)
Tarnished it.

Death By Baguette (31:06.467)
never watched lost

Dave (31:08.462)
It was a great show until it wasn't until they just decided fuck you. We're not gonna wrap anything up

Death By Baguette (31:14.787)
All I know is there was something about polar bears and smoke monsters and people were pissed.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (31:19.662)
You

Dave (31:21.454)
Terrible ending.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (31:24.814)
in the show, that is the only show called, isn't Stormfront a female? Okay, it's a little -

Death By Baguette (31:29.987)
Yes. And a very compelling and interesting character in the show compared to although one of the worst things here is they marveled, MCU marveled the storm front in the books because I'm like, they you could have built this character out to be one of the main villains if you kept this going. But they killed him.

Dave (31:30.83)
She is.

Dave (31:34.542)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (31:34.702)
Okay.

Dave (31:51.662)
Mm -hmm.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (31:51.662)
Yeah. MC, I got you. I got you like that way.

Dave (31:54.446)
Yeah, the fact that like the fact that he and soldier boy are on the same team together to just doesn't make any sense to me. Like what like why would Vought why would Vought knowingly have a Nazi on the team? Like that seems like a very volatile, uncontrollable situation in many ways. It just doesn't make sense.

Death By Baguette (32:00.643)
makes no sense.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (32:01.614)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (32:14.019)
In the show, they handled it really well where it was covered, you didn't know and slowly it sort of came to fruition that, okay, well, look, we found all this backstory and all this stuff. And then she started doing stuff and kind of owned it. But this was just like, there was no progress or turn or gradual revelation of it. It was just like, no, this guy literally has a huge swastika on his cape. Yeah.

Dave (32:16.494)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (32:19.47)
Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (32:31.47)
okay.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (32:40.014)
Yeah.

Dave (32:41.102)
Yeah. yeah, like by the third panel in the fight with the female, he already used a slur. We were just full, we were hip deep right in the beginning. Yeah, I've watched it.

Death By Baguette (32:50.307)
Yeah. Shows back by the way. I interesting. I again I found myself watching it and thinking, boy, they did a really nice job taking these characters and doing something compelling with them.

Dave (32:57.39)
Nah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (33:04.334)
I'm gonna have to watch it after we finish this.

Dave (33:05.87)
I agree. I agree. But also, I'm not loving this season. The last episode that I watched, we're current, so last week's episode was the best one of the season. But those first several episodes, boy, I can tell you what I don't need out of my superhero fiction, and it is a replaying of the mega reality that I live every day of my life. I do not like that.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (33:13.582)
Hmm.

Death By Baguette (33:28.067)
I will agree. I appreciate that they are using well, they're leaning almost too heavy into it. Like some of it is directly like quotes and moments from news and I'm like yikes. But the the episode where it's purely focused on on Homelander going back to his origin. I was like, damn, that was that was good. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (33:35.662)
Yeah, they said that.

Dave (33:41.678)
Yes.

Dave (33:51.694)
That was a great episode. Yeah, I liked that episode a lot.

Death By Baguette (33:55.811)
And it's starting to tie into Gen V as well now, which is also very interesting.

Dave (33:56.526)
Anyway, sorry.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (33:59.054)
Sorry, I brought that on us with Stormfront.

Dave (33:59.47)
Yes. Yeah, the

Yeah, well no, I got that on us when I well no. Yeah, you're right. It was you. But OK, so I've I'm done with my bad one of you two.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (34:08.014)
I brought a song with Stormfront, so fuck Stormfront. That was my, I mean Stormfront is obviously a bad. So that was one of my bad. I was just curious. I was like, I remember when this character was casted that I thought it was a female and I was like, Stormfront. And yeah, that's what I was just wanting to ask you and Eric. And then I'm just like waiting for, I'm really waiting for Starlight to get like a real come up. And it's like, I'm just, every male.

Death By Baguette (34:11.523)
You're done with your bath.

Dave (34:15.502)
Okay, yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (34:35.502)
outside of Huey that she interacts with is just a piece of shit. And I'm just kind of getting tired of it. Like I really, I don't know what I'm expecting to happen, but it's like the G -String thing and the boob job thing now. And like Queen Maeve stood up for her, which was awesome. Like that finally she did something, but it's like every trade it's like, you're just dealing with this. And I know I get that she's like the lens that we're using in this story, but it's just kind of getting a little tiresome. Like, I don't know.

Dave (35:05.23)
You know what I didn't understand? And maybe one of you can shed some light here. When she was talking about her retcon and the new origin of her being raped, the Vought guys were like, yeah, like Victory Comics loves to do this. Like they're big on like rape origins. And that's obviously like, you know, Victory is like the analog for Marvel or DC or whatever. What is Garthana's, is this just like a random like shock value comment or?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (35:15.822)
I'm just...

Love that. Big, great people. Yeah.

Death By Baguette (35:28.099)
Hmm.

Dave (35:34.606)
Is he trying to say something more about Marvel and DC because I don't know a lot about raped female characters in Marvel and DC history. Maybe that's just something that I'm ignorant to and it happens all the time, but I don't think so.

Death By Baguette (35:50.051)
I don't think so. I think maybe if you get into like the vertigo and image stuff, maybe you start to encounter some of that but even they're not so much. Yeah. Yeah, I don't it must just be random, like a random assertion that doesn't necessarily connect to something. It may just be referring to like the the gritty like backstory stuff that's not maybe not specifically rape backstories.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (35:53.07)
shot value.

Dave (35:59.278)
I don't think so, because I read a lot of image superhero stuff and there's no raping going on.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (36:01.614)
So yeah.

Dave (36:19.406)
Maybe.

Eric, do you want to do your bad? Matt, are you done with your bad?

Death By Baguette (36:23.075)
Yeah. Yeah, let me give you some bad.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (36:27.278)
Oof. I'm done. Yeah, I'm done. I'm good. Yeah.

Dave (36:27.534)
Is Matt done? Matt, are you done? Matt's done. Okay. I couldn't see, yeah. I have my notes up so I can't see either.

Death By Baguette (36:29.123)
Yeah, that was a thumb. That was a thumbs up for people that can't hear his thumbs. okay. So they they tricked me again, the exact same way they tricked me before. In in the first issue, the boys are in a fight, and they are fucking people up literally ripping their faces off smashing their heads in with bats tearing their arms off. And then all of a sudden they stop and they're like, Whoa, Huey.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (36:36.494)
Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (36:45.326)
Then again

Death By Baguette (36:58.435)
Don't kill them. Just hurt them. And I'm like, wow, you're ripping their faces off and stuff. You're killing people. Why does it always come down to like Huey going too far when clearly they've already gone too far? There's a way to illustrate.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (36:59.342)
Hehehehehe

Dave (37:11.278)
I don't know. That's a great question.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (37:12.686)
Maybe that's just a joke on Huey, I don't know, maybe that's just, I don't know. Yeah.

Death By Baguette (37:14.563)
But I think there's a way to write that, right? There's a way to make it obvious like, Huey really lost control. If you're trying to tell that story, if that's Huey's arc, if Huey is slowly going from this timid sort of, I'm not sure I want to be a part of this to losing control and killing people, then you can write it that way. But they're not because they're showing this like ultra violent content. And then Huey doing literally the same thing and everybody being like, whoa, not okay, dude.

so weird. I also want to know why are Starlight and Huey still meeting on a bench in the park?

Dave (37:47.182)
I agree.

Dave (37:52.91)
their spot.

Death By Baguette (37:53.347)
But I feel like they're past that like they you know, that was a happenstance meeting there and then they met a second time but now they're like, you know, they go to each other's houses and stuff. And I was wondering is that is that meant to represent a safe space away from their other lives? When they show this, this is them being human not being part of their groups.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (37:53.614)
That's a spot, man.

Dave (38:11.022)
Probably.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (38:14.766)
Yeah, that's that analysis I love. That's that analysis I wait.

Death By Baguette (38:19.267)
Hey, speaking of Queen Maeve, I really thought this was going to be her turn issue. But she kind of like sort of almost did, but went back to smoking cigarettes and doing nothing, just doing my biggest bad is just that we had four issues that I thought were actually pretty fun to read and compelling that were quick, easy reads. And then all of a sudden, for backstory issues, two of which that were

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (38:26.862)
Hmm.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (38:32.238)
Yeah, back to the gym.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (38:45.358)
They were quick.

Death By Baguette (38:49.059)
kind of weird and maybe a little bit racist and leave me with some serious questions about how mother's milk gets by without his mother's milk. Maybe we'll Yeah, because they kind of asked the question and he's just like, and like writes it off and I'm like, there's there's something going on there. And then two more that were mainly goofier than fuck with people jousting on bicycles with baguettes. It just like

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (38:56.526)
I was, yes, thank you, like, well, yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (39:15.79)
kids.

Dave (39:17.198)
That was.

Death By Baguette (39:17.763)
That tanked the trade for me. I was like, why is this here?

Dave (39:20.046)
Yeah, me too. Me too. And I thought I thought we were going to get like a legitimate Frenchie history and backstory, and I was actually really excited for that at the start of that issue. And then as soon as his like like boyhood rival showed up and was very obviously a caricature of a French person, I was like, no, I know what's happening here and I'm not a fan of it.

Death By Baguette (39:38.435)
Yeah.

Death By Baguette (39:42.659)
Yeah. That's, that's my bads.

Dave (39:48.302)
Time to get outrageous.

Death By Baguette (39:52.035)
I feel like we've talked about a lot.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (39:52.366)
Issue 35, issue 35, mother's milk uppercuts fucker John's head off. Fucker John. And I quote, I'm not just swearing, I swear, that is his quote. That was my most outrageous moment. I thought of Jason Takes Manhattan when he uppercuts that black dude's head off. I don't know if anyone's ever seen that movie, but that's what I thought of. I don't know. Look it up kids. Look it up kids.

Dave (39:56.462)
Okay.

Dave (40:01.518)
I forgot his name. That's such a good name. Fucker John.

Death By Baguette (40:04.058)
That is a good name.

Death By Baguette (40:15.075)
No, I'm aware of it, but never seen it.

Dave (40:23.95)
That's it, just one. Alright. Eric.

Death By Baguette (40:25.123)
All right.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (40:25.422)
That's it, man.

The one that stuck out, I don't know.

Death By Baguette (40:29.859)
I thought the whole starlight rebrand thing, both in costume and backstory. I also I thought it was a little outrageous that they felt the need to put her in the costume for several pages, even though clearly she didn't want to do it. And I feel like it was just an excuse to draw her in the costume. Which fine, I guess, you know, but it, it felt like it devalued the character a little again, I feel like this is representative of

Garth Ennis saying you're forcing me to do things that I don't want to do that are not part of my beliefs that I'm not happy with. And then her going back to doing what she wants to do eventually. So I again think he's using her as an analog for his experiences in the comic industry in some capacity. But I thought that whole thing was ridiculous. Mother's milk's backstory and how his family was written. I thought was ridiculous and Frenchies backstory was just over the top stupid.

Those are.

Dave (41:28.974)
Honestly, those those four issues could have been cut from the entire comic and I would have never felt like I got shortchanged Mother's milk is such a cool character. I didn't need his backstory to know that I liked him He's a cool character You leave it at that but that that origin story really like Doesn't cheapen mother's milk, but there's something about it that I'm just like I just wish I didn't know that So just that why just just that it happened same with Frenchie

Death By Baguette (41:54.275)
Yeah. There's nothing there that made me like him more. There's nothing about that backstory that made me like him more than I did before.

Dave (42:00.462)
What's that?

yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like there's that whole that whole like throwback to the day that the Brooklyn Bridge got attacked. You're trying to save that woman and like rips her in half because their van falls down and her kids like die in the river. Well, I don't know why we had to do that. What was the point of that? So much pointless stuff in those. There's just four issues that just didn't need to happen.

Death By Baguette (42:16.099)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (42:16.59)
Yeah

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (42:29.838)
What a shirt that says, what was the point of that? Just to wear it during this. What was the point of that?

Death By Baguette (42:31.683)
I do like that. I would wear that shirt.

Dave (42:33.262)
ehh

Dave (42:38.35)
Me too. All right. Is that all you're outrageous?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (42:38.35)
Death By Baguette (42:41.219)
That yeah, I mean, there's probably more, but that that was most of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (42:44.238)
Yeah, there's hard to narrow down for this comic monthly. It's hard to my outrageous aren't even the most outrageous things. They're just things that I thought were not not bad enough to be in the bad and clearly not good. So you talked about that flight where they're like slicing people's faces off and the female specifically slices off that one female soups face. But the question that I'm left with as I was reading more of this trade was this the year whatever year this came out, I guess, 2009 ish.

Death By Baguette (42:59.011)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (42:59.79)
Yes.

Dave (43:13.486)
Probably did Derrick Robertson just figure out how to draw ripped off faces because they're everywhere in this trade. That's not the only one. There are multiple ripped off faces like he must have just liked drawing like red like meat face and not skin on it because he did a lot.

Death By Baguette (43:18.947)
Here they are.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (43:19.854)
you

Death By Baguette (43:23.715)
Maybe.

Death By Baguette (43:28.483)
Yeah.

Dave (43:30.702)
Everything Stormfront does and is is just completely. Like. I mean, yeah, like obviously, like I love the fact that we beat that dude to death and fuck Nazis forever until the end of time, but. Yeah, yeah. And this isn't outrageous from the comic, it's just something that I thought of. I don't believe that we're we're suffering from Stockholm syndrome anymore.

Death By Baguette (43:44.163)
You're supposed to hate him though.

Dave (44:00.014)
With Garth Ennis, we're fully now trauma bonded I Can feel it in our conversations I can feel it in myself when I read the comic

Death By Baguette (44:03.843)
you

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:08.91)
Drained. Just strained. We're almost there boys, we're almost there.

Dave (44:12.142)
Yeah. Half we're not, we're halfway. Yeah. Yeah. And one of these months we have to double up because we're still technically a month behind on the boys. This should have come out in June and it's going to come out on what July like seventh or eighth. So.

Death By Baguette (44:13.859)
No, we're only halfway there. Yeah, we're not almost there.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:18.67)
Alright, well.

Death By Baguette (44:19.619)
I'm sorry.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:29.07)
Double dose of medicine. Well, hopefully they read fast like this moving forward and that'll be a good thing. We can get an octave of them out.

Dave (44:33.102)
Yeah, let's hope so. Let's hope so. All right, we're.

Death By Baguette (44:33.475)
Yeah. I have I've heard horror stories about specifically volume seven. So I don't know what we're going to see or encounter. But the next one might really be a thing.

Dave (44:40.43)
great.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:41.742)
It's

Dave (44:46.734)
What is left? What is left?

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:48.398)
you

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (44:53.262)
Why'd you do that Gar? Did you have to do that?

Death By Baguette (44:54.243)
Yeah

Dave (44:58.958)
All right, favorite and least likable. Let's bring it home.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (45:00.078)
I was... Favorite. I was feeling silly. Mine was actually Frenchie. I like the Frenchie issue. The main reason I like the Frenchie issue. The main reason I like the Frenchie issue is because Garth Hennis had to write him in plain English so I could actually understand what he was saying for most of it. That's honestly why. Cause like any other time, like you're talking about the ripped off nose and you can't understand, when Frenchie is just in an issue, I can't understand a damn word that is said.

Death By Baguette (45:17.187)
ooh!

Dave (45:18.798)
Ha ha ha ha!

Death By Baguette (45:25.219)
True. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (45:27.63)
But he actually just had to write him for an issue. So I was like, okay. I get it. We're killing people with baguettes for some reason. Whatever. I can at least understand you. So absolutely ridiculous. But Frenchie. That's probably the first and last time I'm going to pick Frenchie. That's why I did it too.

Dave (45:40.27)
I mean, that didn't...

The name of the festival that happens every year in their town, even that is like. Yeah, it's still it's a jab at the French like everything is just so ridiculous in that issue.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (45:48.086)
Let's say they are

Death By Baguette (45:49.763)
Hahaha

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (45:55.989)
I had to pick something, man. Had to go off the top.

Dave (46:00.654)
My favorite was the female. Until further notice, assume my favorite is the female.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (46:02.862)
Of course it is.

That's what I'm saying. You gotta switch it up. Go Frenchy. Staying on business. All right. Well, what else to say to that? There it is what it is.

Dave (46:08.526)
I do shit.

Death By Baguette (46:12.675)
Dave (46:12.814)
Hehehehe

Death By Baguette (46:17.891)
my favorite is the female. I she she put her life on the line to fight a super Nazi. She didn't do or say anything that made me hate her. And she also had like, when it comes to her backstory, I was like, Okay, I mean, they basically x 23. Is backstory there. So, you know, give it a little bit of sympathy. But yeah, I think the female for me.

Dave (46:20.718)
Yeah, exactly.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (46:25.07)
It's true.

Be a mute.

Dave (46:35.214)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (46:35.278)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (46:44.59)
Take it around the corner, Eric, who's your least likable?

Death By Baguette (46:46.947)
Ooh, I actually have two. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with Huey. And here's why he feels less and less necessary as the relatable character that anchors and humanizes the story for the reader. And I'm starting to question what his purpose in this story is.

Dave (46:49.742)
Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (47:03.918)
This man is deep as shit, dog. This guy is deep. This fucking cat is deep, dog. Yes, yeah.

Death By Baguette (47:06.371)
Well, I feel like that was the point of Huey initially, right? And I'm starting to lose track of that here. And I think that the only relatable character to me is Starlight in some capacity.

Dave (47:11.15)
Yeah, probably.

Dave (47:24.046)
Fair.

Death By Baguette (47:26.563)
That's it.

Dave (47:27.47)
My least likable is Stormfront.

Death By Baguette (47:29.635)
Yeah, fair.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (47:30.102)
same. Was that you said you had two? Is she said you had two Eric?

Dave (47:32.142)
Yeah. sorry, sorry, sorry.

Death By Baguette (47:33.603)
Well, my no, well, no, I wasn't I was picking between the two, because the other one was was going to be Frenchy because I feel like he gave a kind of fucked up fictionalized version of the females backstory on her behalf.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (47:40.526)
Okay.

Dave (47:48.846)
Yeah. I will say though, the one thing that I liked about Frenchie's origin, that was probably the most hilariously drawn hand job in comics that I've ever seen.

Death By Baguette (47:58.275)
Hahaha

Okay.

Dave (48:04.078)
whatever that's worth, go back to that panel. It was a nice splash page of him and that girl just getting it on and she gave him a hand job in the back of the car and it looked pretty funny.

Death By Baguette (48:13.763)
I wonder what Garth Ennis would think about the treatment of Frenchie in this season of the boys TV show.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (48:16.85)
Yeah.

Dave (48:21.166)
I think we know. I think we know. Honestly, I'm confused by it too, though.

Death By Baguette (48:22.339)
I think we do know. Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (48:28.114)
Hehehehehe

Death By Baguette (48:28.835)
Well, it did it does feel like it came out of nowhere. There was no there was no hinting.

Dave (48:31.854)
All because it did.

No, no there is not. In fact, he was pretty decidedly straight in the first couple seasons.

Death By Baguette (48:46.467)
I would say so. But I also think it's possible for somebody to be straight presenting and live their life that way. But also, you know, maybe have other tendencies or feelings. I do think you would show that in some capacity you would hint toward that.

Dave (48:59.182)
Yeah, for sure.

Dave (49:03.918)
I know one knows when their sexual awakening is going to happen sometimes it just happens the the weird the weird thing about what they're doing with French in the show is that we didn't see it happen it's just like hey by the way this is how it's always been and you just accept it and I'm like well that's weird.

Death By Baguette (49:06.371)
That's true.

Death By Baguette (49:16.547)
And everybody just accepts it. Right. All the other characters are kind of like, yeah, well, we know about this. This is normal. Okay.

Dave (49:25.55)
Yeah, it's just, it's just poorly written. Matt, Matt and I have actually talked about this before the way that DC in specific kind of shoe horns, any representation they can in the sexual identity realm. and it's very like ham fisted and clumsy. And, I don't know if it's relatable because obviously I'm not the target audience for that, but, it does feel kind of wonky.

Death By Baguette (49:28.547)
Yeah, that's not great.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (49:29.678)
You

Death By Baguette (49:40.387)
Mm.

Death By Baguette (49:44.387)
Yeah.

Dave (49:55.246)
And that's kind of what they did with Frenchie. And I think that's, I don't want to speak for the LGBTQIA plus community, but to me it's it's it from the outside looking in, it looks a little disingenuous when writers and companies do this type of thing.

Death By Baguette (50:09.539)
A bit pandering and token. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Dave (50:12.206)
Yeah. Yeah. But again, I'm not the I'm not the authority on that. I'm not the target. And if someone listening to this podcast is or has, you know, more of a more of a lens to look through that's relevant to what we're speaking of and wants to tell us how they feel about what they're doing to Frenchie this season in terms of how they're writing his character, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Or I could just search on Twitter.

Death By Baguette (50:33.699)
Yeah, I like that's it. I mean, no, that's you don't want to. That's not that's not a good source of information or opinion. I know I'm legitimately curious to see what other real human beings think about that sort of character shift.

Dave (50:39.406)
Nyeh!

Dave (50:43.342)
Fair.

Dave (50:52.302)
Yeah, you could also join the discord and tell us there.

Death By Baguette (50:53.923)
Yeah.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (50:54.766)
You

Death By Baguette (50:56.355)
played brown, join the discord.

Dave (50:56.974)
That's my segue into the wrap up. Yeah. So we'll be back in a couple of weeks, maybe a week, maybe two. We do owe you a second boys episode one of these months. Maybe it's this month, maybe it's next month. Who knows? And then Matt and I'll cook some stuff up too at some point here that's not the boys related. But I do appreciate you all taking the time to check out this podcast. As always, my name is Dave.

Death By Baguette (51:15.139)
Hmm.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (51:24.718)
And I'm Matt.

Death By Baguette (51:25.187)
And I'm Eric.

Dave (51:27.278)
Take care of yourselves everybody. Bye bye.

Matt...Loves The Mothers Milk (51:29.454)
Peace.

Dave (51:32.302)
Eric's shaking his head yes, not saying goodbye. You don't have to, but...

Death By Baguette (51:33.091)
I didn't know I had to say another thing. I goodbye I was I was just sort of like writing the coattails of your goodbye. But bye. Thanks for listening watching being here through the window. They can't see us.

Dave (51:42.286)
Okay.

Dave (51:47.854)
Alright, now you're laying it on really. Alright, goodbye.

Death By Baguette (51:51.683)
you