There are few comics that are as brutal and as absurd as The Boys and, considering Garth Ennis' most profound early exposure to the medium, it makes total sense why he'd be inspired to create such a story. As the infamous author revealed during an interview, the very first American comic Garth Ennis ever read was none other than Frank Miller's iconic story, The Dark Knight Returns.
In an interview with Mark Miller on his podcast Millar Time, Garth Ennis admitted the first American comic he ever read was The Dark Knight. Looking at the comparisons between The Boys and The Dark Knight, it's easy to see exactly where Ennis took his foundational inspiration from.
The Dark Knight Returns was a revolutionary comic book for its time, and it inspired a whole subsequent generation of writers, Garth Ennis included. It was an amazing reinvention of Batman, and the parallels to Garth Ennis' later lampooning the superhero genre in his own way with The Boys are striking.
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Garth Ennis Confirms "Dark Knight Returns" Was The Comic That Changed His Life
In An Appearance On The "Millar Time" Podcast
More than just making him a fan of comics, Frank Miller's seminal Batman story helped Garth Ennis identify his artistic sensibilities and goals.
As Garth Ennis explained to his colleague – and fellow controversial comic book creator, Mark Millar – his sensibilities as an artist, and his entire career in the comic medium, can be traced back to Frank Miller. As Ennis explained:
"The first American comic I read cover to cover was Dark Knight [Returns]."
As both Millar and Ennis hail from the United Kingdom, their conversation chiefly covered the influence of American comics on authors of their generation from the U.K., though they also touched on the reverse, namely how British comics had an impact on the American industry.
Garth Ennis was born in Northern Ireland, while Mark Millar is Scottish. Both began their long tenures in the comic book industry in the mid-to-late 1980s, and both have produced work that has been equally controversial and highly acclaimed during the course of their careers.
Ennis further elaborated on The Dark Knight Returns' formative impact on his career, noting:
"I [found] a copy of Dark Knight [Returns] in a bookshop. It was a collected edition, and I took it home -- and I knew Batman, but not from comics, from the old TV show. So I knew what it was...but I'd never seen anything like Dark Knight [Returns]."
More than just making him a fan of comics, Frank Miller's seminal Batman story helped Garth Ennis identify his artistic sensibilities and goals. Though it would take several years of hard work before he began to actualize his creative potential, Ennis would eventually go on to be a prolific creator in his own right, whose style directly operates in the lineage of Miller, as best exemplified by Dark Knight Returns, which remains one of the most highly regarded stories in comic history to this day.
The Dark Knight Returns
Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is a comic book miniseries centered on an older Batman. Set in a dystopian future, this iconic DC storyline follows Batman as he comes back from retirement to fight criminal gangs and cross paths with characters such as the Joker, Two-Face, and Superman along the way.
With "The Boys", Garth Ennis Took What Frank Miller Did In "Dark Knight Returns" To The Next Level
A Dramatic Escalation
The Boys is a series that satirizes the superhero genre as a whole, but at its core, it's also clearly inspired Dark Knight Returns' critique of superhero stories.
Upon taking a closer look, the parallels between The Boys and Dark Knight Returns become more evident. The Boys is a story about a group coming together to face off against a major corporation that has superheroes on their payroll, including the Superman-analogue Homelander. In The Dark Knight Returns, the world has become a significantly darker and colder place with the majority of heroes retired. Superman is now nothing more than a government stooge who jumps at the President's orders. This ultimately leads into the highlight of the comic, which is a battle between Batman and Superman.
The Boys is a series that satirizes the superhero genre as a whole, but at its core, it's also clearly inspired Dark Knight Returns' critique of superhero stories. Frank Miller's gritty, dark take on Batman's mythos was revolutionary for the time, and in addition to helping define many of the core features of the character moving forward, it also inspired countless imitators – though in the case of Garth Ennis and The Boys, Ennis did more than just imitate Frank Miller's groundbreaking story, he elevated it.
Readers can check out Garth Ennis' interview over at Mark Millar's channel right now!
The Boys
3.5
The Boys is a superhero/dark comedy satire series created by Eric Kripke based on the comic series of the same name. Set in a "what-if" world that reveres superheroes as celebrities and gods who experience minimal repercussions for their actions. However, one group of vigilantes headed by a vengeance-obsessed man named Billy Butcher will fight back against these super-charged "heroes" to expose them for what they are.
