Prime Video’s satirical superhero show The Boys meets the Marvel Cinematic Universe in fan-made parody posters. Coming off of its recent season 3, The Boys is a dark twist on the superhero genre that has gained popularity due to its innovative storytelling, irreverent humor and gritty ambience. Meanwhile, the MCU provides lighter fare for fans of the genre, offering escapist sci-fi and fantasy comic book epics whose production value and all-star casts continue to impress.
Though both properties are based on graphic novels, The Boys and Marvel’s movies and TV series have plenty of differences. While The Boys sports a dark tone, bolstered by extreme violence due to its TV-MA rating, MCU movies and shows tend to take a more family friendly approach, especially since the studio’s acquisition by Disney. Another marked difference between the two is the intent behind the production. While Marvel is more firmly a superhero franchise, The Boys’ protagonists are vigilantes dedicated to taking down the heroes in their universe.
In a new series of parody images, the heroes of The Boys are placed in MCU posters in an amusing twist. User Blacknoir.edits shared the comical The Boys and MCU mash-ups via Instagram. In the parody posters, various members of superhero group The Seven take up fitting MCU roles. See the posters below:
The first snap shows A-Train as the face of Ant-Man: Quantumania, adding in some vials of the character’s vice, the drug Compound V. Next, Homelander is featured in a visually stunning poster, attacking Thor with his laser eyes as he takes the Norse god’s place as the star of Thor: Love and Thunder. Starlight is featured next, sitting on Ms. Marvel’s signature lamp post in an amusing nod to Kamala Khan’s amateur hero name, Night Light. Finally, Black Noir is Moon Knight in a poster that swaps Spector’s weapon for one of Noir’s knives, speckled with blood. The posters include impressive detail, replacing Marvel and Disney studio names with Vought and Vought Studios as well as adding funny personalized titles, “Homelander: Supes and Milk” and “A-Train: Compoundmania.”
The humor behind the photos ultimately comes from extreme contrast between the properties. While the MCU will likely continue to be a universe where heroes stay “good,” The Boys is committed to exploring the dark underbelly of excessive power. This creates a juxtaposition that often means The Boys makes the MCU appear outright jolly in comparison. However, that isn’t without reason. The Boys, as an ironic twist on the hero genre, offers satire on the exact things the MCU glorifies; powerful beings who are often controlled by the military-industrial complex and eventually corrupted by power. As the Prime Video series and similar shows like Invincible and Watchmen grow in popularity, it’s interesting to see audiences that have been exposed to so much superhero content with Marvel movies crave a more grounded, albeit grisly, superhero story.
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Source: Blacknoir.edits via Instagram