A Gory, Odd-ball Anthology

Animated anthologies are nothing new. We’ve seen plenty of them over the years, from The Animatrix to Batman: Gotham Knight, and even (more recently) Star Wars: Visions. These kinds of anthologies are interesting, in a way, because they can flesh out ideas set in the world of the larger films and movies they’re attached to, and they are allowed to depict stories that you would expect or maybe couldn’t work in a different form. Anthologies allow creatives to get weird and make Laser Baby’the unusual.

The Boys is not a standard superhero show. It’s already a weird, hyper-violent, half-parodic work poking fun at the very concept of superheroes. It’s like if Watchmen had a biting sense of sarcasm to its writing, its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Creating an anthology show for that means that the works would, somehow, have to get even more weird, silly, and oddly over-the-top. The Boys Presents: Diabolical manages to do all that, with eight episodes (created during a production lull due to COVID-19) that not only explore the world of The Boys but also create stories so out there, so unusual, that while they feel inspired by the series you know they can only exist in their own multiverse.

That’s actually what the creator of The Boys TV series, Eric Kripke, has stated. While all eight episodes of this run are inspired by The Boys, only three episodes take place in the continuity of the show: "Nubian vs Nubian", "John and Sun-Hee", and "One Plus One Equals Two". These are, notably, also the last three episodes of the season. Everything else is either just “inspired by” or, for one short, a work that actually takes place in the original world of the comics The Boys instead. As such, we’re going to review these works in chunks, looking at the ones that exist on their own, the one that ties into the comics, and then finally looking at the three episodes that actually can be considered “canon” for the TV series.

Non-Continuity

The show starts off interestingly with a series of odd-ball shorts. These are clearly meant to show how strange the world of The Boys can be, with tales that don’t bother trying to tie into the true continuity of the show (or the comics) but, instead, just have fun with the ideas of the world. Thus we get a Looney Tunes-inspired bit of chaos in “Laser Baby’s Day Out”, a strange and super violent short that wouldn’t feel out of place in Rick and Morty, made by one of the creators of Rick and Morty, "An Animated Short Where Pissed-Off Supes Kill Their Parents", a short about love, social media, and wrong choices called "Boyd in 3D", and a very anime-inspired work about a girl and her super-powered, anthropomorphic turd, “BFFs”.

You can kind of see why these ones aren’t really considered continuity. They’re fun, but man do they get weird.

Of these shorts, the one that I think works best is, honestly, “Laser Baby’s Day Out”. It has more blood and gore than your usual Looney Tunes short, but it clearly knew its inspiration and what it wanted to do. It’s silly and strange, yes, but it also manages to blend the ideas of The Boys with the animation and storytelling style of old, and it created something very watchable. Weirdly, despite the silliness and the cartoony style of the short, this one is the closest to feeling like it could have actually existed in the world of The Boys.

The other shorts listed, meanwhile, are a mixed bag. I like the idea behind "An Animated Short Where Pissed-Off Supes Kill Their Parents", with a bunch of super-powered teens who had powers that weren’t marketable so their parents dumped them in an orphanage. The powers shown off, though, from a guy with a speaker for a head that can only play “I Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish, to a pool of sentient water colored like the Mexican flag, and a guy named Papers that can rifle through papers, don’t really work in the logic of the overarching show.

“BFFs” is written by Awkwafina and it is silly and gross, clearly relishing exploring its weird little world. That said, I could never get behind its concept and I was just happy when it ended. And, finally, “Boyd in 3D” is a nice idea for a short, with a guy falling for a girl and only through Vaught’s magic face cream, does he get the nerve up to talk to her, but it feels like the short can quite nail the emotions or the concept and it all falls flat. These ones I would skip if I were to go back and watch any of these shorts again.

In the World of the Comics

One short is set in the world of the comics: "I'm Your Pusher". Actually written by comic creator Garth Ennis (who wrote all the issues of the series), this short follows OD (voiced by Kieran Culkin), a drug dealer who caters to the superheroes. If you need a drug, or any other illegal substance, OD is the guy that can get it for you. Everyone uses him, everyone trusts him. So when Butcher (voiced by Jason Isaacs) and Wee Hughie (voiced by Simon Pegg) come a calling, you know they’re going to want to do something nasty to his drugs.

“I’m Your Pusher” is interesting as it shows the big differences between the world of the show and the world of the comics. Yes, obviously, different people are voicing the roles, but what I really mean is that these two works, show and comics, have very different tones. Butcher and Hughie have different methods to their carnage in the show, with much of the damage in the series done not by the heroes but by the superheroes themselves. The comics (and this short) make the heroes far more aggressive, far more dangerous, and it shows how little regard Butcher has not just for the superheroes but everyone that worships them.

“I’m Your Pusher” is a good short on its own, and I am amused at the over-the-top carnage wrought by the characters. At the same time, though, this one feels distinctly out of place in The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and it was the first true glimmer, for me, that what I was watching didn’t really tie properly into the continuity of the series.

In-Continuity

Finally, we have the three shorts that tie into the world of the TV series. That, alone, is an interesting choice since the anthology was originally billed as a straight spin-off of The Boys. Weirdly only two truly feel like they work in the context of the series, and those two are also among the weakest stories in the run.

“Nubian vs. Nubian” opens with the Nubian Prince (voiced by Don Cheadle) getting into a fight with Groundhawk (voiced by John DiMaggio), a former superhero turned villain. In the middle of the battle, as things are getting pitched, in flies Nubia (voiced by Aisha Tyler), and when the two heroes fight together, sparks fly (figuratively and literally). They fall for each other, get married, have a kid… and then the reality of life pushes them apart. So their kid, Maya (voiced by Somali Rose), gets the idea to bring Groundhawk back so they can fight him and fall in love again.

The issue with “Nubian vs. Nubian” is that the concept of it is half-baked. There’s very little story to this short, with most of the meat (the whole life these two spend growing together and then growing apart) happening off-screen with an eight year time jump covering over it all. To make their romance, and then their dissolution, work we first have to care about them and the short doesn’t really convey that. It wants to jump to the humor of their failing life, which I get, but the humor doesn’t work without pathos there, and that’s never developed. This is a real misfire.

Similarly, "One Plus One Equals Two" doesn’t come together well enough for me either, although I think this is a flaw with how we view Homelander now, on the show. The short depicts his first time going out as a superhero after his big reveal as the newest member of the Seven. Homelander (voiced by Anthony Starr, who voices this character in all his appearances in this series and also plays the character on the main show) is sent to a power plant to battle terrorists who have kidnapped three workers there. He’s supposed to wait for Black Noir (no voice) but instead charges in and gets everyone killed, and the Black Noir helps him cover it up.

The thing is, though, that we already know Homelander is corrupt and easily manipulated. He’s just a pawn of Vaught, and all he really wants is love and adoration. Showing him here trying to be a hero doesn’t really work in the context of the character we eventually know, while him screwing up and getting everyone killed is par for the course for him. This feels like a revelatory prequel than just another day at the office for the “hero”. It doesn’t really work.

Finally, we have "John and Sun-Hee" and this one… is weird. It’s very anime-inspired, with an art style I would attribute to the Miyzaki house style mixed with a bit of Akira. In the short, a man, John (Randall Duk Kim) steals Compound V as a way to heal his dying wife, Sun-Hee (Youn Yuh-jung), who has stage 4 cancer and is in hospice. The drug works, but it also turns her cancer into a superpowered, amorphous blob that starts consuming all living flesh in its vicinity. So Sun-Hee has to give her life to battle it.

Make no mistake, this short is good. It hits the emotions just right and really gets at the core of its central duo. At the same time, though, the superpowered cancer blob doesn’t feel like something that would actually exist in the continuity of the show. Yes, Kripke said it was continuity but it doesn’t feel like it despite that. It has more in common with the weird superpowered turds of “BFFs” than something from The Boys.

Final Thoughts

The Boys Presents: Diabolical is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand many of its shorts are good, very enjoyable little works of superhero fiction. Some play well with the concepts of the show, and some take basic ideas to delightfully do their own thing. But the fact is that it’s billed as a spin-off and yet most of what you see would never have any bearing on the show itself. It’s fun in a number of places, but highly disposable, and not something I think the hardcore fans are likely to revisit (or the casuals are going to want to bother with).

Which, in the end, might explain why we haven’t ever gotten a second season. It was fun, and filled a gap in the production schedule due to the pandemic, but is otherwise way too disposable for its own good.