Movies News Talk
According to Garth Ennis, he has never finished reading a story by Stan Lee – putting The Boys creator in an extremely exclusive category among the top talents in the comic book industry, who tend to venerate the late prolific Marvel writer. As it turns out, Ennis’ success is rooted in a rejection of Stan Lee's style of superhero stories.
In an interview with Comic Book Herald, Ennis confirmed that he has never finished a Stan Lee story, despite attempting to. Over the course of decades, Garth Ennis has made a career out of going against the grain, crafting stories that have made him a stand-out – and at times, controversial – figure in the medium, and this admission in some ways elaborates on why.
As with everything in The Boys, Garth Ennis’ parody of Stan Lee himself is abrasive to the extreme – though it is safe to say he played a pivotal role, however limited, in the larger satirical schematic of the series. "The Legend" – as The Boys' Lee-analogue was known –served to provide critical exposition at multiple points in the story; more than that, however, the character had a thematic resonance that makes the character especially important to fans’ overall understanding of Garth Ennis' authorial intentions for the series.
In a sense, The Boys couldn't have avoided satirizing Stan Lee, even if author Garth Ennis had wanted to. Stan Lee had as much influence on shaping a modern industry as any single individual can have; as much as his creative legacy is celebrated, he also ranks among the most influential business innovators of the 20th century. That said, The Boys was intended to critique what Garth Ennis considered both the creative and commercial problems of superhero stories – many of which he attributed directly to Stan Lee.
The Legend's first appearance is accompanied by Billy Butcher's explanation of comics’ function as propaganda for Vought-American and its legion of supes. This is crucial to understanding The Boys overall. On an issue-by-issue, page-by-page basis, the series offered a narrative that embodied Garth Ennis’ criticisms of its genre. The Legend, and The Boys’ depiction of comics, were the points in the story at which Ennis engaged with this aspect of the story overtly. Comic book stories and the Comic Book Industry are unequivocally sinister in The Boys, allowing fans no illusions about the author's position.
The Legend's role as a former comic book executive and PR-person was the perfect explanation for the wealth of backstory he provided repeatedly throughout the series. At the same time, it made him one of the most valuable characters in The Boys for decoding the satirical superstructure of the story. With the added context that Garth Ennis is on-record as not having the appreciation for Stan Lee's work that most of his peers profess, it becomes even more clear why Ennis chose to distill his overarching disapproval in such a direct parody.