Amazon's "The Boys": In this rowdy exploration of superhero backlash, anger is also a superpower

Asserting that we’ve reached that nebulous saturation point referred to as “peak superhero” has been a popular thinkpiece thesis for many years now. And yet the anticipation surrounding “The Boys,” the wildly fun eight-episode action series debuting Friday on Amazon Prime, shows how ripe we are for a rowdy, timely critique of our obsession with comic book heroes. The villains-as-heroes gimmick is nothing new but the paradigm at work in “The Boys” isn’t that Butcher and his partners are evil or pure or even guided by the “correct” reasons. Even if the comic’s parallels to the current condition of the world are somewhat unintentional, “The Boys” relevance is indisputable, and far more pointed than the political morality at the center of 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War” or the DC Extended Universe film “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Those two titles revolve around the tension surrounding and clashes resulting from governed authority versus the innate morality, of litigating what is right and just. Amazon already picked up “The Boys” for a second season, a nod to the sustained potency of the superhero genre and this title’s potential to build a small screen franchise.