It’s a little-known fact that DC Comics, but co-creator Darick Robertson revealed that Homelander, Billy Butcher, Wee Hughie and the rest were almost folded into the DC Universe itself. This stunning revelation puts a whole new perspective on Garth Ennis and Robertson’s irreverent superhero take-down, which would have drastically altered the way the original comics were portrayed.

Speaking with writer Ennis approached the artist in the early 2000s with a new superhero series idea. While Robertson was eager to collaborate with Ennis once again following their work on the Fury and Punisher series, he was tied up with rebooting Wolverine with an exclusive contract with Marvel at the time.

A few years later, Robertson was free from his Marvel commitments, and reconnected with Ennis:

After a year or so on Wolverine, I began to long for more creative freedom, and it was around then Ennis told me that he really wanted to create the title with me saying to me "It has to be you" […] We initially thought it might be a book like Hitman and interact within the DCU.

The Boys Co-Creator Darick Robertson Reveals That The Boys Started Out in the DCU

Homeland and Batman Could Have Duked It Out

Of course, The Boys was initially published as a creator-owned series by DC’s WildStorm imprint in 2006, far away from the world of Batman, Superman and the Justice League. The book was a success, but its extreme nature soon proved too much for parent company DC, so the book was canceled and Ennis and Robertson were free to shop the series elsewhere. The Boys quickly found a home at Dynamite Entertainment, where it ran for 72 issues and a handful of miniseries. Ultimately, DC’s loss was Dynamite’s gain, as The Boys achieved its greatest success yet when it was adapted into a TV series for Amazon Prime.

The vampire Cassidy from Garth Ennis’ earlier DC/Vertigo series Preacher actually makes a cameo in later issues of The Boys, providing a DC Comics crossover of sorts.

Given all that, it’s still wild to imagine a world in which The Boys takes place in regular DC continuity. Homelander and Superman squaring off sounds like an opportunity too good to up, and the Justice League would likely have a problem with the Seven and the way the entire Vought-American corporation does business. Ultimately, had The Boys appeared in the DCU, it probably would have been closer in tone to Ennis’s earlier Hitman series with artist John McCrea, in which Gotham City hitman Tommy Monaghan acquires super-powers and finds himself enmeshed in the world of superheroes and supervillains.

It’s Probably a Good Thing That The Boys Exists Outside the DCU

The Boys Takes Genuine Creative Risks

While Hitman is an excellent series in its own right, it lacks the bite that Ennis, Robertson and later artist Russ Braun brought to the table, which simply would have been unable to exist within the DC Universe. The Boys’ scathing critique of superheroes, religion, politics, and American consumerism simply had to exist within its own universe and at a publisher willing to let Ennis and his co-creators like Robertson run wild with no pulled punches. While it would have been cool to see Batman and Superman mix things up with Homelander and Billy Butcher in the world of DC Comics, The Boys ultimately landed where it needed to be.

The Boys is available now from Dynamite.

Source: Retrofuturista