The Biggest Lie in "The Boys" 

As someone who served in the military, I can tell you the military has zero interest in weapons they can't control. Do you know what happens to an enlisted soldier who wins the lottery? They are removed from service. That is because controlling a soldier's pay and free time are two ways the military controls the soldier. If you have all the money you need, why would you care if they cut your pay? In fact, why would you care what they tell you to do at all? So, you quickly become a disciplin problem and thus you are involuntarily promoted to civilian. So it would be with super heroes as well. The only way supers would be in the military is if the military had a way to punish them when they step out of line. How do you punish an invulnerable super being who can single handedly wipe out your whole army? You can't. Thus, the military would have no control, and without control, superheroes would just become loose cannons guaranteed to get soldiers and civilians killed. End result, no sale. So, no, superheroes would NOT be military contractors. Now, could they be black-ops contractors which the government could disavow any knowledge of? That is a whole different story...

The government tried to weaponize nerf footballs to make football-shaped, anti-tank grenades. The idea that the government would be uninterested in literal superheroes is beyond unrealistic.

Vought was a military contractor first in the comics, they even had supes in WWII, as did the USSR and Nazis, but they were so incompetent that the government banned them from military use.

In watchmen they showed the military immediately decided to test dr manhattan's power and even use it to their advantage in Vietnam

Vought isn't basically a sports franchise they're a private police company looking to expand into military.

Wasn't it stated in the show that Vought was being fought against becoming a government contractor, not because the government wouldn't do it, but because all those other contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman etc have a lock on lobbyists and support in order to prevent Vought from getting funding and in turn, losing funding the other contractors would get.

I personally took the show as a metaphor for Hollywood.

*Fookin' diabolical*

>The Biggest Lie in "The Boys" Ooh-ooh, I found it. 6:00

If this was like real life, the military would've already been using the supes long before they became household brand names.

Dang, truth is obviously scarier than fiction.

If I remember right, the politicians' stance was that Vought would obsolete all other firearm sellers and kill their business, which would not be in favor of most politicians since they're most likely closely tied with those firearm companies, whether it be their leverage in the political scene or business relationships. And as for the origin of the compound X, I'm not familiar with the original comics but in my opinion, it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it was originally developed by some biochemical technology company since genetic engineering specifically on designer-baby is realistically a current trend in the field (though still in a very early stage irl ofc).

You're missing one key component in all this. The government doesn't want sups in the military because of the potential of them going rogue. The first rule of military spending is you never field something that you either can't completely control, or can't deny use of to your enemies if they capture it.

When I watched the series, I thought much the same as this video. A superhero is a weapon. Why on earth would the military not want a proven, effective weapon? After giving it a moment of thought, I guessed that the problem is accountability. Would the supers fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Would they follow orders from the chain of command? Basically, would Homelander do what you tell him? How do you punish him when he doesn't? The military works by stick and carrot. You get honored for following orders, and punished for disobeying. Supers already have the accolades in their civilian lives. And no one could keep Queen Maeve in the brig if she didn't agree to stay. Supers have no motivation to follow orders. And that, I think is the core of the problem. No one in battle wants a weapon that may or may not work. When I pull a trigger, I damned well need to be sure the bullet comes out at the right instant. I do NOT want a bullet that second-guesses me, and that is what the supers are.

"War is the root of all these problems." War is merely a symptom of evil.

This man basically predicted half of vought's season 2 storyline a year in advance.

The biggest lie in The Boys is the title: there is no connection between the tv show and the source material other than the title and branding.

"if you want peace prepare for war" The kind of peace you talk about will never happen, just won't.

2:24 well i dont know if "the boys" in the show is gonna take a similar stand as the comic book. but it the comicbooks ... vought has a long history if failing the military in big way. the military not trusting them comes for years of them abusing that trust.

Its funny how the WW2 airplane is gull winged like the real Vought company's Corsair.

What don't understand is how *Luxottica* the eyeglass company seems to have a monopoly.

Fun fact: one of the test subjects of the MKUltra was a young Ted Kasinski, who would later become the Unabomber. Seems like the CIA failed to create heroes, but excelled in creating villains...

I think the only point that might be somewhat counter to your argument is that Vought didn't spend time on R&D, and their product was not created by a private company- Compound V was created by Nazi German scientists, but too late to do anything and in the confusion Vought somehow lucked out and got hold of the recipe before the defense department (maybe they were founded by the guys who looted the recipe). Then, their first 2-3 'products' basically weren't marketable- They had a nazi, in stormfront, the guy that proved V worked, and 15-18 years later they had Homelander, and black noir shortly after. But I think they might have been basically keeping the whole thing hidden at that point- they knew homelander isn't stable enough to have exposed to the public without management (hence black noir in the comic), as he would have been if they went straight into being a defence contractor, and stormfront would be even worse, given if anyone worked out who he was the whole thing blows up in their face. It should be noted that they're guilty of a ton of crimes in starting to produce super heroes, so you keep the 3 guys who can let that slip carefully managed. Hence they end up operating as a PR firm, managing their three heroes appearances and contact with non-Vought employees in order to keep it under wraps. Then when the later waves of heroes raised, for free, by volunteer families, Vought is involved in their marketing because that is what it is in place to do, being a company that primarily employs marketing & PR people. Also getting the police contractor exception was probably a lot easier when it was for just 3 dudes, as it has to have been for about 2 decades before the first post homelander/noir batch matured in private homes with no input from vought- its not as if it was a far reaching ask, because there's only been 3 of these people born in all of human history (then, miraculously, more start turning up!? who would have guessed?). I still find it dubious that they'd have managed all this without being caught or being a private contractor, but it is worth noting that they don't really have any people employed in tech development or the other expensive parts of military contracting that we actually see, so their expenses for that probably wouldn't rule them not being one out automatically.

"significant private monopolies are actually pretty rare", says a video in a platform bought by one of the most powerful corporations in the world

"The wheels of industry, inevitably, turn the wheels of war."

"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading." ~Thomas Jefferson. In all of human history we have known conflict. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not war is in our blood and inherently a part of our nature as humans. We could no less remove that part of ourselves than we could make the sun set in the east. I like the idea of peace as I see it, which is everyone minding each others business and no ill will towards anyone. But I don't think it's within humans for this to be possible. That all being said I think the best example of human peace was in the show The X-files where Fox Mulder got wishes from a genie and wished for world peace. What happened next was that Mulder was the last human or animal on earth, and I think that is the only way peace can be achieved. When there is only 1 human left in the world then there will truly be peace. Loved this video, but just disagreed when it came to talking about peace as anything obtainable through human effort.

I find it more concerning that no one seems to care that a single corporation HAS A PRIVATE ARMY OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DESTROY CITIES, its like if McDonalds had stockpiled nukes. One thing i also find unrealistic about the show is what's stopping the superheroes from making their own superhero groups independent of Vought? Why wouldn't there already be some out there considering how awful their corporate culture is?

IRL Vought would have never had control of the supes in the first place. In the show it's kind of implied that they basically give them money, luxury, and access to dens of ill repute where they can get up to whatever kinky shit they want to (like the bar in the first episode). Basically an ideal rich lifestyle. Problem is, any one of them could easily be ambitious and decide they want to just kill the people in the company and take over the world like the gods they are (wink wink Homelander). All it really takes is one over powered supe to go rogue and the whole system falls apart. Or at least a supe civil war takes place where company guys fight rogue guys. The collateral damage there would be unspeakable. As for the government recruiting them, it all depends on whether or not they're killable. If their power can be explained by science (super strength) the government is already working on a way to "neutralize" them. If their power can't be explained by science (telekinesis or portal creation) government is gonna get on its knees and try to keep them happy. Nuke resistant demigods are out of the depth of the US government.

5:30 You think the Gov would be the first to want a Final Solution for Supers since they can't be controlled like tanks or missiles. Fun fact, in the game adaption of Marvel Civil War, CAPTAIN AMERICA opposes the Act because he KNOWS that it'll turn superheroes from skunk works meta-police, to government agents who an be ordered to protect oil lines or claim oil fields.

in the comcis Vough does have a long a really poor businesses relationship with the military. which is kind of the reason why superheros aint use lack of standardization .. as Vough can create them..but not control what they create.

I think the most unrealistic thing about the Boys is Carl Urban's accent.

One the one hand, peace is an divine thing to strive for. On the other hand, humans have been warring since Cain killed Abel. I didn't hear anything about defense, only demilitarization. Si vis pacem, para bellum If you want peace, prepare for war

You could just say "Business always good,guvernment always bad,so the bad guys should be from guvernment!" to avoid wasting time!

I mean Vought is a name that sounds familiar. (Chance Vought F4U Coursair, is where I remember it from. A Second World War- Era Navy Fighter.)

You are under the wrong impression that we are a super hero company.We are in fact a pharmaceutical company.

I work at an election supply company and just learned I work at a monopsony. Cool.

In the comics, this was explained well. The first superheroes were actually deployed to be used in war, WWII to be exact, but because they knew nothing of how war worked, it resulted in all the superheroes getting killed and hundreds of American soldiers getting slaughtered. This was the catalyst that would lead to the formation of The Boys.

My 3 favorite actors on the show: Karl Urban Simon Pegg The actress for starlight Now that's out of the way, the show is an 8.5/10 for me.

“I can breathe ice” *”You’re in welcome to the military”*

It actually makes little sense why Vought is trying to get defense contracts, when they started off as having them in the first place, with Soldier Boy and his team, Payback, being military assets on the field. I suppose they got demoted to private corporation status after some catastrophe or failure, and what would make sense is if Vought is trying to redeem itself in the eyes of the government, and superheroes like Homelander would be an attempt to create a new supersoldier that they can then market a mass-produced version of to the government, to regain the Feds' trust.

If the government wouldn't let these clearly ultra-powerful superhumans into the military, why wouldn't they just overthrow the government and establish their own military in which they could serve? you could easily get together the capital required for their R&D if it means an infinite return on investment by becoming the new government able to extract taxes from the citizens.

damn I thought this was gonna be a The Boys video

Not only would the government allow them to be contractors, they'd most likely demand it, in the hopes of controlling the superheros.

Man, I love your essays and analysis. This is premium content right there.

This video is why an cashless society would be an nightmare, we would be at the mercy of the government, and who knows what could happen.

I have a really hard time believing that every superhero would just be a huge dick and asshole to everyone and everything, the first promotion I saw for it was something like, "a more realistic look at what the average person would do with superpowers." And I think that's total bullshit, you can't tell me that every superhero would just be okay with their behaviour and not a single one wouldn't try to stop them. It's been proven time and time again that the average person is fairly good, meaning that they wouldn't hurt anyone unnecessarily just because they feel like it, or that they would feel no remorse for what they do or hurt, because that's just sociopathic behaviour, and sociopaths aren't very common in real life. For every one bad person like those of power in The Boys there are at least five good/selfless people like Superman or Captain America that would try to stop them.

My biggest issue with the Boys is that Vaught is essentially the only big company in the business of supes even though there is such a large number of super heroes.

The absolute best 'The Boys' related video I've seen so far!

That whole millitary being reluctant to hire super hero seemed like the most immersion breaking aspect in this series.

The military would be the first to recruit them.

Good video, interesting examples and historical context used as supporting evidence. Great editing as well.

So the reason we don’t have supes is that the government doesn’t contract the research for them.

16:01 - You left out Coal, Oil and Gas subsidies, which run about $20B/year, versus $7.3 for renewable energy subsidies.

Can you make video about company like Nestle? It seems everyone hate them

Congrats, excellent video essay, nice narrative, very thorough, and fun to watch.

In Trinidad we have a government company called NGC. It is both a monopoly and a monosoply and still loses money

Amazing videos as always

let's have the heads of states fight each other when they declare war lol

So basically they need to change the song. "War! What is it good for? Defense Contractors!"

Boeing is not a sole military contractor. They have a huge (if not currently currently redundant) civil sector. As far as new weapons go, those who do not stay up with technology risk being dominated by those that do.

I was thinking the same when watching the show. In the comic the government actually did comission Vought to use supes in the military but after the disastrous results, Vought decided to suspend the contract. And later Homelander is the one "secretly" trying to pursue putting supes into the military while Vought is so so on the idea. That's the only more realistic aspect of the comic over the show though, they're very different

The only purpose to the opposition from government in the show is to create conflict. Unrealistic, yes. Lazy, yes. But I don't think modern day writers want to portray federal governments to be as flawed as the big bad corporations. That would conflict with certain agendas.

"Compound V is not unbelievable... The baffling part is that they DON'T HAVE AN ALREDY ESTABLISHED MILITARY CONTRACT!!!" -FEE (It's funny becaue it's true!)

My idea was that in The Boys, the supposed to be good guys (superheroes) are bad, while the usual bad guys (government) try to be good, so that senator tried avoiding using superheroes in military.

As much as I love FEE's comedic short animations, I love this series!

I cant see alot of upsides to a human weapon that overshadow issues like the inability to control it, no good way to manage the damage it causes, no ability to make international treaties condemning them and no guarantee it wont turn on you.

You sound absolutely right...

9:12 thats because it is a conspiracy theory, an accurate one. A lot of people nowadays do not understand what conspiracy means and use the term incorrectly, they think it means lies.

The show specifically points many of the senators are in the weapons manufactures pockets.

I just love How Much Redpilling this channel has showed me. This is glorious content and it really makes me think.

I thought the part where people had superpowers was unrealistic

Personally I feel the biggest lie in the show is that a corporation could a large number of supervillains under wraps. Corporations in real life are terrible at keeping things under wraps. The problem is that the bad press doesn't actually stop them, just look at Amazon.

Great video! Thanks. I wish this got more views.

Home lander is my favorite hero he's my personal hero and i wanna grow up to be as insane as him

Sidenote: Vought tower is actually Toronto city hall with some added cgi to make it look taller.

If I try to keep track with the idea of this video, i have to remember about the pharmaceutical companies, and most IT companies, that are basically civilian business, but still have a lot of government investment because they got their hands on some interesting technologies. So, it is possible, in my opinion, for a civilian company to develop some kind of private technology that could be used by the military, and in that eventuality, that technology could be dismissed as useless by the military as well, if the needs are not met.

I can think of one realistic reasons why the military would oppose use of superhumans. Mental Instability; having superpowers and being insane go hand in hand.

Me and the boys watching another amazing video from fee.

4:00 ‘Hi I’m Jeff I buy the food’ ‘Oh, food for who?’ ‘Yes’

Thing is, in comic there is a large opposing group of traditional weapon contractors, who are fighting Vought at every level. And Boys are, essentially, one of their side projects. Also, vought had military contracts before and fucked them up quite spectacularly, both in WW2 and Vietnam, so its understandable why pentagon doesn’t want them. Adaptation definitely lacks that angle.

It's really fun to see him try to defend capitalism. :D

The show is still the best I have ever seen.

Check out Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" series sometime. It starts with "Steelheart". The premise is that superheroes suddenly spring into existence due to a burst of energy in the sky related to the passage of a new comet, and rather than using their powers for good, the "Epics" use them selfishly and become worldwide evils.

The government would have outright demanded compound v

That's why that lie is not in the books. And *that's* why I don't watch tv adaptations of books I like.

"Encouraging … cross-cultural interaction." What happens when incompatible cultures collide?

Dude that TALOS suit is literally just Spartan armor.

Naming power armor TALOS is *very fitting* considering where the name comes from.

This went from an interesting take with some fun theories into some stupid little Alex Jones level rant

Loved The Boys, really looking forward to season 2 !! #EndCorruption #MoneyOutOfPolitics #RestoreFairnessDoctrine

hollywood: does a sf adventure fantasy series foundation for economic education: this is not real

We couldn't even cut the Military budget by 10 percent, let that sink it.

Putting Superheroes into the military lowers the demand for tanks, aircraft, ships, and people to use them. In turn, Vought's Superheroes inclusion would cost the companies who produce said equipment to lose billions of dollars, if not become obsolete alltogether. Military industrial complex requires that war's stagnate; Win the war just in-time for the next one; keep the cash-flow and contracts renewed. If a creation of a weapon existed that ended all war, the companies who profit from war would run out of business. They cannot afford this; so equipment is only ever made to be barely at a level to just have an advantage; but nothing much of one. And as the government officials are so heavily invested within these companies, such as Lockheed Martin and NATO sharing a few high ranking members employed into both; when one company profits, so does the other. In turn; the government profits by selling war to the masses; and allowing weapons to be sold using taxes. Superheroes is just a way to end a war. Cease the need for alllll the wealth creation; and that; is something the government cannot allow. Not until when it was leaked the enemy has super's as well; and the chemical agent 'can' be provided to adults; for a premium cost; of course. Profit from the superheroes involvement, somehow. Extremely realistic.

That's rather unsettling.

Very interesting and likely realistic point! However, I had a thought and I’m curious what your take on it would be. Since the government & the public are unaware that Vaught is the one creating superheroes in the show (Compound-V is a secret kept from everyone except high-level Vaught Executives and some of the elite superheroes) wouldn’t they be recognized as a representative agency for superheroes? I don’t think that there is anything, aside from Vaught’s extreme power & influence, that could legally keep a rival company from being created solely to represent superheroes. Hypothetically, do you think that the government would still behave as though Vaught is a monopoly if they are not technically an exclusive provider of superheroes? At the beginning of the show, Starlight still has to essentially audition to be offered a contract by Vaught for representation. What’s to stop the American government from seeking out individual heroes to incorporate into their military without the influence of a 3rd party company that they have to negotiate with? Other than the fact that Vaught currently has control over the most powerful heroes, the US military doesn’t seem to have a reason to employ the company so long as they are capable of finding super-powered people on their own, which can’t be too hard with modern surveillance technology. Imagine if they had approached Starlight before she sent Vaught her audition tape and presented her a great opportunity to save lives as a part of the military. Not that she would have taken that opportunity, but the government in this universe could likely easily do that, don’t you think? Feel free to dismantle my argument, I’m very curious what you think!

Can’t wait till season 2 comes out!

This is expanded on in the comics, there have historically been people in office that have locked Vought out of contracts and been in the pockets of other corps trying to prevent their military contracts from becoming extinct

FEE: Vought American can't be defense contractors Me: I'm listening... FEE: Because they ALREADY ARE defense contractors Me: Hey, wait a minute

Vought could have started as a pharmaceutical company, developing compound V originally as a performance-enhancing drug. And since they managed to keep it's existence secret, they had a total monopoly on its use.

1. Monopolies are usually the result of things like network externalities and qualities of the physical geography (roads, tunnels, canals). "Natural" monopolies aren't that rare. 2. Monopsonies are also not that rare. They also occur where there are network extrernalities, but an even more common one I can think of is of chemicals. Many chemicals have only one or very few large scale industrial buyers.