The Boys stands out among other superhero universes both for its perverse twisting of traditional superheroic tropes and for its willingness to unabashedly comment on real-world socio-politics. While the franchise is riddled with countless examples of this commentary, The Boys has specifically taken a few chances to metaphorically lambast America’s governmental failures that ultimately led to the 9/11 tragedy. The franchise’s leading protagonist, Hughie, is undoubtedly the best example.

The Boys creator, Garth Ennis, has always been, more or less, an open critic of the United States government. While it's clear that the writer ires what the United States can be, series like The Boys or Punisher MAX almost exclusively dig into themes of governmental incompetence and corruption.

The Boys #36 directly called out America for the part that corporate-controlled interests played in escalating the 9/11 disaster overseas. However, this specific critique doesn’t just end with a single issue. Instead, Hughie has continued to serve as a long-running metaphor for this problem, with Ennis practically confirming it himself.

This article in no way is meant to downplay the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The lives of the almost 3,000 victims of that horrific disaster, including the valiant first responders and volunteers who answered the call to help, still carry a heavy weight in the hearts of millions both within the United States and abroad. Any commentary regarding 9/11 in this article is in direct relation to Garth Ennis’s work through The Boys and the Punisher MAX series.

Garth Ennis Confirms That 9/11 Influenced How He Writes Stories

The Boys Heavily Critiques The U.S.'s Response to 9/11

Besides The Boys, Ennis frequently used his work with the Punisher MAX series to criticize the long-lasting damage wrought by the American military-industrial complex. Punisher MAX is set in an alternate reality where superpowers don’t exist, instead focusing on harsher real-world issues. In the foreword to The Punisher MAX: The Complete Collection Volume One, Ennis had this to say about his feelings following the 9/11 attack in New York City:

I'd fallen in love with New York City the instant I first set foot there, and to see her brought so low on September 11th, 2001 was one of the most wretched experiences of my life. Accompanying the misery was a deep sense of foreboding. The sun comes up tomorrow on a different world, I thinking, and to a certain extent I was right: the hellish events would soon be used as the basis for a number of decisions taken by the U.S. government of the time, changes in policy both foreign and domestic, some hasty, some downright ill-considered. Yet not long afterwards I began thinking in different . The world was the same place, I reckoned, but America had suddenly been given a close-up look at what it was really like.

The continental United States had not directly known the touch of war for one hundred and thirty-six years. Now, inside a mere few hours, Americans experienced the devastation, loss, horror, heartbreak and uncertainty of human conflict in one massive, wrenching injection. What many regions of the planet tasted often or even daily was all too obvious, and the U.S. was left reeling. That was something I wanted to write about. Not the specifics of the 9/11 terrorist attacks so much as the feeling of the world at its worst; that awful step into the dark after which things can never be the same.

Garth Ennis its that he doesn’t see 9/11 as a uniquely American issue, but that the scale of the disaster was so large that it exposed a vile and nasty truth about the world: Humans are reactive creatures. When we hurt someone, they often want to hurt us back. It doesn’t matter who started it because humanity always loses in the end. To that sentiment, Hughie’s journey throughout The Boys directly mirrors the reactive actions that both the United States and its enemies at the time took in response to the actions of the other.

The Death of Robin Triggered a Toxic Cycle of Retalitory Violence

Billy Butcher Capitalized on Hughie's Trauma

At the beginning of the series, Hughie is little more than a laughably mundane guy with a modestly decent life and a happy relationship. Despite the horrific corporate corruption that we later learn has infected Supe society, from Hughie’s perspective, life is pretty good. However, after Robin is gruesomely obliterated by A-Train , Hughie is sent down a toxic path of self-destruction and retaliatory violence. Like most Americans, Hughie’s sense of security and general innocence was traumatically crushed in an instant, leaving only an all-consuming void in his heart. This, in a sense, is Hughie’s proverbial 9/11.

Billy Butcher's crusade of violence and terror against Supe society and society in general is framed as ‘acts of justice’ meant to punish anyone related to the specific tragedy that befell him.

However, in Ennis’s commentary, 9/11 became a justification to unleash a new generation of mutual terror that would span the following decades, which inevitably sured the loss of life from the original attack. The U.S. launched its “War on Terror,” justifying a decades-long invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Butcher from The Boys represents a similar issue. His crusade of violence and terror against Supe society, and society in general, is framed as ‘acts of justice’ meant to punish anyone related to the specific tragedy that befell him. His campaign of violence, torture, and espionage only radicalized others like Hughie.

Hughie Learns That The True Enemy Is The System

The Military-Industrial Complex Feeds on Disaster

In Hughie’s broken and depressive state, Billy Butcher is a voice of certainty . Hughie’s world has just crashed around him, which Butcher capitalizes on with a charismatic attitude and beguiling nature. Butcher, like President George W. Bush, justified his retaliatory war against Supes in the name of security. Butcher convinces Hughie that all Supes are evil and that swift violence against them is the only way to prevent more tragedy. Following 9/11, the United States almost unilaterally unified against its new common enemy, giving birth to a violent sense of nationalism over traditional patriotism.

Following 9/11, a new industry emerged that capitalized on the fear of the enemy. Media, defense industries, politicians, and fuel companies all profited from the endless turmoil abroad instead of uniting to end it. This perpetual cycle of retaliation only created more radicalized enemies on either side. As Hughie gets closer to Starlight while further ingratiating himself with Billy’s cause, he begins to see the larger truth. Supes aren’t random people with extraordinary powers and heroic dispositions, they are living weapons designed by Vought . Hughie begins to realize that the problem isn’t necessarily with Supes but the system itself.

Hughie Campbell Represents The American People

Butcher and Vought Are Two Sides of the Same Problematic Coin

Back to the real world, as the years went by following 9/11, more and more civilians and veterans had become disillusioned with the United States’ campaign in the Middle East. Many of the citizens who initially ed the post-9/11 policies eventually advocated for a different approach, realizing the obvious problems with endless war, mass surveillance, and government overreach. Eventually, Hughie too realized that he had become. As Hughie begins to back away from Butcher’s constant barrage of extremist and terroristic violence, his once ally and mentor inevitably turns on him too.

Hughie’s journey through The Boys begins with trauma, which leads to radicalization and perpetuated violence, but finally ends with Hughie breaking the cycle.

Ultimately, Hughie rejects Butcher’s path, instead wishing to find a new way to right the wrongs of the past without generating more chaotic violence in return. Hughie modified his pain and focused it away from Supe society but instead on the governmental corruption that built the system’s flaws. Hughie’s journey through The Boys begins with trauma, which leads to radicalization and perpetuated violence, but finally ends with Hughie breaking the cycle. This is the message that Garth Ennis wanted to create with his story. Hughie doesn’t represent the U.S. Government, he represents the American people.

Billy Butcher and Vought are two sides of the same coin: a vicious cycle of mutual violence used to justify the continuance of that same cycle. Hughie, like the American people, became a victim of both parties. Without Vought’s institutionalized control over governmental-corporate interests, there may have never been an A-Train to kill Robin. Butcher’s enticing yet all-consuming rage only served to justify increased aggression from the Supes.

In the end, Hughie and every other average-day-citizen in The Boys were made to suffer in the unstable battleground that crushed the security and peaceful freedom of those around.