Amazon's The Boys is one of the most successful shows on modern TV, but I'm convinced that if the team had used their original codename, the franchise would have been a non-starter. And while this in-world nickname is part of The Boys' satire of superhero media, we'll also look at behind-the-scenes details that show Butcher's team were originally conceived as very different characters, complete with their own superpowers and even a superhero logo.

In John McCrea, Keith Burns, Garth Ennis, Tony Aviña and Simon Bowland's The Boys #55, Hughie meets up with the unit's former leader Gregory Mallory. Mallory explains the early days of the CIA-backed unit, and the initial missions that should have shown him Butcher would never be satisfied until every Supe was dead. As part of the story, Mallory reveals what he originally wanted to call the unit.

It turns out that, but for Butcher, The Boys would have been known as 'Unit X.' Thankfully, Butcher shoots down the pretentious title, as it's a fair bet that in 2024, a superhero TV show titled Unit X would be laughed out of the room. As a title, it's just too self-serious for a modern-day audience, especially given The Boys' irreverent subject matter.

The Boys' original superhero logo was designed to give them costumes similar to Marvel's Fantastic Four or DC's Challengers of the Unknown.

The Boys Were Almost 'Unit X'

The Name Fits How DC Wanted the Franchise to Evolve

It may be a small moment, but I honestly believe Mallory's suggestion of 'Unit X' is packed with meaning. First and foremost, it appears to be a shot at the 'X-TREME 90s,' when gritty, over-muscled superheroes dominated the industry. Titles like X-Force, Spawn, Stormwatch and Extreme Justice put a major emphasis on macho heroes wielding deadly blades and gigantic firearms. While The Boys was always provocative and sometimes puerile, it is also incredibly disdainful of this era of superhero comics, parodying it directly in the gun-wielding cyborg team Paralytic. It doesn't feel like a stretch to say that Butcher disapproving of "Unit X" shows him rejecting the superhero genre at its most self-indulgent.

However, I think the moment also emphasizes Butcher and Mallory's different perspectives. While he's a skilled operator, Mallory was vulnerable to narrativizing events - telling himself a story that justified his decisions and place in the world. Butcher is presented as far more clear-eyed, and has no interest in The Boys fitting into an existing status quo when what he really wants is an excuse to deal out violence to Supes. A crucial moment in the story sees Mallory lecturing Lamplighter over the murder of his granddaughters, contrasting an earlier moment where Butcher tells Hughie that getting emotional with your target isn't how professionals act. The idea of having a 'cool' name draws a hard line between how Mallory and Butcher treat their roles on the team.

Ennis has called The Boys' original shared superpower "the worst idea in history."

Instead, Butcher suggests 'The Boys' as a reference to a term used by UK gangsters to euphemistically refer to their enforcers - a term that makes it clear immense violence is about to be performed, but also implies that it's an everyday occurrence. Ultimately, I read this moment as Mallory suggesting that Unit X can be a significant force in restraining Supe excesses - an organization that belongs in the same world as codenamed hero teams - and Butcher embracing the reality that The Boys will be about meting out violence that won't actually change much of anything (for that, Butcher has his own dark plans.)

The Boys Originally Had Way More Superhero Clichés (Including a Team Superpower)

The Team Evolved into Their Darker Designs, But Gritty Violence Was Always Key

While "Unit X" may have been a dig at 90s comics, it also fits the version of the team that the creative team initially imagined. Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's original comic series was always meant to satirize superhero media and its various clichés, however it was also originally meant to be set in the DC Universe, with Butcher and Homelander existing in the same world as Superman. Like Ennis' previous (and in some ways, significantly better) work on Hitman, iconic superheroes were intended to cameo.

Because of this, the team were originally imagined with their own superhero logo, with Robertson's sketches in The Boys Omibus showing an inverted triangle combined with an eagle. In his creator notes, Robertson writes:

I imagined them having their place in the super hero world and being more public figures. I designed a symbol for their coats and little collars for what I thought would be super suits beneath, ala the Challengers of the Unknown or Fantastic 4.

However, this design choice didn't last long. Given the whole point of The Boys is to be separate to the world of 'superheroes,' it was resolved to give them matching trench coats, but otherwise dress them as normal people. Ultimately, this is the right decision - while I'd love it if there was more developed art of their original 'costumes,' it would have been totally at odds with The Boys' disdain for superheroes to dress them in actual 'costumes.'

The team were also originally going to have a superpower that only worked when every member of the group was present, allowing them to deactivate Supe powers. This would have been key to allowing them to harm DC heroes and villains, but was later replaced with them simply having enhanced strength and durability. In his own Omnibus notes, Ennis calls this "the worst idea in history," but reflects that it was the product of a concept that came to define the franchise, saying:

What I realized early on was that action in The Boys shouldn't involve "powers," as such: it should be about the kind of violence that occurs outside bars at 2 am, where the victim is surrounded and overwhelmed by individuals intent on his destruction. In other words, totally unfair and highly effective.

Ultimately, I think it's clear that The Boys struck the right counter-cultural tone, leading to a long-lived comics series and a growing TV empire. Setting the team apart from superhero tropes and aesthetics allowed the concept to survive changes to those same aesthetics as superhero movies became the norm, while the franchise's dark humor and focus on "unfair" violence survived intact.

While I'd personally love to read one issue of Unit X, complete with The Boys' original costumes and powers, the team behind The Boys made the right call with all their changes, focusing in on the themes that define their story, and the franchise's sincere disdain for all things superhero.