In recent years, the leviathan that is the superhero genre has been deconstructed in several ways, and series likeThe Umbrella Academy have offered a different perspective on capes and cowls. The Boys Season 2 was just as visceral as its first season, but explored new narrative directions and added more characters.
It found Billy Butcher and the gang facing a bigger threat in Stormfront, while still trying to bring down Vought International and Homelander. It had plenty of contentious areas where The Umbrella Academy's second season shone, and since both the series tackle difficult and mature themes, they've become comparable additions to the genre.
Why It's Better: It Pulled No Punches
The Boys's second season was even more graphic than its first, with hypertrophied violence and the worst aspects of human behavior on full display. When it came to punishing its characters, it found ways to do it that were unsettling but also deeply provocative.
From people's heads exploding and openly racist superheroes like Stormfront, to Homelander doing "whatever he wants" in the final scene of the season finale, it not only crossed the line of decency - it blew past it. Even including the most disturbing aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and the JFK assassination, Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy played it relatively safe.
Why It's Worse: It Was Depressing
Like many forms of media, viewers often have to be in the right mood to watch The Boys because it isn't an uplifting superhero show. It's also difficult to watch the "good guys" continuously get annihilated by the worst people imaginable, and for fans to watch as characters they'd grown fond of died.
The Umbrella Academy Season 2 by contrast had its low moments, but most of the time fans could root for their favorite characters to succeed. Every time they were knocked down they would get back up again, perpetuating the concept that good can conquer evil.
Why It's Better: Realism
For fans that liked their superhero action as authentic as possible, with buildings being destroyed, and body parts being shot off with laser beams, then The Boys Season 2 didn't disappoint. Just because characters wore spandex and capes didn't mean that the violence was any less graphic or cheesy.
Much of the action in The Umbrella Academy's second season involved the sort of awe-inspiring sequences fans would expect to find in a Marvel movie, which while spectacular, don't the same way with audiences who need to believe that people wielding incredible super powers exist.
Why It's Worse: It Lacked Character Development
There were moments and flashes when the characters in The Boys' roster were given dramatic moments to fuel a deeper understanding of their motivations (like in the case of The Deep), but they were sprinkled throughout the black comedy and explosive action. There were also so many characters to give emotional validation to, the season sagged under its responsibilities.
Because the cast of The Umbrella Academy is fairly focused, and the crux of the character development spawned from family drama, its second season could explore the characters with a little more consistency, without having characters continue to make the same mistakes -which cost lives- and call it pigheadedness.
Why It's Better: It Had A Clear Plot
Thanks to the fact that no superhero has been introduced that specializes in creating temporal anomalies, the plot of The Boys Season 2 could be straightforward, with even its most insidious backdoor dealings laid out plainly for fans to follow along with at home.
Unfortunately, due to Number Five's abilities and his greatest nemesis, Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy got a little convoluted, and removed the sensation of danger. If characters could just got back in time and right certain wrongs, nothing seemed permanent or to matter.
Why It's Worse: It Had Very Few Likable Characters
Like in Game of Thrones, The Boys has always posited that there isn't a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys; they're all basically the same, and engaging with them is neither black nor white but shades of gray. As a result, there aren't any characters that can be described as wholly likable, and Season 2 introduced even less.
The addition of characters like Alastair, head of the Church of the Collective, Victoria Neuman, or the most heinous of all Stormfront, only made the season seem over-crowded with no one to root for. In the opposite way, The Umbrella Academy Season 2 only continued to boast characters audiences couldn't help but like.
Why It's Better: More Intimate Stakes
The stakes may have been as high as ever in the second season, but they were personal for everyone involved. Billy wanted to rescue his wife and her son but knew to do so would risk their lives. Kimiko wanted to reconnect with her brother, but doing so would put him or her friends in jeopardy.
While having Compound V distributed to the public would have been asinine, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, The Umbrella Academy. The group dealt with an apocalypse in the first season, and again for the second, making it a very "all or nothing" season that viewers had a hard time connecting or relating to.
Why It's Worse: Less Attachment To Personal Sacrifices
In both series there are two big deaths near the end of their respective second seasons that are designed to both move the plot forward and resonate with audiences. In The Boys it's the death of Rebecca Butcher, and in The Umbrella Academy its the death of Ben.
Becca was an underwritten character, and her emotional core was attached to her son, but aside from that she didn't have a connection to the overall plot that was significant, making fans feel disconnected from her. The same went for Kimiko's brother. When Ben sacrificed himself for his family in The Umbrella Academy Season 2 finale however, fans were upset because he'd been with them since the beginning.
Why It's Better: It Continued To Disrupt The Genre
In its first season, The Boys introduced the novel concept that real superheroes, when given enough fame and influence, would become sociopathic monsters who viewed themselves as superior to regular humans. By the end, the public knew what Compound V was, and that superheroes were only as special as whomever got the serum.
Season 2 continued with the commentary, and also added issues about superheroes grappling with being products, and ordinary people grappling with feeling powerless, and two other insidious things that effects both groups; racism (with Stormfront) and sexism (with Starlight and Maeve). In The Umbrella Academy's second season, deep issues were largely avoided when attached to the cape and cowl genre.
Why It's Worse: Sense Of Camaraderie
Both series are rooted in the concept of "family", whether an ersatz one like in The Boys or a real one like in The Umbrella Academy. The cohesive aspect of the group should only grow stronger the more trials and tribulations that it faces, and both of the series' second seasons provide even more challenges.
No matter what they face together, "The Boys" just don't seem to get any closer, and seem to stay together out of survival and desperation rather than a sense of camaraderie. Only one person -Hughie- advocates not only helping others, but helping the group, but most are too fractured and selfish to care. Not rooting for one another makes the team difficult to root for by itself.