3 out of 5

The Boys wasn’t novel when it came out.  Garth Ennis had already been taking the piss out of superheroes for ages; making it the subject of a title wasn’t a stretch, and leaning in to the topic’s excesses matched the writer’s M.O.  Before, and since, we’ve had other titles that’ve explored the likely gross ‘realities’ of what these superhumans would get up to behind closed doors.  And now, in The Consultant, writer Jason Sterr gives a group of JLA-ers a media consultant of sorts; one willing to take cash to cover up murders, or to get false confessions, or etc.  And following in the Ennis vein, artist Daniel Mainé happily piles on the gore, while Sterr piles on the swears.

And it’s okay.

The issue here is that Jason doesn’t have the character skills of Ennis (even as his abilities get muddled in his modern writing…), tossing us into this whole mess feet first and then toward book’s end, forcing us in even further by introducing an opposing team and, like, a conspiracy to unseat our eponymous consultant.

Things move along at an acceptable pace, and despite my comment about indulging in four-letter words and blood, it is apparent that there’s a plot at work here, not just spectacle, and that keeps those moments at a reasonable pitch.  Mainé’s art is absolutely competent, if a bit hero-generic, with solid and bright color work by Francesca Zambon.  If not for the been-there-done-that feeling, this might be a book worth sticking with, but I have trouble imagining it going anywhere too revelatory, unfortunately.