Marvel could only dream of a monoculture like the one found in “The Boys,” Prime Video’s pitchblack superhero parody, now in its fourth season. Stern-jawed or ready with a smile, “supes” can be seen on the streets of New York City, stopping criminals, but also on multiplex screens, spearheading a cinematic universe; in churches, spinning their powers as divine gifts; on cereal boxes, modelling athleticism; and on bedroom posters, inspiring millions of innocents across America. Vought International, a corporation that’s part Disney, part Fox News, part Big Pharma, first created superheroes as weapons, then turned them into celebrities. The members of the Seven, its élite, Justice Leagueesque squad, have proved both extremely lucrative and—between sexual-harassment scandals, struggles with addiction, and the odd manslaughter case—rather difficult to manage. The company’s stock price, and the supes’ fragile egos, depends on the adoration of the crowd—but, as any show-biz tragedy can tell you, fame is a poor substitute for love.
Denne historien er fra July 08, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra July 08, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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SUBJECT AND OBJECT
What happened when Lillian Ross profiled Ernest Hemingway.
ROYAL FLUSH
The fall of red.
Roz Chast on George Booth's Cartoons
There's almost nothing I like more than a laughing fit. It is a non-brain response, like an orgasm or a sneeze.
CHUKA
I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being. Sometimes we live for years with yearnings that we cannot name.
Rachel Aviv on Janet Malcolm's "Trouble in the Archives"
As Janet Malcolm worked on \"Trouble in the Archives,\" a two-part piece about prominent psychoanalysts who disagreed about Freud, she began a correspondence with Kurt Eissler, the head of the Sigmund Freud Archives.
PERSONAL HISTORY - A VISIT TO MADAM BEDI
I was estranged from my own mother, so a friend tried to lend me his.
AMERICAN CHRONICLES - WAR OF WORDS
Editors, writers, and the making of a magazine.
LIVE FROM NEW YORK
A new docuseries commemorates fifty years of \"Saturday Night Live.\"
TANGLED WEB
An arachnophobe pays homage to the spider.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Mike White's mischievous morality plays.
