I'm Your Pusher

"The Pusher" was the first of these "Diabolical" eps that I felt was worthy. It was a good, self-contained tale of the supes' drug pusher, how he got compromised, and the catastrophic consequences. Still alot of cartoon gore but mainly limited to one scene.

What we're given here is a straight presentation of the original source material, written by the comic author Garth Ennis.

The plot is basic but solidly written, and the animation is straight heroic adult anime, no complaints there. Score and pacing are both fine, it's a very competent production.

Unfortunately, they couldn't get Karl Urban to voice Billy Butcher. Sure, he made a hot Shatnerian mess of it in the live action, but it was such a distinctive and enjoyably eclectic performance that Jason Isaacs can't come close to it here, and it's rather jarring.

Queen Maeve's presentation is also slightly divergent from the live action. She's blonde, has tired age lines, and while Dominique McElligott voices her, she gives it a much more openly weary performance. It's fine, it works well, it's just different.

So while this would have been near flawless as a standalone episode, in the context of characters that we already know, it's slightly dissonant.

Still a solid, enjoyable little ride, well worth the time.

Really great episode and makes me wish they would turn this into a full animated series that more faithfully adapts the comics with this same cast and Garth Ennis involved.

A good episode written by Garth Ennis.

There is nothing more to say and I won't spoiler anything.

Dark humor as you know it by Ennis.

Some original cast members from the The Bost tv show give their voices to their characters, they play.

And finally, Simon Pegg plays Huggie, as it was originally intended.

Highly recommended for all The Boys fans.

I'm Your Pusher is what happens when you decide to bring an anthology series to its square-one aesthetic routes. This episode feels like The Boys whilst evoking that superhero cartoon feel from Invincible and even Young Justice. This is anthology TV going to all the creative places it can go in eight short episodes.

Sure this episode's a tad too short for all its showing off regarding it being an in-universe continuation of the comic books, but for the time we have it's absolutely worth it. Though Jason Isaacs as Butcher instead of Karl Urban definitely takes some time getting used to. They still had Antony Starr as Homelander so it was an interesting choice recasting Butcher for this one short alone. Though Simon Pegg as Hughie brought the comics' reference full circle rather nicely.

The Boys Presents: Diabolical is creative TV, and though it's definitely not for everyone, I'm all for this anthology animated series format. It encourages creativity and reinvention in ways live-action simply cannot do some of the time.

This episode is definitely one of this series' strongest.