I'm Your Pusher

It's too bad they didn't get Karl Urban too do Billy's voice. If they had, this would be a 10. Great revenge epic and the only episode that feels like it came from the comic or the series. Having Simon Pegg do Hughie's voice was a huge plus.

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.

Garth Ennis comes back to the world he created for a gory short set in his comic universe. It's great seeing the characters from the comics animated, including a clean-shaven Butcher and a Hughie that looks like and is voice acted by Simon Pegg.

We get cameos from other characters that some might recognize as well, while Ennis weaves a disturbing tale that feels like a cut issue from the series. A gruesome, yet very Ennis-Esque ending closes the short out perfectly, making me hope if they do more seasons of Diabolical, Ennis comes back and writes more.

Michael Cera also did a great job voicing Great Wide Wonder, and while I did love Simon Pegg as Hughie, be warned it is more of a cameo than anything, hence why I hope we get more of this style some day. Check this episode out if you love The Boys comics as much as I do.

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.

This episode shows the real horror of having all powerful human beings with next to nothing morals, while also showing what brave regular people can achieve.