From beginning to end,The Boysis a brutal story where no-one is safe and death is always on the cards. By the conclusion ofGarth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic series, almost all the titular characters are dead, and most of them at the hands of the same person. However, as cynical and sometimes immature as the series can be throughout, the creative team are careful to verify each of the main heroes gets a meaningful send-off.
Each of the Boys' last words says something about their character and relationships, contriving to expose the humanity of the series' deeply flawed heroes before saying goodbye to them for good - often in horrifically violent ways.
Mallory started the Boys and faces death after betraying a key member.
Gregory Mallory
In The Boys #55, Mallory Tells Butcher to Hurry Up and Kill Him
While Greg Mallory quits the Boys before the start of the comic series, he’s integral to the story, explaining the history of the group to Hughie and warning him aboutButcher’s propensity for unfeeling violence. Mallory initially approaches Hughie in Ennis and Keith Burns' tie-in seriesThe Boys: Highland Laddie, disguising himself as a friendly stranger who helps him adjust to the revelation that his girlfriend Annie January is one of the Seven.
Amazon’sThe BoysTV show adapted Greg Mallory as Grace Mallory, played by Laila Robins.
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When Hughie later seeks out Mallory for advice, he finds a much less sympathetic operator, who warns him in detail that Butcher is even more dangerous than he seems, and that,“There is no one on Earth who hates like that man does.“Hughie chews Mallory out for refusing to take a hand in the Boys' future, storming out and leaving Butcher’s mentor to his memories. Sadly, Hughie isn’t Mallory’s last visitor.
InThe Boys #55(Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns), Butcher arrives to find out what exactly Mallory told Hughie about their shared past. Knowing Butcher has come to kill him, Mallory explains that he’s not scared to die, since thetrauma that Lamplighter visited on his familyby killing his granddaughters has left him nothing left to live for. The issue concludes with a defeated Mallory saying:
So why don’t you do me a favor and get it the hell over with, mm?
While Mallory’s death isn’t shown on-page, inthe backmatter ofThe Boys Omnibus #5, artist Russ Braun confirms,“And yes, Mallory is dead. Butcher killed him off camera, but pretty clearly he’s a dead man.”
The Female only speaks four words in the entire series, saving them for the story’s final arc.
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The Female of the Species
In The Boys #68, The Female Speaks Her Only Words of the Series
Hughie uses the background provided by Mallory and a message from ally Vasilii “Love Sausage” Vorishikin to work out that, having overseen the death of his wife’s killer, Butcher is going ahead with a genocidal plan to kill everyone who hasany trace of Compound Vin their system - a move which will result in millions of innocent deaths. While he knows he doesn’t stand a chance, Hughie asks the Boys to stand alongside him - even the Female, who has been working hard to swear off violence.
Despite the Female being perhaps the only team member who could potentially beat Butcher one-on-one, Hughie acknowledges her right to stay out of the fight. However, at the last moment, the Female joins their doomed mission by speakingthe only four words she says in the entire series:
The Frenchman
In The Boys #69, Frenchie Says Goodbye to the Female
Sadly, the Boys were right to be wary of going up against Butcher, and the issues that follow see him killing off his former team. Knowing he’d fare poorly in a fight against Frenchie and the Female, Butcher plants a bomb in their base in New York’s Flatiron building. WhileFrenchie finds the explosive, it’s with only two seconds left on the timer, giving himjust enough time to tell the Female he’s always loved her:
Je t’aime. From the first.
While the Amazon adaptation portraysFrenchie and the Female’s bond as romantic, that’s not how it comes across in the comics, where the Female is a younger character. When Mallory’s Boys first apprehend the Female, they intend to treat her as a living weapon, given her ferocity and immense strength. However, Frenchie immediately sees her humanity, objecting that,“It’s not an it. She’s a she.“He volunteers to help integrate her into society, providing clothes and her first cooked meal, andspends the rest of the series trying to help her control her addiction to violence.
Frenchie’s final words speak to the kinship he feels with the Female - someone whose humanity is often overlooked by the other characters, but who carries a deep and terrible sadness similar to his own.
In their horrific final fight, Mother’s Milk can’t understand why Butcher refuses to stop killing.
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Mother’s Milk
In The Boys #68, Mother’s Milk Rages at Butcher
Butcher gets more up close and personal with Mother’s Milk, who he encounters at the Boys' offices doing research into his plan. Mother’s Milk beats Butcher, bellowing:
Why the **** you gotta do this? Why you gotta be the way you are?! You think I ****** want this **** godammit?
In perhaps the series' most haunting moment, Butcher replies:
I know. I know. You’re the best mate a **** like me could hope for. I don’t deserve to ****** know you.
Butcher then reveals he’s holding a grenade, which he thrusts into Mother’s Milk’s face, injuring him enough that Butcher can then suffocate him to death. It’s a trulyhorrifying end for Mother’s Milk, who considered Butcher a close friend after Butcher helped rescue his daughter when she was a baby. Sadly, asThe Boysgradually makes clear, Butcher is able to totally disconnect his violent behavior from his emotions and morality, allowing him to kill MM without hesitation.
In many ways, Mother’s Milk is the character worst-served by the series. Despite being introduced as a family man desperately trying to raisehis rapidly aging daughter(a result of her own Compound V), he ends the story without a reconciliation with his child, who was traumatized by Butcher murdering her mother (which she believed to be at Mother’s Milk’s request.) MM’s moral and methodical nature make it clear how irredeemable Butcher truly is, but at the cost of giving his own story an incredibly bleak ending.
Butcher drives Hughie into a murderous rage by revealing he killed his parents…
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Billy Butcher
In The Boys #71, Butcher Thanks Hughie
Thankfully,Butcher’s genocidal plan is finally stopped by Hughie, who he admits he always hoped would take on the job his little brother used to serve and stop him from doing something terrible. When Hughie tries to attack Butcher, they both fall out of a skyscraper window because Butcher is unable to stop himself from trying to save his friend. The landing badly injures Hughie’s leg whileleaving Butcher totally paralyzed. In response, the Boys' former leader tries to convince Hughie to kill him, rather than letting him spend the rest of his life in prison.
Butcher eventually drives Hughie into a rage by claiming to have killed his parents(a lie, as Hughie later discovers), describing their home in vivid detail before fixing Hughie with his most evil grin and saying:
Look at me. ****** look at me. You know I done it.
Convinced, Hughie stabs him with a piece of metal in a rage, fulfilling Butcher’s wishes. Butcher thanks him for the accidental murder with a satisfied smile, with his last words being:
Nice one, mate.
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Hughie Campbell
The Boys Gives Hughie 3 Different ‘Last Words’ Moments
As the only survivor of the Boys, Hughie actually has three instances that qualify as last words. The first comes in Ennis, Robertson and Richard P. Clark’sThe Boys #72. Having taken over Butcher’s job policing the world’s remaining Supes, Hughie reconnects with Annie January, suggesting that after their bitter break-up in Central Park, the rebuilt Brooklyn Bridge can be their new ‘place,’ saying:
I thought it might make a nice new place for us. Well, you know. We had the park, but… it’s maybe a wee bit sad for us now.
The pair then embrace in an echo of the moment fromThe Boys #1whereHughie’s girlfriend Robin was killed by A-Train, but this time ending in a kiss.The Brooklyn Bridge is a major metaphor in the comic series, representing the damage that the careless use of power can do to innocent people.It’s also the site of Hughie’s tribute to the Boys, writing their initials in setting concrete.
However,The Boyslater returned in Ennis and Russ Braun’sDear Becky- a 2020 miniseries acting as an epilogue to the main series, and set over a decade after its finale. In that series, Hughie and Annie have moved back to Scotland, with Hughie repeatedly delaying their wedding. Finding Butcher’s old diary to his wife Becky allows Hughie tofinally process the loss of the Boysand what they meant to him, and the miniseries ends with his marriage to Annie, with Hughie exclaiming”…Jings.“on seeing his wife arrive for their wedding (an expression of surprise in Scottish vernacular.)
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However,Dear Becky’s final scene sees Hughie write a letter to Becky, explaining his final thoughts about Butcher. While not spoken dialogue,The Boys' story end with a close-up of Hughie’s message in a bottle, telling Becky that while Butcher tried his best to become a monster after her death, her memory kept alive a degree of morality that made it possible to stop him, writing:
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Will Amazon’s TV Show Have the Same Last Words?
Major Changes Mean the Show Is Likely to Go Its Own Way
Those are the final words of each member ofThe Boysin the original comics, with the majority of the team killed as part ofButcher’s final plan to kill every last Supe. DespiteThe Boys' flaws and love of excess, Ennis is one of the most gifted writers in comics, and each character’s final words hit like a truck for fans who have spent dozens of issues in their company.
Due to the changes to Amazon’s TV series, it’s likely thatThe Boyswill get different final sentiments in the adaptation, but the comics leave behind an incredibly high bar for them to reach.
The Boys
Cast
The Boys is a gritty and subversive take on the superhero genre, focusing on a group of vigilantes who confront powerful superheroes abusing their abilities, exploring themes of corruption and moral ambiguity in a world where heroes are not always what they seem.
