Prime Video renewed its Boys spin-off for season two today, bringing another victory to the streaming giant’s superhero efforts. Gen V may not be as rapturously received as its predecessors, The Boys and the animated series Invincible, it is currently the top show on Prime and one of the biggest on streaming. As a result, Marvel is currently eating Prime Video’s lunch.
After launching The Boys in 2019, Prime Video has avoided going full-bore into the genre. There have been three eight-episode seasons of The Boys and one eight-episode season of Invincible, with one special over the summer and a second season coming next month. Meanwhile, Marvel, deep in Phase Flop, released six new series, many featuring A-list characters and stars, with diminishing returns.
This year has easily been Marvel Studio’s worst-performing year on TV, something its parent company acknowledged. Kevin Feige’s superhero universe has slowed since the divisive She-Hulk dropped last year. In June, Marvel released Secret Invasion, a series that took years to set up and stars one of the studio’s most important assets: Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. It is among the worst, if not the worst, received series in the company’s history. Loki’s second season, which we assumed would help restore some of the luster to the brand’s television arm, has failed to become the culture-dominating conversation starter its initial season proved to be.
Earlier this year, James Gunn told Rolling Stone that he believed superhero fatigue was real but “doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes.” His point is that superheroes lose audiences when the story becomes solely about the multi-pronged universe that constantly needs feeding to fill schedules and release dates, it becomes less about character. Quantity increases to the detriment of quality.
Prime Video has found new ways of creating superhero stories that have less to do with the universe at large and more to do with finding original ways into character. This includes meaningfully changing genres and styles, which provides for trying things like adult animation and satire. The Boys isn’t beholden to a universe of entries, nor is Gen V. To wit, audiences don’t need to spend more than a hundred hours of homework to watch an episode of television designed to give them some respite from the horrors of the world. The pressure to understand everything has become a barrier to entry that some would rather not deal with. Right now, what audiences want isn’t a universe, but a character they can connect with, think about, or disagree with. Maybe that’s more entertaining than slowly watching a universe expand.
Gen V is available to stream now on Prime Video.