If you can get past the gratuitous violence, excessively vulgar sense of humor, disturbing sexual content, and — in this case specifically — a bizarrely racist and cringey attempt to satirize exploitation in the music industry (and that’s arguably a bit too charitable a description), it’s still worth reading “We Gotta Go Now” if you’re a huge fan of “The Boys.” That said, this story is especially dark, especially in regard to its discussion of sexual assault, so it’s more than understandable if you’d rather not experience the story firsthand. Instead, we’ll briefly recap the story so you can appreciate where “Gen V” comes from without wading through that trademark Garth Ennis edge. Major spoilers for “The Boys” comic series will follow.
“We Gotta Go Now” primarily follows Hughie (Jack Quaid’s character from the series) as he infiltrates the collegiate superhero factory known as the G-Men, which — like Marvel’s X-Men — consists of a main team and numerous sub-teams. The Boys are given this mission by their CIA liaison, Susan Raynor (who tragically had her head explode in Season 2 of the show), after the Phoenix-like hero Silver Kincaid dies by public suicide. The team executes an investigation on multiple fronts that ultimately reveals horrors both supernatural and human, as well as the lengths Vought will go to in order to protect its brand.