The Boys: Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 Hardcover – December 30, 2008

Saw some other reviews saying the physical quality of the book was poor, but found this not to be true in my case. Book is excellent in both quality and material in it. A must have for Ennis fans and anyone who enjoys things that are awesome. Not for children!! Cool characters, cool story, and if you're not into comics, give this a try and you might change your mind.

I got my order super FAST, great condition. I don't usually buy from sellers, just from Amazon. Saw the price & feedback & made my choice. Recieved it within just days of ordering. Highly, highly recommended. Great job!

Although the story is greate, and i couldnt resist reading it from cover to cover, it has its flaws. The most prominent one is that they printed one of the series twice in a row. Something that almost a blind proofreader would notice. Apart from that, one of the best series ive ever read.Best regardsJakob

I became a fan of The Boys while reading Preacher, also by Garth Ennis, and fell in love with. I have every issue since #7 and have read them all, but always hate to re-read issues. Then I found out about this and immediately put it on my wishlist for Christmas.It came a little late for Christmas, but it was well worth the wait.First off I just want to say this is a beautiful collection. The art on the inside is gorgeous, printed on a nice glossy paper, and if I'm not mistaken is even a little larger. You really get a great feel for the ammount of detail that Darick Robertson puts into his pencils.The writing is spectacular, it's trademark Ennis where if you're not a fan of harsh language, graphic violence, sexual innuendo, graphic violence, can't allow super heroes to be made fun of, and did I mention the graphic violence, you should not be reading this book. However, if you are an Ennis fan than you will be very pleased to find his trademark style of sophisticated wit mixed with gross out toilet humor is overflowing out of the pages of this book.The extras in the book are also pretty decent, it contains the introduction too the original trade by Simon Pegg, who one of the characters is based on, along with Robertson's sketch book that was included in the original trade, along with some new additions. It also includes the original script for one of the issues included in the series and a short 4 page story starring the characters of the series. Overall the extras in the book are decent enough, they add a little, but not a whole lot to the overall book.Still, this is a must have for any fan of any of Ennis work whether it be Preacher, his work on The Punisher, or any of his other various work. This is also a great price for this set which normally retails for $75 (at this time it's less than $50).In short:BUY IT! BUY IT NOW!

This review is for the Definitive Editions themselves. After reading negative reviews here, I was hesitant to throw down full price. But I managed to grab a copy on the cheap, and it's a thing of beauty. The pages are high quality, the scans of Robertson's art top-notch. This is the way The Boys is meant to be read. If you love the series, buy with confidence.

Arrived damaged

This review is primarily going to focus on the overall quality of the book itself. If you want more insight into the actual story and such read some reviews on the trade paperbacks. That being said, the story is excellent. Ennis tells a great story, with his trade mark pitch black sense of humor, and violence. The art is pretty good as well, (I prefer it to Dillon's art)and really shows through in this oversize slipcased edition. Now onto my review of the physical book the stories are contained in.When I first received the book in the mail I was pretty excited, the slipcase was in pristine condition and looked really nice. Unfortunately, once I took the book out of the slipcase things started to go downhill. My initial impression was that the paper the pages were printed on was some of the cheapest paper stock I have ever seen in a graphic novel. I was expecting this to be along the lines of the DC absolute editions or even the Image oversized slipcases (Walking Dead omnibus, and Invincible Library) with nice thick paper stock, and excellent binding. Instead what I got was more along the lines of slightly thicker than average magazine paper. These pages will tear easily if you aren't careful. The colors all look fine on the glossy paper, but its still incredibly thin for the retail price of 75 dollars. The binding is another issue, as it would seem that the binding is on the loose side.The real issue for me however came when I got past all these other nitpicks and decided to sit down and read the damn thing. Whenever the book was printed, several of the pages weren't even cut properly, leading to pages that were still connected on the outside corners. What this meant was I had to actually cut the pages in order to get them apart. On some pages it wasn't as bad as others, just connected at the outside corner, but on others the pages were connected almost halfway across, leading to me having to do the printers job and slice the pages with a razor blade to get them apart. This is completely unacceptable to me, I have never even had this happen with any other graphic novel I have purchased, let alone a high end oversized slipcase edition like this. This was the first dynamite book I purchased, and unfortunately for them will also be the last.The combination of poor paper stock, and a truly awful print job make this one of the worst purchases I have made in recent history. Even without the awful print job, the low quality paper, and dust jacket smack of poor production value, something you don't want when you are paying damn near 50 dollars for the book. Don't pay more than 25-30 dollars for this unless you have to. 1 star for book quality, 4 stars for story within. I would recommend that any one interested in this just pick up the softcovers, lest you risk having to get an awful print job like I did.*I just wanted to update my review and state that if you look at comments section on the bottom of the first review by Bondidude that gave the book 5 stars, there are 2 other people that comment that they had pages stuck together, so I'm not an isolated case of this happening. Clearly a case of a poor rushed print job*

Not worth the price, the story's as acceptable (read: Not Ennis' best, but not worst either) as it was when Wildstorm was pumping them out, and it has some okay extras, but, like the other negative reviewer said, the paper quality is poor and the printing/cutting is shoddy too.Do yourself a favor and buy the TPB, or maybe the cheaper hardcover that's coming out soon.

Absolutamente incrível. Se você é fã de Garth Ennis... isso aqui é OBRIGATÓRIO.

Garth Ennis's 3rd or 4th Magnum Opus. A gigantic middle finger to superheroes. I have enjoyed this immensely, it is crude, vulgar, perverted, violent, hilarious, surprising, brilliant and wonderful in equal measure. Out of everything Garth Ennis has ever written, this is by far my favorite series. There will be some mild spoilers of the beginning here but, basically, Wee Hughie tragically loses his girlfriend when she is run over by an out of control superhero, and is recruited into a shadowy CIA backed organization tasked with f*ing over Superheroes and if necessary, getting rid of them. It is a hilarious dynamic where the Superheroes are perverted rich self obsessed monsters which I suspect reflects some kind of secret truth about the comic book industry. It is the best satire of Superheroes I have ever seen, it's like a vulgar Watchmen. Nobody else has really done this concept in any serious way, it is quite a unique story. The art is jaw droppingly beautiful, and the skill in the artistry is equal to the mastery in Ennis's writing. While many comics make me smile here and there, this one had me laughing uncontrollably on several occasions, in particular, 'Get Some'. I like everything this guy writes, I loved Preacher, I loved Punisher MAX, I loved Hellblazer, I even really enjoyed his Judge Dredd stories, Judgement Day was amazing, he practically killed the entire world, but this, this is really something, it was an absolute joy to read, I burned through it in a few weeks, and I was taking my time. I now am committed to picking up the entire series, this will be the crown jewel of my collection. The Definitive Edition is beautiful, well made, sturdy, pleasant to look at and to hold, the pages are thick, and the artwork is rich and vibrant, the colors bursting off the page, it is truly a thing of beauty. All of the characters are fantastic, Butcher, the leader, is just glorious, he is a sight to behold, he's the puppetmaster. The Female (of the species) is one of the funniest characters in the book, a terrifying demon in a human form, kept from getting herself into trouble by hanging out with them, Mother's Milk, and the Frenchman are also excellent. The Subplot concerning the new recruit to the Filthy Council of Superheroes is quite astonishing, and she is not just a throwaway character. And of course Wee Hughie himself, he is the dog's bollocks and my favorite character by far. I really enjoyed everything about this book, this is the antidote. If you like Garth Ennis, you must pick this up, and if you must pick this up, you must do it right, this is the only way to read The Boys. I can't believe it took me this long to read it.

Great story and art. Can sometimes try a bit too hard to be garish / edgy.The book itself is quality and a nice book (especially under dust jacket).My criticism would be that it doesn’t collect too many volumes and it is extremely expensive if you want all the stories in this format.

The whole thing is awesome.The plot is awesome, the art is great and the paper quality in this thing is just the best.Whether you are a collector or just getting started at it this will be your best choice.

Great edition !! Perfect condition