One character in The Boys is very different from his comic counterpart, but the changes to his backstory mean he doesn’t make sense in the Prime Video series. As a satirical superhero show adapting tales from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s popular comic book series, The Boys has received critical acclaim throughout its four-season run. However, series creator Eric Kripke made many changes when adapting The Boys’ stories and characters into live-action, including some that have had a huge impact on important characters’ entire histories.
The Boys explores the activities of the eponymous group of vigilantes who fight against a powerful and corrupt corporation, Vought Industries, and its roster of artificially created, superpowered individuals, who consistently abuse their power for personal gain. This story is the same in both the comic series and the TV show, but major character details have been altered to simplify the narrative, streamline character dynamics, and make the series slightly more palatable for mass audiences. One of the show’s biggest changes has transformed a core member of the Boys team itself.
The Boys Drastically Changed Mother’s Milk’s Origin Story
In both the comic series and the Prime Video TV show, the Boys team is comprised of Billy Butcher, Hugh Campbell, Frenchie, the Female, and Marvin T. Milk, aka Mother’s Milk. However, his name is where the similarities between the two versions of Mother’s Milk end, as huge changes were made to the live-action iteration of the character, played by Laz Alonso. Born Baron Wallis in the comics, Mother’s Milk earns his sobriquet from his need to consume his mother’s breast milk on a regular basis in order to stay alive.
This is far removed from the Mother’s Milk we know from the live-action The Boys series, and stems from his origin as the world’s first naturally born Supe. That’s right, in the comics, MM is a superpowered individual who gained his abilities when his mother was exposed to Compound V by working in a Vought Factory while pregnant. Compound V mutated Milk’s mother into a Cthulhu-style monster and altered her foetal twin children. Milk’s brother was born with severe mental disabilities, while Milk himself gained superhuman strength, durability, toxin immunity, and a regenerative healing factor.
In the TV series, MM’s father worked himself to death while suing Vought for his father’s demise at the hands of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). In the comics, his kids’ alterations form the reason Milk’s father sued Vought. MM used his gifts to become an army heavyweight boxer, and later a member of the Boys, the only other Supe on the team alongside the Female (Karen Fukuhara in The Boys). Marvin T. Milk’s backstory and current status in The Boys’ live-action adaptation is wildly different, but this unfortunately makes him much less important and relevant.
Why Mother’s Milk’s Backstory in the Comics Is Far Better
In the TV adaptation of The Boys, Marvin T. Milk lost his grandfather when Soldier Boy threw a car through his family household, which Vought explained was the abrasive “hero” fighting car thieves — a blatant lie. This is why Milk’s father sued Vought, while Milk himself joined the armed forces, similarly to his comic counterpart. However, unlike his comic counterpart, Laz Alonso’s Mother’s Milk is not a Supe, and instead earns his moniker by being a particularly nurturing battlefield medic. This is a pretty poor explanation of the character’s unusual nickname.
For the live-action series, Mother’s Milk’s lactophilic tendencies were given to Homelander (Antony Starr), while his status as the world’s first naturally born Supe were given to Homelander and Becca Butcher’s (Shantel VanSanten) son, Ryan Butcher (Cameron Crovetti). Certain scenes from The Boys comic series, including MM’s mother’s breast tentacle attack on Wee Hughie, were also altered for the TV series — this scene became Love Sausage’s attack on MM in The Boys Season 2. In actual fact, the live-action Mother’s Milk has had little substantive action, and some of his choices don’t make sense because of these changes.
In the comics, MM learns that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban in The Boys) plans to kill all Supes and potential Supes, which would include both MM and his own daughter. This explains much more of Milk’s anger towards Butcher, which felt altogether forced into the TV show. Mother’s Milk was a much more fleshed-out and thought-through character in the comic series, so it’s a shame not all of this translated to the screen.
With The Boys’ fifth and final season on the horizon, it seems it’s too late to make Mother’s Milk more similar to his better comic counterpart.
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