Now That ‘The Boys’ Has Said Its Final Goodbye, These 10 Adult Comics Deserve a Screen Life of Their Own

After five seasons of blood-soaked superhero carnage, blistering political satire, and more body horror than any reasonable person should be able to stomach, ‘The Boys’ has reached its final chapter.

The series finale, titled “Blood and Bone,” aired on Amazon Prime Video on May 20, with Season 5 marking the end of Prime Video’s violent and action-packed superhero saga. Creator Eric Kripke confirmed back in June 2024 that Season 5 would be the final season, explaining the show had always been planned this way.

What ‘The Boys’ accomplished, more than anything else, is proving just how enormous the appetite is for adult comics adapted on screen when studios give creative teams the freedom and budget to truly honor the source material.

The show is based on the New York Times best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and what showrunner Eric Kripke built from those pages became a genuine cultural force. With that void now opening up, the debate over which uncompromising graphic novels deserve the same treatment on streaming has never felt more urgent.

Garth Ennis Has More Comics Like ‘The Boys’ Up His Sleeve

Nobody writes gleefully transgressive adult comics quite like Ennis, and his catalog beyond ‘The Boys’ remains stacked with properties just waiting for a proper streaming treatment. His ‘Crossed’, illustrated by Jacen Burrows, imagines a world where a virus forces people to act on their darkest and most violent desires, and the creative team does not hold back.

A ‘Crossed’ movie is currently in post-production after being filmed in 2025, but with 17 volumes and multiple spinoff series and continuations, there is more than enough material for a full television run alongside it.

‘Punisher MAX’, Ennis’ landmark run on the character, is regarded as the best Punisher run ever, a collection that takes Frank Castle to an entirely new level. Every Marvel screen version of the character has pulled its punches at the worst possible moments, softening a story that was always closer to a brutal war novel than a superhero adventure. A streaming platform willing to honor this material would finally be delivering what fans of that run have waited years for.

‘Marshaw Law’ follows a vigilante who hunts down evil superheroes while pursuing a serial killer, a premise that already feels deeply familiar to fans of ‘The Boys’, sharing its dark comedy, graphic content, and pointed parody of the hero genre. The comic is frequently cited as one of the key inspirations behind what ‘The Boys’ ultimately became on the page. Given how clearly audiences have proved their appetite for stories like this, a series built around this premise would not need much convincing.

Brutal Graphic Novels That Were Born for Streaming

‘Transmetropolitan’ was created by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson in 1997, following Spider Jerusalem, a caustic reporter operating in a sprawling metropolis sometime in the 23rd century, described as Edward R. Murrow dropped into a Philip K. Dick world.

Robertson also co-created ‘The Boys’ with Ennis, and the shared DNA between the two properties is not accidental. Actors have already publicly declared their passion for the material, with Britne Oldford telling ComicBook.com she would gladly take any role in a potential adaptation given her deep affinity for the original story.

‘100 Bullets’ presents a high-concept noir premise across 100 issues: what if a mysterious man appeared and offered you consequence-free revenge against the people who ruined your life, complete with an untraceable firearm and a guarantee of amnesty.

Written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso, a sequel titled ‘100 Bullets: The US of Anger’ was announced in 2025, with Azzarello and Risso returning under the revived DC Vertigo imprint. Azzarello has confirmed he has been approached about a screen adaptation before, though he currently has other stories he wants to tell.

‘Brat Pack’ uses sidekicks to deliver a cynical view of vigilantes and the people corrupted by power, fame, and corporations. It is one of the sharpest critiques of superhero mythology ever committed to the page, predating by decades every conversation that ‘The Boys’ would later spark in mainstream television culture. The property has never been adapted for screen, making it one of the most glaring omissions in the current entertainment landscape.

Screen Adaptations After ‘The Boys’: The Epic Sci-Fi and War Stories

Created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples, ‘Saga’ began in 2012 and has published over 70 issues of its planned 100-plus issue run. Vaughan is the Eisner and Hugo Award-winning writer and co-creator of multiple critically acclaimed series including ‘Paper Girls’ and ‘Y: The Last Man’. In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Vaughan stated that the team receives offers all the time, but that ‘Saga’ was made to be a comic, with an adaptation only worth considering if someone truly cracked it.

‘Über’, written by Kieron Gillen, imagines a scenario where super soldiers resurrect the Nazi war machine just as World War II is drawing to a close, exploring the brutality of the conflict and the people behind it with marvelous writing. It is a different kind of adult comics experience to ‘The Boys’, trading corporate superhero satire for something much closer to grimdark historical horror. The appetite for that level of uncompromising storytelling on streaming has rarely been more evident.

Not every property on this list is still waiting for its moment. A live-action television adaptation of ‘Warhammer 40,000’ is in development at Amazon Studios, with Henry Cavill set to produce and star following a deal between Games Workshop and Amazon. Games Workshop and Amazon officially began working on a production deal in December 2023, with early reports suggesting the series may take two to three years to arrive.

Two Adult Comics That Need a Proper Shot at the Screen

Garth Ennis’ ‘Preacher’ follows Jesse Custer, a small-town Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a mysterious half-angel, half-demon entity that grants him the Word of God, forcing anyone who hears his commands to comply. The series consists of roughly 75 issues published under DC’s Vertigo Comics imprint, and it remains one of the most complete and narratively ambitious long-form works in the history of American comics.

Before ‘The Boys’ proved what Amazon was truly willing to greenlight, ‘Preacher’ made its way to AMC, but the reaction from the most devoted readers of the original was consistently the same. The AMC ‘Preacher’ series did not have the freedom of Amazon, and the result was a far less joyfully offensive and monstrously violent display than what the source material warranted. To put it simply, the show was defanged at precisely the moments when the comic goes furthest.

The argument for a streaming reboot of ‘Preacher’ has never been stronger than it is right now, with an audience already primed by ‘The Boys’ and a prestige streaming environment finally willing to take those risks. If a platform has the nerve to approach it with the same creative courage that Kripke brought to ‘The Boys’, the result could be the next era-defining adult comic adaptation, and which of these ten properties you think deserves the first green light is a question worth fighting for in the comments.