Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Being a superhero is tough work. Being a supervillain is even tougher.
Not onlydo you have to deal with those pesky superheroes coming in to save the day and stop your evil plans, but you’ve also got to deal with the other supervillains who are ever so rigid in their maniacal beliefs.
That’s what the Mayhems—a family of supervillains—have come to realize, at least. Because when daughter Amy went to confront lead supervillain Onyx about his treatment of her family, she may have committed a huge no-no by attacking him in anger. And now not only are superheroes and police after their family, but the supervillains are, too. So, Amy and the rest of the Mayhems now spend their days hiding in Valley View, Texas, where they’re attempting to blend in and appear like any normal suburban family.
But when you’ve been a supervillain all your life, being good is, like, really hard. Things tend to get a bit more difficult when you’re no longer able to freeze every problem that comes your way.
But they’re going to have to learn how to be good in order to keep up the façade and keep the family safe from detection.
Being a supervillain comes with a lot of perks: You can fight dirty, you don’t have to abide by any superhero codes and you can have a super-cool secret lair, for starters. But it also comes with a lot of unspoken risks: not only are the good guys constantly breaking down your door in the name of justice, but the other bad guys also oppose you to further their own evil schemes. (Villains aren’t known for sharing loot or the limelight, after all.)
That all got a bit too overwhelming for the Mayhems. And blending into normal society is so much harder than they ever thought possible. The father, Vic, struggles with not being able to create his nefarious inventions. The electricity-wielding mother, Eva, keeps finding clothes stuck to her in the dry Texas heat. And the youngest son Colby only just got his shapeshifting powers, and he wants nothing more than to use them to prank others.
Of course, none of these are as bad as the predicament facing Amy and her (slightly less villainous) brother, Jake: they accidentally exposed their true identities to classmate Hartley, and now they need to keep her quiet. After all, a family of supervillains-in-hiding can’t afford to keep moving around every time a superhero gets a whiff of their presence.
So, it looks like they’re there to stay, which will require them to learn how to be good—or at least, to give off the appearance of it. And while they learn, they’ll make some mistakes along the way—albeit minor, TV-G ones that viewers will be exposed to as well, like slapstick violence or soft swears like “dang.”
But even though our protagonists are typically every other show’s antagonists, The Villains of Valley View doesn’t offer too much in the way of content concerns—and that’ll be the thing that saves the day for many parents.
A family of villains tries to blend into their new town. But when Jake accidentally sends their neighbor Hartley into another dimension, he and Amy must rescue her.
Amy uses her powers to cut class early, and she attacks another villain. Amy gags. Amy’s shirt shows her midriff.
A woman steals a $20. A villain blows up a lair. Jake zaps Hartley into another dimension. People say “butt” often.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
