Each volume of The Boys (okay, out of three, so what do I know?) has gotten better by, er, leaps and bounds. Good for the Soul was exactly that, for Hughie who is finding a little peace in the midst of his overturned life as a member of the Boys, the group of folks who watch the watchmen; for Annie, who is finding some small sliver of the same peace even as her eye-opening stint with the world’s premiere supergroup, the Seven, is leaving her more and more jaded; and especially for me, who is relieved to find that Ennis was not a one trick pony and can still plot with gradual subtlety instead of just gay hamster jokes. (Man, the first book in this series really didn’t sit well with me, did it?)

Also: cool backstory sequence! But mainly I’m excited to watch the endgame I can already see coming, when it’s Romeo and Juliet against both the Montagues and the Capulets; and just like Shakespeare’s tale, neither side has exactly covered itself in glory, which makes it all the more pleasant that Hughie and Annie are actually good people in the eye (for now) of this still-brewing storm, and not just flint-and-tinder angsty teenaged plot-devices.