Shows like The Boys: What to watch if you're a fan of the Prime Video show

Amazon Prime Video‘s hit superhero satire The Boys is now in its third season, and it’s as popular as ever. It’s hardly alone as a gritty, revisionist take on supes, though. We’re seeing a boom in the self-reflexive genre. So, what are the best shows like The Boys for fans looking for their next streaming obsession? 

See also: The best original streaming shows on every major platform

The Boys, based on the comic series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, imagines a world with superheroes. Rather than living in the shadows, though, these “supes” are celebrities, working for a shady corporation and shirking accountability for their actions. They live as gods among us. Enter The Boys, a covert organization seeking to expose wrongdoing and stop the supes.

Read on for our list of 11 shows like The Boys to keep you entertained between episodes and seasons. And if you haven’t watched it yet, you can check out The Boys on Prime Video by hitting the link below.

Shows like The Boys

The Boys: Diabolical

Maybe the most obvious show like The Boys, The Boys: Diabolical is an animated spinoff set in the same narrative universe and featuring many of the same characters. The anthology series tells stories set within The Boys universe using different animation styles. It features major names writing and or lending their voices. These include Seth Rogen, Awkwafina, Don Cheadle, Andy Samberg, Aisha Tyler, Kevin Smith, and more.

Jupiter’s Legacy

Seemingly conceived as Netflix’s answer to The Boys, Jupiter’s Legacy does stand apart in important ways. The series also takes place in a world where superheroes are celebrities. It alternates between timelines, as the first generation of heroes finds their powers during the Great Depression and struggles to pass the mantle to a new generation in the present day, when the world and its many threats have changed dramatically since the dawn of the superhero age.

The Umbrella Academy

This Netflix original series, based on the comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, follows seven estranged superpowered orphans, adopted by a mysterious billionaire, as they reunite in adulthood when their adoptive father passes away. Their attempts to discover how their father died lead them down a rabbit hole of espionage, conspiracy, and time travel.

Happy!

Another series based on a comic, this one starring the incomparable Christopher Meloni, Happy! probably comes closest to matching the anarchic and satirical tone of The Boys. A corrupt ex-cop with a drinking problem now works as a hitman. After being injured on a hit that goes wrong, he suddenly finds himself working alongside an imaginary winged horse only he can see.

Watchmen

If you’re looking for shows like The Boys because you like the self-reflexive look at the very concept of superheroes, you could do a lot worse than HBO’s Watchmen, based on the eponymous comic from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that arguably launched the genre in the first place. Taking place decades after the original story, the miniseries looks at the fallout of a white supremacist attack on police that leads to new rules allowing cops to hide their identities as the world continues to deal with the legacy of superheroes.

Preacher

While not a superhero series, Preacher is, like The Boys, based on a comic series written by Garth Ennis. It shares some tonal similarities with the Amazon show too, namely a sense of dark violence punctuated by humour. A former outlaw changes his ways and takes over his father’s church, but the young preacher soon finds himself possessed by an otherworldly power. Teaming up with old friends, he has to face various foes on his path to find God.

Titans

A gritty take on DC Comics’ Teen Titans, this HBO Max series follows Dick Grayson, who alternately goes by Robin and Nightwing, leading a group of young heroes as they fight crime and evil in various cities. The group is disbanded when the show begins and finds their way back together, coming of age as they face different threats.

Powers

The first scripted show produced for the Playstation Network, Powers sees a former superhero who lost his powers now working as a cop on the superhero beat. Much like in The Boys, superheroes, or “Powers,” are both crime fighters and pop celebrities, making the job of investigating their crimes all the more difficult.

Invincible

Another animated show like The Boys, Invincible is one of the more underrated superhero shows currently streaming. Seventeen-year-old Mark is a regular teen, except that his father is the all-powerful Omni-Man, the top superhero on the planet. As Mark develops his own powers and superhero persona, he begins to realize his dad’s legacy may not be as pristine as he imagined. And he may be the only person who can do anything about it.

Peacemaker

A show like The Boys in its exploration of power dynamics and less-than-righteous superheroes, Peacemaker is a sequel to 2021’s The Suicide Squad. John Cena reprises his role as the titular antihero, joining a mysterious black-ops team to rid the world of a bizarre threat wherein butterfly-like parasites take over human bodies.

Doom Patrol

A group of downtrodden heroes who acquired their powers through various forms of trauma have been brought together under the guidance of The Chief to solve bizarre mysteries as a team. When The Chief mysteriously disappears, the members of the Doom Patrol come together again to find him, bonding over their shared pain in the process. 

Those are our picks of some of the best shows like The Boys that you can stream right now.

Have we missed any of your favorite shows like The Boys? Let us know what you’re watching in the comments.