Dog Boys

Sweet Tooth is back for a final season, and while the series has now taken a completely different direction from the source material, it does keep introducing characters from the comics. The first ones we meet (and possibly the only ones, I still have to finish it) appear in the first episode The End Is Also the Beginning. With General Abbott and his Last Men gone, Helen Zhang is now the main baddie, and she isn’t fooling around when it comes to looking for Gus: she sends after him four Hybrids, credited as the Wolf Boys and portrayed by Shin Tanaka, Amie Donald, Joseph Malele and Isaiah Ilo. The four obey to Helen’s daughter Rosie, and are relentless hunters… based on the Dog Boys from the comics, who of course had other masters. Let’s see together.

The nameless Dog Boys were five children born from Glebhelm and his wife, when the world still seemed to be normal and the Sick hadn’t announced the end of times yet. What wasn’t normal, however, was their father. Rumors of half-human half-animal children had been spreading, of course, but neither Glebhelm nor his wife believed any of it… until it came the time for the woman to deliver her baby. As soon as the first one was born, the woman freaked out, and believed she had been impregnated by some sort of demon: she tried to kill her firstborn, but her husband stopped her. Seeing the half-dog child born from his wife had pushed Glebhelm’s sanity off the cliff, and he had been suddenly struck by a religious epiphany, as if the Hybrids were a sign from God, messengers to show humanity a new way. The other four puppies were born in the following hours, and their mother was exhausted and barely clinging to life after the labor… but her children were alive and well, and most of all hungry. Glebhelm didn’t have anything to feed them with, so he let them eat their own mother, a first monstrous act of cannibalism that would have defined their very existence from that moment forward. Spreading the “revelation” he had received from his kids, Glebhelm started a cult, gathering people who shared his belief that Hybrids were divine messengers. The Dog Boys stayed by his side all the time, acting as living proof of what he was preaching, and as feral bodyguards ready to maul anyone they saw as a threat to their alpha. Glebhelm fed them with non-believers, with rebels from within his cult, the Animal Armies, and even with other Hybrids, in some sort of unholy communion. Living meat always tasted best for them.

Enforcing their father’s power and authority, the Dog Boys allowed the Animal Armies to conquer the entire city of Rockbridge, that became off-limits to anyone who wasn’t a cultist. The Animal Armies were one of the great powers left after civilization finally crumbled… along with the Militia, that had a completely different view upon the Hybrids, and tried their best to eradicate them to give humanity a chance. Due to their agenda, the Militia became the cultists’ main enemy, and the Dog Boys were often led in battle against them. Then, one day, a man name Jepperd came to Rockbridge along with two women, Becky and Lucy, and claimed to know where the headquarters of the Militia was, promising Glebhelm all the Hybrids he could free from there if the Animal Armies helped them defeat Captain Abbot and his men. Glebhelm accepted the offer, and all the clans of the Armies marched behind Jepperd’s lead. One night, two cultists tried to rape Lucy, but the Dog Boys mauled them on the spot: Glebhelm interpreted this as a sign that the women must not be touched, and both Lucy and Becky were free to move in the camp from that night on. Then, finally, the group reached the Preserve, and the Dog Boys were left free to slaughter anyone they could see. During the battle, however, Glebhelm spotted Jepperd going through a secondary entrance, and decided to follow him along with his children. They reached Jepperd as he was about to escape with some Hybrids, and Glebhelm sent his boys after him, but they only managed to get Buddy, one of the Hybrids. As they were about to eat the terrified donkey-boy, however, Abbot appeared, wounded but alive, and he saved Buddy… killing Glebhelm on the spot in the process. As an alpha had bested another, though, the Dog Boys started following him: they had a new master, now.

The Dog Boys are feral Hybrids raised to be extremely aggressive towards everyone, but absolutely loyal to their master… whoever he may be. As half-human half-dog Hybrids, they possess the enhanced senses of the dog, as well as its fangs and hunting instincts, and are a well-trained pack that can hold its own in battle. More animals than humans, the Dog Boys are the ultimate security detail: they will serve their alpha at the best of their capacity, protecting him and each other to the last breath… but if another, stronger alpha appears, they will shed no tear for the one who they would have called father, if only they were able to speak.