Gen V: Every Supe In The Boys Universe Has The Same Weakness (And It Makes Sense)
"Gen V" finally shows how the Boys could take down their adversaries with ease, with Season 1, Episode 2, "First Day," revealing that Supes — or at least young Supes, like those who attend Godolkin University — have an apparently inherent auditory weakness. As two God U security offers boast while taking down Seven member in the making Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo), those who have received Compound V injections and manifested powers also manifest a sensitivity to higher frequencies.
It's an interesting wrinkle to introduce outside of the flagship series. In the first two episodes of "The Boys," Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) emphasize that every Supe has a different weakness that needs to be learned and exploited in order to take them down (Translucent, for example, is uniquely vulnerable to electricity). As the series progresses, however, the base powers possessed by the Supes are largely homogenized — usually amounting to enhanced speed, strength, and durability — as are their weaknesses, which are largely reduced to pure overwhelming force.
If Butcher and his crew could merely use sonic weapons to not only defeat their powerful enemies but also detain them without leaving a trail of carnage, this seems like the sort of thing they and/or their CIA handlers would want to have in their arsenal. As such, some may be confused by the sudden introduction of this weakness — yet there may have been some indication of it all the way back in "The Boys" Season 2.
Ryan Butcher appears to be vulnerable to sound as well
In the Season 2 finale, "What I Know," Butcher and his team enact a plan to distract Homelander (Antony Starr) and Stormfront (Aya Cash) long enough to rescue Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) from Homelander's cabin. Stormfront is drawn away by the leaking of her Nazi past, while a simple but ingenious tower of wireless speakers blasting a loud noise compels Homelander to fly toward them. It's worth noting that the adult Supe seems to be only temporarily caught off guard by the attack, whereas Ryan appears to be in genuine pain, with Becca needing to give him noise-canceling headphones in order to block it out.
At the time, viewers may have assumed that Ryan and Homelander (to a lesser extent) are uniquely vulnerable to sound due to their superhuman hearing. However, it may now be reasonable to conclude that Ryan is vulnerable due to being an extremely young Supe, whereas Homelander has grown out of this weakness almost entirely, thus explaining why sonic attacks can subdue Ryan and the young Supes on "Gen V" while also being irrelevant to taking on older Supes.