Why Vought Trusted Stormfront Over Homelander In The Boys Season 2
As scary as Homelander is, The Boys' most terrifying villain to date remains Stormfront. Introduced in season 2, the unabashed Nazi used her charistmatic personality to spread her message of hate and nationalism to the American public — and disturbingly, she became one of Vought's most popular heroes in the process. But given just how dangerous her rhetoric is, why would Vought trust Stormfront over Homelander?
The answer is simple: Stormfront is a more stable ally than Homelander, despite her despicable agenda. For Vought, relying on the supe formerly known as Liberty to help them convince the public to put heroes in the military was just good business. Thanks to her age, Stormfront knows better than anyone how to appeal to the public's worst instincts, and she combined her keen understanding of social media with good old-fashioned fear mongering to get the American people on her side (and Vought's).
As Stan Edgar reveals to Homelander late in season 2, Vought is a pharmaceutical company, and anything that increases the demand for Compound V is in the company's best interests. While the company doesn't subscribe to Stormfront's white nationlist agenda, the higher ups are also cunning enough to know they can leverage her ability to spread a message of fear and hatred to achieve their own goals of furthering Vought's success in the pharmaceutical sphere.
Vought sees Homelander as a commodity that needs to be controlled
Despite the danger she poses, Stormfront is also a smart, savvy supe who understands how to manipulate the public and keep Vought happy even as she appears to smear the company's name in public. Remember, she is one of the company's founders, so her connection to Vought International spans decades. She knows the business inside and out, and vice versa, which makes it far easier for Edgar and his cohorts to work with her behind closed doors.
The same cannot be said for Homelander. As The Boys has demonstrated on numerous occasions, Vought's golden boy is deeply unstable. He craves love and attention above all else, and rarely thinks before he acts.
As a result, the company can't trust him to push its agenda of getting supes into the military, because the danger of losing control of Homelander is ever-present. He is, first and foremost, a commodity for Vought. He's the perfect guy to trot out in front of a crowd of adoring fans, but he lacks the patience and temperament necessary to serve as a true ally.
Edgar and the rest of the Vought team know that Homelander is basically a child — albeit an immensely dangerous one. He has no impulse control, and he only thinks of himself. So while he's not a Nazi, he's also far too dangerous and unpredictable to be used as anything other than the public face of the company.
Homelander is only going to become more dangerous to Vought in season 3
After the events of season 2, Homelander is more dangerous than ever before. Now that he's lost Stormfront, his son, Ryan, and has Queen Maeve leveraging the plane footage against him, he's beginning to feel like he has nothing to lose.
Fans can expect his current state of mind to further deteriorate his role at Vought in season 3. Now that Edgar has basically told Homelander he's disposable, the leader of the Seven has even less of a reason to stand by the company that made him into the mess he is today.
In October 2020, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke revealed on Twitter that season 3 is going to be particularly rough for Homelander. "Homelander's going to have a really rough go in Season 3," Kripke said. "He's kind of cornered, they have this blackmail material on him, he was dating a Nazi, like he has a lot of problems and obviously the more you push him into a corner, the more dangerous it's going to be. So he's going to explode in season 3."
Kripke's comments suggest that by the end of season 3, it will be clear why Vought trusted a known Nazi over its most prized supe — because when it comes to Homelander, there's just no way to anticipate what he might do next.