The Surprising Character With An Amazing Story Arc On The Boys
Amazon's The Boys is full of rich, surprising characters who not only critique the superhero genre as a whole but also happen to be completely captivating. The Seven are an elite group of costumed crusaders run by Vought International and are quite obviously a parody of the likes of both the Avengers and the Justice League. Heck, the film they're working on within the series, Dawn of the Seven, is an obvious joke at Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice's expense.
But what makes the series from Eric Kripke so brilliant is that under all the superhero jabs and flashy violence, there are some brilliantly written characters with a surprising amount of depth. It would be easy to have two-dimensional villains who engage in super-shenanigans and have nothing of substance to them. But with Antony Starr's Homelander, the show truly excels with its deconstruction of godlike superheroes and how power warps someone's personality.
Although Homelander is directly taken from the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the Amazon version is very different from the undeniably perverted patriotic hero in the original story. The live-action hero doesn't sexually assault Starlight when she joins the Seven, and it sounds like he won't use Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy in season 3, either. But he does have a fascinating relationship with Vought executive Madelyn Stillwell.
Rage, insecurity, and maternal issues
While Madelyn Stillwell started off managing Homelander on a day-to-day basis, their relationship changed into something a little more sexual (and consensual). Their dynamic had so many layers to it, especially since Homelander clearly has some deep-seated maternal issues that he hasn't quite worked through.
It isn't surprising that he's got a stunted personality, since he was raised in a lab by Dr. Vogelbaum — the blank walls of a laboratory are hardly as comforting as a family home. It isn't really surprising when he turns on Stillwell in a fit of rage and, uh, eviscerates her skull with his head vision. Yikes. His issues only escalated from there, throwing grief into the mix as he tried to run away from his own actions, using Doppelganger to masquerade as Madelyn so he still had something of a maternal figure in his life. Well, before Homeland killed the fellow Supe for imitating him, that is.
Did we mention the part about discovering his girlfriend, Stormfront, was a decades-old Nazi hiding in plain sight? That's got to do a number on the old psyche. She perfectly matched his unhinged nature, but it wasn't quite clear whether he agreed with her plans for genocide and taking over the world. The last time we saw Homelander, he was, ahem, relieving himself on top of a building after being blackmailed by Queen Maeve with video footage of the pair of heroes leaving innocent civilians to die in a plane crash. His mental state was already shaky, but it seems like he's started to crack.
Clearly, Homelander's descent into true madness will only get worse in The Boys season 3, and we can't wait.