I hope not.
That’s good news, I think. And I’m tired of the comics’ readers constantly telling the show’s fans that the comics are much more fucked up than the show, drop it already.
But haven’t comics always said that? I mean, there have always been far more supervillains that superheroes - otherwise, who would the heroes fight each month? The majority of people gifted with superpowers have always tended toward a life of crime or assholery, and the actual heroes have always been the exception. The only difference in this series is that 99% of people with powers are dicks, instead of, like, 80%.
Would Homelander have been less of an asshole if he’d just been a normal jerk with normal amounts of power? The consequences of his actions would have been smaller, but he wouldn’t have been less of a jerk. How much of his being a jerk is birth factors and how much comes from being raised in a glass jar is a different question, but if there was as direct a correlation between power and being a jerk as some people insist, no ruler would ever have been a decent person and no janitor would have been a jerk.
Having to feel the consequences of your actions from childhood is key to teaching you not to be a jerk. As someone with limitless power, he suffers the least in terms of consequences.
Homelander is not a “jerk.” A jerk is a human being who acts in a mildly antisocial manner. Frankly, almost everyone is a jerk sometimes. Homelander isn’t even really human.
I’m not sure… is that really true? Some superheroes certainly have had to battle a rogue’s gallery; I can’t even name all of Batman or Spider-Man’s rivals. It seems, though, that the number of heroes is equally vast. My wife and I were having trouble keeping track of them all as as MCU lurched into “Endgame,” and basically they were all fighting one villain, Thanos. I don’t know if anyone has ever done a count, or if that’s even possible.
In general, in both the DC and Marvel universes, the rationale behind a “supe” being a hero or villain is individual. Bruce Wayne became Batman because he saw his parents killed by a criminal; Magento became a villain because people were mean to mutants like him. Heroes become villains and villains become heroes, depending on the soap opera needs of producing comic books for years on end. What sets “The Boys” apart (well, others have done this a bit too) is that the state of superheroes is presented largely not as being a case of their individual origin stories but from the idea that being an asshole is inherently what would happen if you had superpowers.
“Superpowers” being a stand-in for any kind of societal power, like wealth or celebrity or political power or access to the means of physical coercion. In this case, it’s combined with all of them, because superheroes are part of a successful entertainment-type industry.
Not to hijack too much, but is anyone else wondering about Season 4 of “Stranger Things” when seeing Homelander’s upbringing in the lab?
Yeah, I read a few of the comics, i dont want to see that.
I read several collected volumes. I don’t want to see that on TV either.
Big airplanes do have a few fitting locations (3 - 4 typically) allowing them to be put on large jacks with their landing gear hanging freely off the ground. The entire weight of the airplane rests on these jack fittings. A supe, or a couple of supes, could support the airplane at these points without causing the airplane to crumple. However, unless they were very familiar with airplane maintenance and build, or took the time to find and read the stenciled marker locations on the outside of the plane, they would not know where these points were.
Maybe I missed it in this thread, but am I the only one thinking Homelander’s plan was the crash the plane from the very beginning? He’s been engineering things behind the scenes to get the bill passed. Him being unable to save the plane because of the law helps that get pushed.
Also, can I just say that I love that A-Train makes an actual train noise when he runs? There’s something very unsettling about it.
I doubt it, if that was his plan he would have done it like he did in episode 1. He is just careless and cares very little for the consequences of his actions, it simply never occurred to him not to laser eye the guy in the cockpit even though neither him nor Maeve were ever in any danger.
Did anyone else notice that in E8, Homelander was able to control his laser eyes enough so the laser did NOT shoot out of the back of Stillwell’s head?
Begs the question of whether or not he could have killed the pilot/hijacker without blasting the airplane apart too, doesn’t it?
Sure, he also did it in ep1 when he melted the robbers gun, and when he assaulted that terrorist compound and just burned a guys chest. He can obviously control it, it’s just much slower. The guy in the cockpit was an instant reflex to him shooting the pilot.
When I first watched the airplane scene, I figured that, ya know, the laser burns thru something and keeps burning things it encounters after that point in space is no longer occupied, but in light of these other incidents, perhaps we are supposed to assume that he can control his laser eyes enough to not burn through things if he so chooses.
The Boys was better than most, but consistency of powers in the superhero genre has always been terrible.
I agree, but sometimes the lack of consistency is just a lack of information/data. For now, I’ll assume that Homelander has control, as the evidence is consistent with that conclusion (so far).
He learned after taking down the first plane that they were able to figure out he did it. So I think he was in control but played it off as a mistake.
Hmmm. Interesting. So you think that Homelander saw an opportunity and took it? I can see where that would be plausible, since he must have had his “foreign supervillian” plot already in motion at that time and he was actively promoting Vought as a defense contractor.