Summary
- Homelander's death in The Boys is a perfect anti-climactic twist that undercuts his self-importance and reveals his true nature.
- Killed by Black Noir off-, Homelander's demise contrasts with the emotional and epic deaths of The Boys, showcasing his lack of control.
- Even though Homelander presents himself as the big bad, his death highlights his immaturity and insignificance compared to other more complex villains.
Spoilers for The Boys comic book series!While Homelander is set up throughout powerful parody of DC's Superman, Homelander is a brutal bully who ultimately decides to stage a coup on the United States, murdering the president and countless people in a short-sighted grab for power.
Homelander is eventually killed by Black Noir, who is revealed to be a clone of the powerful Supe, tasked with assassinating him should he ever decide to break from the Vought-America corporation's interests. It's Black Noir who ends up being the series' biggest superhuman threat, and Homelander is killed off- in a way that not only acts as a thrilling twist, but perfectly undermines the way the character presents himself throughout the story.
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Homelander accuses Black Noir of ruining his life, itting at the end that he's not actually in control.
Homelander Learns The Secret Role of Black Noir
The Boys #65 (from Garth Ennis, Russ Brain, John McCrea, and Keith Burns)
In The Boys #65, Black Noir steps forward to make sure that Homelander learns the truth. Not only has his 'friend' always wanted to kill him, but Black Noir actually dressed as Homelander in order to frame him for brutal crimes and force Vought to sanction his execution. Homelander's own crimes only happened because he believed he'd already done such terrible things in a fugue state, prompting Butcher to hit him with the definitive put-down, "It means you turned into a ****** psychopath by mistake."
For most of The Boys, Homelander is held up as an unkillable terror - someone who can't be brought down by normal means, and who plunges the country into chaos on a whim. It's exactly how he presents himself, and yet ultimately it's the lie of someone who has the maturity of a teenager.
It's a brilliant ending for Homelander, taking a character who desired to be seen as a supreme evil and killing him off- in a fight against an even bigger threat.
Homelander is Killed By Black Noir, Off-
Homelander's Death Is the Series' Most Anticlimactic Moment... and That's a Good Thing
Homelander begins the issue sitting in the Oval Office, feeling unbeatable, and ends with a profanity-laden tantrum, squaring off against an enemy who brutally destroys him. It's a brilliant ending for Homelander, taking a character who desired to be seen as a supreme evil and killing him off- in a fight against an even bigger threat. And even better, doing it moments after definitively proving Homelander never understood what was actually going on behind the scenes.
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Homelander's coup is deeply unsuccessful, lasting less than a day and ending with him murdered by Vought's secret weapon and his superhero 'army' mowed down by the military. What's more, Homelander is finally forced to confront the horror of his actions. While he'd convinced himself that he was a psychopath and played the role, Black Noir's reveal exposes his weakness and malleability. Homelander accuses Black Noir of ruining his life, itting at the end that he's not actually in control.
In contrast to Homelander, each of the Boys gets a momentous, tear-jerking death to underscore their humanity and importance...
Homelander's Death Contrasts Those of The Boys
Mother's Milk, Frenchie, the Female and Butcher Get Truly Epic Final Moments
By the end of The Boys, only Hughie is left alive, and yet Homelander can't claim any credit. In fact, following Homelander and Black Noir's defeat, it's Butcher who kills his team, believing they'd prevent him from carrying out his grand plan to slaughter everyone with Compound V in their system. The team's deaths are tear-jerking - Frenchie and the Female acknowledge their deep platonic love, Mother's Milk and Butcher have a bitter fight to the death, and Butcher ultimately goads Hughie into killing him so that he won't have to live the rest of his life in prison.
While the series' storytelling isn't perfect when it comes to the Boys - Mother's Milk's family life is left on an unsatisfying note of tragedy - each of their deaths is a momentous, epic sign-off underscoring their personalities and connections to others. In this light, Homelander's death is even more perfect, as The Boys contrasts his off-screen demise with the emotional ends of its heroes.
Often in pop culture, even the most repulsive villains are given iconic deaths that validate their importance. The Boys doesn't give Homelander that kind of ending...
The Boys' Ending Shows Why There'll Never Be Another Homelander
The final defeat of Homelander doesn't necessarily mean Supes are done for good, but Hughie reveals the CIA will never allow a superhero comeback.
The Boys Saves a Darker Fate for Its REAL Villain
James Stillwell Is The Boys' True Face of Evil
Homelander's quick, no-frills death contrasts with the more mundane faces of evil in The Boys. In the comics, James Stillwell is a Vought CEO who oversees its handling of superhumans. While Homelander is petulant and brutal, Stillwell is cold and calculating, but no less deadly - when Godolkin's G-Men step out of line, he has them slaughtered with missiles and flamethrowers on the lawn of their own school. Likewise, he's responsible for much of Vought's most twisted evil, doing whatever's best for the corporation even if it hurts innocent people by the thousands.
Despite his evil, Stillwell is the best critic of Homelander who exists within the universe of The Boys, viewing him with pure disdain. Critically, Stillwell points out that while Homelander has done terrible things, he's done them without any true purpose or imagination. The Boys sums up its view of Homelander through Stillwell, who says, "What have you thought of to do that the lowest speck of this pointless species couldn't, were they to be granted your level of power?"
Stillwell's ultimate goal is to force the US government to incorporate Supes into national defense, and he comes close. It's only because of Homelander's ill-judged coup that the plan goes off the tracks, turning public opinion squarely against Supes. Throughout the series, Stillwell is ice cold - even when Homelander threatens him, his heart rate doesn't rise. However, in the final issue, he finally breaks down, realizing that superheroes are "bad product" and that no matter what he does, even his heartless genius can't change that.
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The story revisits Stillwell in The Boys: Dear Becky (Ennis and Russ Braun). Set twelve years after the main series, Hughie ends up checking on Stillwell, who never recovered from his breakdown and lost everything his years of 'evil' earned him. A similar fate befalls the team's amoral CIA handler Susan Raynor, whose tactic of sacrificing innocent lives to progress her career doesn't bring her success or happiness, with Hughie leaving her with the words, "Did anyone decent ever love you, Madam Director?"
As is seen throughout Garth Ennis' work, The Boys embraces the idea that rabid monsters like Black Noir need to be put down as soon as possible, while the truly, knowingly evil must be stopped, but are punished most by the natural wages of their own actions and character. Homelander doesn't truly fit into either category, but he does fit a recurring Ennis archetype - the unthinking opportunist who ends up ground beneath the wheels of a smarter villain's plan, having doomed himself through incompetence as much as malice.
In spite of the Amazon series' deviations from the comics (such as the twist with Black Noir), Amazon's The Boys needs to give Homelander a similarly uneventful death as well.
Homelander's TV Show Death Shouldn't Be Epic, Either
It's Important That The Boys Doesn't Buy into Homelander's Hype
In spite of the Amazon series and its deviations from the comics (such as the twist with Black Noir), The Boys needs to give Homelander a similarly uneventful death as well. Having gained massive amounts of fame and popularity even as his true colors have begun to show, the version played by Antony Starr feels just as invincible by the end of The Boys season 3, thinking he can do no wrong. As such, the show could and should give Homelander an equally uninspiring demise, cutting right at the heart of his psychopathic self-importance. With so many feeding into his lies and narrative, giving him an anti-climatic death is the perfect way to defeat not just Homelander, but also his problematic followers.
Ultimately, Homelander isn't even in the top three of The Boys' villains, ranking below Black Noir, Vought executive James Stillwell, and Billy Butcher himself. While he sets himself up as a terrifying threat, his death in The Boys pulls the rug from under his and readers' feet by showing he's anything but. Often in pop culture, even the most repulsive villains are given cool or iconic deaths that only serve to validate their importance. The Boys doesn't give Homelander that kind of ending, revealing he's been playing someone else's game all along, and killing him off in a fight that only serves to establish his killer as a far more disturbing and significant villain.
