The Boys season 3 is doing Herogasm, but it won’t be able to top the show’s first superhero murder. The Amazon series has never shied away from ultra violence, with season 2 taking things a step further by seeing Congresswoman Victoria Neuman blowing up people’s heads with her secret superpowers. With The Boys going full steam ahead on adapting the Herogasm storyline from the comics next season, the raunchy moments that will surely come out of that episode probably won’t overshadow the most gruesome death from season 1.
In The Boys season 1, Hughie and Butcher kidnapped Translucent — a member of The Seven who could bend light, rendering his skin invisible and bulletproof — after he attacked Hughie at work. Butcher always planned to kill the supe, but couldn’t figure out how to pierce his skin to do it. Ultimately, Frenchie came to the conclusion that shoving a bomb up his butt would do the trick. While Hughie was very close to letting Translucent go, he wound up detonating the bomb and blowing Translucent into pieces. It was a bloody, violently disgusting scene. Translucent is the first and only member of The Seven to be killed by The Boys so far, who have crossed paths with Homelander and his team various times since, which is what also makes it notable.
The Boys season 3 seems to be attempting to overshadow the murder of Translucent by doing the Herogasm story from the comics, which sees the superheroes gather on a private island to take part in an orgy. Herogasm is controversial, but is infamous for its perversion and graphic imagery. Despite the fact that adapting Herogasm to the live-action series will set a new level of explicit grossness for a show that is already littered with so many of these moments, Herogasm likely won’t live up to the shock of Translucent’s murder because the latter was the first major death of a supe on the show. It was brutal and unexpected, especially considering it was Hughie, who was previously an innocent bystander in all of this, who detonated the bomb. To that end, Translucent’s death was unnerving precisely because there was some doubt it would happen at all for a moment there.
What’s more, Translucent’s death showcased the amount of violence The Boys was willing to show, likely surprising an audience who didn’t know exactly what to expect from the series at first. The death of Hughie’s girlfriend Robin was only the beginning, with Translucent’s murder only solidifying the lengths this show was willing to go with regards to graphic, disgusting deaths and moments. It seems impossible to top The Boys electrocuting Translucent and placing a bomb in one of his most private areas. Now that The Boys has established its tone and has provided numerous scenes with explicitly gross material — including The Boys driving a boat into a whale and Homelander masturbating over the side of a building — there is nothing the series can do from now on that will be as surprising Translucent's murder, even Herogasm.
Herogasm was a sordid event in the comics, one that will likely translate the same way in season 3. The series has been upping its game from the start, finding new ways to elevate its revolting scenes. But now that the supes have revealed themselves to be devious and disturbed, an episode of The Boys that is dedicated to the Herogasm aspect from the comics won’t be enough to elicit the same gasps that Translucent’s death did.