Eric Kripke is the creator of the show The Boys, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson have written the comics on which it is based. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg came in as executive producers once the production greenlit the project. This list consists of the worst things our favorite The Boys characters have done in the series and how they have not always been innocent.
For the Uninitiated:
The series revolves around a group of vigilantes who have all suffered personal losses at the hands of superheroes. They aim to curb the corruption of the elitist and most powerful superhero team, the Seven, and the corporation that runs them, Vought. The Boys series has never shied away from being violent and bloody.
It is full of characters having grey shades. A very a smaller number of people in the Boys’ universe are completely black or white. Among them, the fans have picked their favorites.
Queen Maeve has a big fan following, and so has the pairing of Frenchie and Kimiko. Some find justifications in Butcher’s actions. But there are characters like the villainous Homelander with a god complex, the sleazy molester Deep, or the annoying replacement of Madelyn Stillwell Ashley.
She is good only because they are deliciously bad. But in this list, we will not be talking about the villains. This list consists of the fan favorites and how they have not always been innocent. Like they say, never meet your heroes!
Top 10 Worst Things our Favorite ‘The Boys’ Characters Have Done:
10. Starlight blackmailing Gecko
In season 2, we see Starlight orchestrate a seemingly sudden meet-up with her friend from back home, Gecko. She feigns surprise when Gecko tells her that he works in the lab in Vought International, as it is the only reason, she sought him out. Annie wanted to get her hands on some Compound V.
She goes on a how God is not real rant to Gecko, which visibly upsets him. Gecko has regenerative powers. Therefore, he works as a lab rat on the 67th floor of Vought tower, where they test new risky drugs on his body.
When Annie asks him to get her Compound V, Gecko refuses to acknowledge that he knows anything about it. At this, Annie swiftly swipes out her phone and shows him a video of Gecko having sex with an older man. She blackmails him into leaking the fact that the former teen star of Vought’s summertime clubhouse is an S&M hooker as a side hustle.
It is understandable why Annie needed to threaten Gecko as it was very important for her and the whole The Boys team get Compound V, but she could have approached it better. It felt harsh that she thought she needed to behave in that manner with her childhood friend, who had seemingly not done anything wrong.
9. Mother’s Milk losing his calm in front of his daughter
Mother’s Milk is the only member of the Boys who is comparatively blameless and has a stable thought process. He, along with Annie, realized in season 3 that taking down Homelander is not important to ally with the very unstable and very dangerous Soldier Boy. MM is one of the few people who controlled back Billy Butcher from making rash decisions.
However, he also had his limits. In season 3, he lost control twice in front of his daughter. Once his obsessive-compulsive disorder took over when a smoke alarm kept ringing. He smashed it violently in front of his daughter.
Another time, he found out that the stepfather Todd of his daughter Janine took her to a Homelander rally. This was even though he had told repeatedly that Homelander was dangerous. MM lost control and hit Todd in front of his daughter and ex-wife. While we can say that Todd deserves it, it must not have been a pretty picture for Janine.
8. Frenchie and his past
One of the original Boys characters, Frenchie or the French Man, has various skill sets involving drugs, guns, and whatnot. But we see in season 3 that Frenchie was a part of the gang of a very dangerous Russian drug dealer called Little Nina. The past life of Frenchie is not very innocent.
He used to work as a killer for hire for Nina. His impulsive decisions have always irked MM. Kimiko might have changed Frenchie for good, but he will never be able to run away from his past, where he killed people. He still carries the scars of his actions.
7. Hughie and his zero interest in Kimiko
For the last three seasons, Hughie and Kimiko have been a part of the same gang. They have fought together several times and had each other’s backs as a group. Thus, it felt very heartless when we see Hughie not caring a bit after Kimiko loses her powers and gets mortally injured.
In season 3, there is a scene where we see Hughie take Temp V and have telekinetic powers for 24 hours. Instead of taking the situation as an unavoidable circumstance,
Hughie revels in its power. He becomes morally corrupt, exactly what he is trying to fight. Soldier Boy attacks Kimiko in Russia, and Kimiko loses all her superhero strength. Then she is mortally injured, and there is no surety of her survival.
While we see all the other members visibly worried, Hughie puts his head out of the car window and enjoys the presence of superhuman abilities inside of him. This was probably one of the worst, heartless and out of character things one of our favorite characters has done on The Boys.
6. Billy Butcher and his hurtful words to Ryan
At the end of season 2, we see Buther’s wife Becca make him promise to take care of Ryan (her and Homelander’s child) after her death. Butcher honors her last wishes and takes in Ryan. He sends him to stay with Grace Mallory.
In season 3, we see Butcher and Ryan have good camaraderie, and they care about each other video clip of legos that he made with his mother’s last message. However, in the middle of season 3, Ryan wants to go with Butcher, but Butcher, in a bid to keep Ryan distant, says terrible things to him. Butcher does not want him near as he might be hurt by Soldier Boy, and he wants to protect Ryan.
But the way he does it is heartbreaking. He tells Ryan that the latter reminded him of the fact that Becca died due to Ryan, and he does not want to see him. Even though his heart was in the right place, it is not something one should say to a child who is already so traumatized.
Butcher later regrets it, but the harm is done. When Homelander finds out about Ryan and comes to him, Ryan goes to his biological father easily.
5. Maeve and her inability to save the plane
Queen Maeve, one of the seven members, was once a wide-eyed innocent good superhero who believed in doing the right thing. But years at Vought and with Homelander had disillusioned her. It is not entirely Maeve’s fault in this incident, but she was complicit in this act.
In flashback, we see an incident where Homelander and Queen Maeve are sent to save an airborne plane from terrorists. Homelander kills the terrorists but, while doing so, damages the plane’s controls. Maeve asks him to save the people inside, but Homelander is not bothered at all.
He and Maeve get out while the plane full of passengers crashes and die. Maeve is visibly distressed about it but does nothing. She keeps quiet and moves on disillusioned. This is not the only time.
There were many other times Maeve had seen Homelander not shying away from killing people, and she had not raised her voice in fear of getting harmed.
4. Hughie and his toxic masculinity
Hughie’s girlfriend Annie January or Starlight is one of the supes. He had known it since day one and was seemingly okay with their physical power imbalance. But in season 3, we see his insecurities resurfacing when Starlight keeps saving him. He regrets that he can never play the hero and save her.
This comes up in the way of jealousy when Annie’s ex-flame comes to join The Seven. In Herogasm, we finally see the quarrel break out, where Annie gets angry and tells him that she does not need saving. She only wants him to be there for her.
But the temporary powers Temp V gave had already turned Hughie’s head, and their relationship suffered a fallout. This happens essentially due to Hughie’s toxic mindset, in which he believes his masculinity is suffering if he can’t help his girlfriend.
3. Kimiko and her killings
Kimiko Miyashiro, or The Female as in the comics, was a part of an elaborate conspiracy. The Vought people injected her with compound V which A train had brought. Vought had planned it to create supervillains so that the American Government would agree to use superheroes in the army. All this trauma was not a part of Kimiko’s fault.
However, after she got her powers, she never considered using them judiciously. She used her super strength to kill and maim people without consideration and sometimes cruelly. Her raw aggression always leads to her victims being killed in agony.
Remember when she ripped off a guy’s face? She could have easily broken his neck. Also, in the lab, she could have knocked out the guards as they had no part in their fight, but she took the time to kill them brutally one by one while listening to music.
2. Billy Butcher kidnapping Translucent
It is not a surprise that Billy Butcher made it to the list thrice, and the two topmost spots are also reserved for him! In season 1, Billy Butcher kidnaps one of the supes Translucent and cages him.
Translucent is kept in inhumane conditions, and his captors deny his basic human rights. We are not saying Translucent did not deserve it, but for Butcher, it was an awful transgression of his character. William Butcher shows no qualms in stripping Translucent of any dignity.
We understand how obsessed he is with taking revenge on Homelander. He couldn’t even stand the idea of superheroes. He was hell-bent on his mission to make all supers pay for the crimes they got away with so easily.
1. Billy Butcher in Madelyn Stillwell’s house
The finale of season 1 was explosive, both symbolically and literally!
Butcher goes to the house of Vought senior Vice President Madelyn Stillwell and straps her to explosives. He does this to blackmail Homelander because he thinks the latter cares about Madelyn. Homelander knew about his plan and trumped Butcher by killing Madelyn himself!
The infant child of the dead Vice President is still in the house, but Butcher does not care about that and blows up the house. He has no qualms about killing a literal baby if that meant killing Homelander. That was low even by his standards.
Some people believe that the Homelander and Butcher are the two sides of the same coin, and they are right. Unfortunately for Butcher, Homelander survived and saved Butcher with him to show him that Becca was alive. Madelyn’s baby also lives as he had telekinetic powers, but Butcher had no way of knowing that, and neither did he care.
We hope you liked reading our list of Worst Things our Favorite ‘The Boys’ Characters Have Done and if you are tired of binge-watching marvel and DC, give this series a chance or re-watch it if you are already a fan. It gives a dose of reality because, to be very honest, in today’s capitalistic world, if superheroes were real, they would probably turn out as they show in The Boys. But if you are not a fan of reality (like me!), watch this IMDB 8.7-rated show just for its bloody gory direction and tight storyline. Trust me, this series is going to hook you!
Some Facts About ‘The Boys’:
- The show’s cast is global just like its fanbase.
- Eric Kripke changed the genders of some comic book characters from male to female to even out the male female ratio.
- The Boys was a bloodbath and they had to tone it down for the TV.
- The Boys is set in New York, however majority scenes were shot in Toronto.
- Former US President Brack Obama watches the show.
- Kimiko actor Karen learnt sign language for the show and even added her own signs and hand gestures to it.
- Homelander actor Anthony Starr revealed that his suit has a cooling system.
