Lamplighter

Lamplighter is a supporting character in the Amazon Prime TV series The Boys. A superhuman with pyrokinetic powers, he was a member of The Seven prior to the series and was replaced by Starlight after his retirement. He was also responsible for unintentionally killing Grace Mallory's grandchildren, intending to kill Mallory instead, and was haunted by it for the rest of his life.
He is portrayed by , who also portrayed Iceman in X-Men: The Last Stand. Mike Weston in The Following and Sam Spencer in Conviction and voices and motion-capture Jack Joyce in Quantum Break and voices and motion-captures Conrad in The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan.
==Powers and Abilities==
* Pyrokinesis: Lamplighter has the ability to control fire with his mind. He is possibly the strongest Pyrokinetic in existence, being able to become a member of The Seven. Despite being able to control fire, he is vulnerable to his own flames and he can't create fire, making him dependent on pre existing fire sources.
** Fire Enhancing: Lamplighter can enhance the heat energy produced by the flames around him, allowing him to turn his fire blasts bigger and stronger. Even as a little child he was already powerful enough to burn a house down. As an adult, he can create blasts of fire to burn normal people to ash (it takes 300 kwh of energy to completely ash a human body, that would be around 1 gigajoule or 0.24 tons of TNT) and even kill other supes by burning them to death (Lamplighter was deployed regularly to incinerate unruly patients at Sage Grove). However, his greatest feat was when he destroyed a metal door that was being used on Cindy's cell, despite the door being strong enough to withstand Cindy's telekinesis, and since no shrapnel could be seen inside the room, it can be assumed that Lamplighter managed to melt and evaporate the metal rather then just blowing it up. It is worth noting that Lamplighter did most of the feats above just by using a lighter and he likely could create more powerful fire blasts if he had access to a bigger and more powerful fire source. 
* Superhuman Durability: He was more durable than normal humans, after being hit by the acid vomit from one of Sage Grove's patients he only displayed minor injuries afterwards, despite the acid being strong enough to melt flesh. It's also implied that he was able to tolerate high temperatures.
* Superhuman Speed: Lamplighter was able to outrun Kimiko, who also possesses enhanced speed.
* Superhuman Strength: In addition to his superhuman durability, Lamplighter also has a superhuman strength, although he didn't openly show it, the Compound V gives all supes that capacity.
* Superhuman Recuperative Abilities: Lamplighter was able to recover almost instantly from a discharge to the face from the Acid-Vomiting Patient. Despite the acidic vomit being strong enough to melt flesh, Lamplighter only gained minor burns after being hit and these injuries healed in a very short period of time.
== Flaws and Weaknesses ==
* Blunt Force/Limited Durability: Although he has a slight enhancement due to being a Supe, he is fairly weak on the Supe spectrum. Using a broken glass bottle, Hughie was able to remove one of his hands, although that was after he had burned himself to death.
** Fire: Although he can control fire and likely possess some form of resistance towards heat, he still is vulnerable towards fire. He was able to incinerate himself with his own flames.
* Not Fully Pyrokinetic: Aside from Lamplighter's fire power, his firepower possesses one major weakness: he is unable to create fire, being limited to only existing sources of flame. Another drawback is that he has a weakness for fire and its effects [smoke - ashes - burns].
* Water: A logical consequence of his Pyrokinesis, Lamplighter's number-one weakness is water. Water can put out any fires Lamplighter has created. Places with high humidity can likely damage his fire powers.
* Depression: Due to his accidental execution of two children, he became riddled with guilt and sorrow. He tended to passively go along with whatever force pushed him, whether it'd be Vought or the Boys, struggling to garner the will to do anything of his own volition.
== Equipment ==
* Hero Costume: Like most supes, Lamplighter had his own superhero uniform. A cloak that is probably fireproof, which grants him increased protection towards heat and other kinds of damage.
** Protective Goggles: Lamplighter used to wear a set of protective goggles, he probably wore these goggles so that he could protect his eyes from the heat, smoke and light created by his fires.
** Lamp Staff: Lamplighter's main weapon was a metal staff designed to look like a lamppost. It was able to produce a constant flame, which he could freely manipulate. After leaving The Seven, Lamplighter would stop using his lamp staff.
* Zippo Lighter: After his retirement from "The Seven", he also retired his cumbersome lamp staff in favor of a Zippo lighter to provide a more portable, less conspicuous source of flame for him to manipulate.
== Overview ==
=== Comics ===
A former member of the Seven, the Lamplighter was turned over by the Seven to the Boys, after the murders of Mallory's granddaughters, in order to end their initial conflict. He is reanimated after his death and is hidden from view deep under the Seven's headquarters; he constantly soils himself, and the Seven take turns cleaning out his cell. His public story states that he took a hiatus from the team, with him being broadcast on national television after his reanimation with the rest of his team. He was then kept in the storage space he now "lives" in, the Homelander having him there as an "example" to the rest of the team for what happens to those who underestimate "The Boys." He is replaced by Starlight.
Lamplighter's powers seem to mostly emanate from his torch-like device, which he can use to fly and emanate blinding light or destructive energy. He has greatly enhanced physical endurance, having survived being struck by the wing of a plane in mid-flight, although the collision's force did cave in his ribs and nearly puncture his lungs; after the incident, he required multiple medications to relieve the pain.
== History ==
Lamplighter appears in season two of the television adaption. This incarnation's powers are pyrokinetic in nature, though he requires a source of fire. In the pilot episode, it is stated that he had retired from the Seven. In reality, Vought assigned him to work in the Sage Grove psychiatric hospital, which they were using as an underground testing site for Compound V, so he could prevent leaks. 
When Frenchie, Mother's Milk, and Kimiko infiltrate the facility in an attempt to discover Stormfront's connection to it, they encounter Lamplighter and accidentally cause a riot in their ensuing fight. The Boys save Lamplighter, who in turn keeps Stormfront from discovering them when she arrives later. He also confesses to accidentally killing Colonel Mallory's grandchildren eight years prior in an attempt to stop her from blackmailing him and resented Frenchie for not stopping him as Frenchie was assigned to tail him. 
Lamplighter allows the Boys to take him hostage and spirit him out of the facility. When Colonel Mallory arrives, he encourages her to kill him, but Frenchie persuades her not to. Later on, Lamplighter testifies against Vought in Supreme Court. 
While watching porn with Hughie, they learn that Annie was captured by Vought and go to rescue her; Lamplighter's codes were still in use, so they could infiltrate Vought Tower undetected. Instead of to the holding cells, Lamplighter led Hughie to the Seven's meeting room, to the latter's frustration. Lamplighter is briefly shocked to see his statue was removed from the others in the Seven, and lamented that he only ever wanted to make his dad proud. To Hughie's horror, Lamplighter immolated himself, with the smoke triggering the fire alarms; this caused lights to emanate throughout the building, which provided Annie with the electrical power to burst out of her supe-proof cell. It wasn't clear whether this was an intended bonus to his suicide or merely incidental, but it helped immensely nonetheless.
Hughie cut off Lamplighter's hand to use the biometric locks throughout the Building, allowing him to discover Annie's imprisoned mother, and reuniting with Annie herself. Even post-mortem, Lamplighter managed to be useful, since his hand enabled the three to escape Vought Tower.
== Personality ==
Lamplighter at first took pride at his status as a superhero and indulges with the fame and fortune that comes with being one, seemingly not truly caring for civilians and puts his fame and fortune as his priority. However, after mistakenly burning Grace Mallory's grandchildren alive, he got consumed with so much guilt and trauma that he was never really the same again, going so far as to break down in tears, begging for his life to be ended when Mallory confronted him, therefore, proving that the series' iteration of him is not entirely evil and sympathetic compared to his comic-book counterpart.
Unlike most villainous supes, he didn't display enjoyment through the act of murder. As noted, his accidental burning of Mallory's grandchildren horrified him, as did increasing the flames to kill them quicker to end their pain. For his reassignment, he would be needed to incinerate unwieldy "patients," but executed the duty with dispassionate reluctance, and appeared to sink further into depression the more lives he took.
As a hero, he was grandiose and arrogant, but after the accident, he developed an incredibly negative self-image; even when watching porn he took to note that he was like the pitiful "cuck," rather than the porn star. He seemed to show an odd kinship with Hughie as he felt they were similarly hapless men, lacking anything exceptional, thus forcing them to be followers of those who are talented and strong.
== Gallery ==
LamplighterTVSeries.jpg|Vought showing Lamplighter on a projector.
the-boys-THEBOYS Jan Thijs 3 rgb.jpg|Lamplighter's statue.
Lamplighterseason2.jpg|Lamplighter revealed to be played by Shawn Ashmore in season 2.
Lamp-3.png|Lamplighter talks with The Boys.
Lamplighter-1.png|Lamplighter preparing to kill Tim.
Lamp-2.png|Lamplighter sets Tim ablaze.
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