Homelander (TV Series)

## Evil-Doer

Create more "supes" so there’s more supervillains for him and the Seven to fight.
Convince the military to allow superheroes into the armed forces.
Cover up his crime of causing a plane of innocent people to crash.
Use the plane crash as a spin to allow the Seven in the military.
Have the Boys exposed to the authorities.
Get out of Vought's control so he and the Seven can do whatever they want.
(All Succeeded)
Maintain his public image as a hero. (Ongoing; Succeeding So Far)
Maintain his position as leader of the Seven against Stormfront. (Succeeded; though formerly)
Be with Stormfront and have her and Ryan as a family.
Help Stormfront in her goals.
Kill Soldier Boy.
(All Failed)
Stop the massacre at godolkin university. (Succeeded)
Teach his son to become like him.
Kill Billy Butcher and the Boys.
(Both Ongoing)

### Hobby:

Trying to raise his son.
Increasing his popularity.
Drinking milk.
Watching TV.
Doing "superhero" work.

### Crimes:

Mass Murder
Mass Manslaughter
Corruption
Rape
Abuse Of PowerPsychological AbuseTerrorism
Mutilation
Sexual Harassment
Usurpation
Attempted World Domination
Voyeurism
Conspiracy
Fraud
Treason
Drug Dealing
Public EndangermentDestruction Of Property
Arms Dealing
Smuggling
Kidnapping
Torture
Theft
Incrimination
Stalking
Extortion
Blackmail
Enforced Suicide
Unlawful Imprisonment
Attempted Patricide

### Type of Villain:

Egotistical Supervillain

**John J. Gillman**, better known as **Homelander**, is the main antagonist of the Amazon TV adaptation of the comic book series *The Boys* and one of the three overarching antagonists of its 2023 spin-off series *Gen V*.

He is the most powerful superhero produced by Vought International, the leader of the famous superhero team known as the Seven, the secret son of Soldier Boy, and the illegitimate father of Ryan Butcher. While putting on the front of a flawless and pure superhero team, Homelander and the Seven are in fact responsible for causing much more destruction and death than they prevent. Additionally, their crimes are covered up by Vought through their vast media connections and resources.

Among the Seven, Homelander is seemingly the most incorruptible, not partaking in many of the vices his fellow superheroes engage in such as drugs and sex. However, beneath the act he puts up, Homelander is the worst one of all; he regards non-Supes as "mud-people" and taking joy in using his superpowers to abuse others and do whatever he wants, ultimately caring more about his public image than actually saving people. He is also the archenemy of The Boys, Billy Butcher, Queen Maeve, and Starlight.

He is portrayed by Antony Starr.

## Personality:

On the surface, Homelander presents himself as a charismatic superhero—warm, encouraging, altruistic and revolted by any form of injustice. He often encourages his allies by telling them "that they are the real heroes". This only serves as a façade for when he wishes to be presentable however, and is quick to show his true side when necessary even towards those he has vowed to protect.

In reality, however, he is actually the exact opposite; being an apathetic, selfish, uncaring, immature, merciless, sadistic, psychopathic, troubled, cold, vile, hypocritical, arrogant, and above all ruthless and horrid narcissist. Because of his immense power, he believes that he is superior to the whole of humanity; that is how he does not hesitate to crash a plane, letting dozens of people die or use his power to get what he wants. His manipulative and devious side is also demonstrated when he pursues his own plans behind the back of his superior Madelyn Stillwell, such as creating super-terrorists with the complicity of A-Train.

Unlike his comic book counterpart who was framed by the comic book Black Noir for many of his crimes and driven crazy, this Homelander is evil of his own volition; as he willingly murders people in order to satiate his bloodlust and being the person who raped Billy's wife, while the TV series Black Noir had nothing to do with it. Homelander is also very controlling, as he hates receiving orders from Vought and extends this aspect to the point where he forces Ashley to be secretly his puppet when she replaces Stillwell and then Edgar—henceforth Ashley allows Homelander to do whatever he wants.

While an unrepentant sociopath, Homelander does have a desire of the love and affection he never had as a child; he did have a soft spot for Madelyn Stillwell of whom he looks up to as a surrogate mother figure. In addition to this, Homelander also shows an attraction to Stillwell and appears to view her in both a matrilineal and sexual light, roleplaying with her as a mother and child in their sexual encounters. Beyond her value to him as a sexual partner though, Homelander has little care for Stillwell as a human being and ultimately killed her when he found out she kept the truth of his child from him. After her death, Homelander would force Doppelganger to shape-shift into her so he could relive some of their sexual encounters, showing his care for her was only out of what she meant to him. He also showed an interest in Queen Maeve and the two appeared to have dated at some point, though after Homelander discovered she was bisexual, he was willingly let her go, likely out of the realization that she could never be attracted to him and possibly due to him never truly caring about her beyond her value as a pawn. Homelander is somewhat lazy as well, preferring to use his laser beams every time instead of using more pragmatic means to stop criminals, which often leads to him causing more damage than criminals he intends to stop, like causing a plane to crash and accidentally killing a child.

Likely as a result of being raised to be Vought's premier superhero and lack of proper childhood, Homelander has an extreme sense of narcissism; and, while cruel and uncaring towards civilians behind-the-scenes, longs for their love and attention as further validation for himself. He is prideful about his status as the world's best superhero and is incredibly hostile to anyone who would challenge his popularity or position as leader of the Seven, such as Stormfront. Furthermore, like his fellow superheroes, he is good at playing the system and tricking the world into thinking that their actions are justified. He does so while doing anything possible to cover up the crimes that even their most loyal followers will despise them for if they ever find out.

Despite all the bad things he's done, Homelander does actually care about his son, Ryan, seemingly *empathizing* with him after he has a panic attack from being surrounded by many people, as he had the same happen to him. Homelander points out that he does not want his son to grow up the same way he did, isolated and treated without love and affection from a family, which shows he does care, even if he at one point callously and selfishly pushed his son of the roof to see if his powers had awakened. This care for his son was further proven when Homelander rushes to his side after Ryan was attacked by Soldier Boy.

He also came to genuinely care about his lover Stormfront. While he originally was more than ready to kill her when he thought she was betraying him, he looked genuinely saddened upon seeing her crippled and incinerated. After she committed suicide, it contributed to his already worsening mental state.

He also showed a odd friendship with Black Noir. In a meeting, Homelander proclaims that Noir was the only responsible Seven member. When killing Black Noir, Homelander showed some unwillingness to do so and only did it because he lied to him about Soldier Boy.

Homelander is also capable of experiencing fear and panic likely due to a combination of a god complex due to his substantial power, and also because he’s a very paranoid man. This is shown by how he started freaking out when he found out Soldier Boy was alive. He also seems to think he powers define who he is, and is not anything without them. This is why Homelander is so scared of his father, because Soldier Boy has the power to take Homelander’s abilities away from him.

## Powers & Abilities:

### Powers:

* **High-Speed Flight**: Homelander is able to levitate and propel himself at great speeds, allowing him to cover vast distances in a matter of minutes. He is likely even faster than A-Train. Homelander can move at extremely fast speeds, enough to keep up with Steve's plane so he could destroy it. He claims that he broke the sound barrier as a child, and was shown to have flown at 1874.482 km/h (or Mach 1.518) while searching for Translucent.
	+ **Aerial Adaptation**: Homelander is able to survive and adapt to extremely high or low atmospheric pressure (without becoming disoriented or deprived of normal breathing capacity) and high wind friction; this is accompanied by an innate immunity to vertigo and/or fear of heights. Demonstrated when he lasered the Baltimore Mayor's plane [the latter flying at about 20,000 ft] and the Homelander had no difficulty breathing.
	+ **Acceleration Immunity:** Homelander is immune to the various effects of rapid acceleration, including air resistance, inability to breathe, dynamic shock resulting from contact with objects at high speed, an immunity he repeatedly demonstrates when flying, notably when in search of Translucent, Homelander breaks the sound barrier and yet manages to keep moving perfectly.
* **Superhuman Durability**: Homelander is nearly immune to all forms of physical harm and thereby the most resilient of the Seven, and possibly of all Supes. He is not only completely bulletproof, but also unfazed by powerful explosions, such as when Billy blew up the Stillwell residence with him inside it or the destruction of an entire power plant. Madelyn even claims that there is not a weapon on Earth that they have not thrown at him and they all failed. However, sufficiently powerful attacks can still harm Homelander, such as those from Soldier Boy and an enhanced Billy Butcher, coming out of their fight with a visible bruise on his face. He could also be greatly hurt from the likes of Queen Maeve, as he started to bleed from his nose and ear during their fight.
* **Superhuman Strength**: Homelander is currently the most powerful superhero on Earth with his primary abilities is his tremendous superhuman strength allowing him to effortlessly overpower most opponents. After he and Queen Maeve intercepted a robbery, he threw the first thief far away and high into the air. He also embedded his fist in a shooter's torso. In "The Female of the Species", Homelander stated that he was unable to carry the hijacked plane to safety, suggesting that he is unable to use his full strength in flight, requiring a solid surface to take full advantage of his power or this was just an excuse to not save the plane. He was later able to throw a baseball from New York to Boston. Additionally, he could trade blows with Soldier Boy, who is one of the most powerful Supes of all time and nearly as strong as Homelander himself, and eventually overpower him, choking him with one arm. He then was able to clash against both an enhanced Billy Butcher and Soldier Boy at the same time, and it took their combined strength plus Hughie's in order to temporarily restrain him.
* **Superhuman Senses:** Homelander possesses tremendous auditory awareness, allowing him to detect sounds from miles away. He can also use this power to detect a person's heartbeat, and can tell when they are excited or anxious, such as when he detected Hughie Campbell's blood pressure to be 150/90. He was also able to smell Billy Butcher's scent on Queen Maeve, confirming that she had betrayed him and was plotting against him.
* **Superhuman Stamina:** When he was attacked by several attackers, Homelander still managed to keep up and continue fighting without showing any obvious signs of fatigue or exhaustion.
* **Superhuman Mind:** The Homelander's mind is able to follow his actions when he moves at high speeds [Mach 1.5]. As well as the large volume of informations that his senses give him.
* **Heat Vision**: Homelander is able to generate powerful red beams of energy from his eyes with a variable degree of intensity. These blasts of energy are so powerful that they appear to be able to cut through anything, such as Steve's plane. He also used his heat vision to melt a thief's gun to the latter's hand. However, Homelander is most notable for using his optical beams on people, melting flesh and bone with ease and causing people to burst into gore.
* **X-Ray Vision**: Homelander's vision allows him to see through any solid object or surface, with the exception of objects and surfaces that are lined with zinc.
* **Decelerated Aging/Longevity:** Much like Stormfront and Soldier Boy, Homelander does not appear to age in the same way as normal humans. He is capable of living for hundreds or even thousands of years without displaying any obvious signs of age-related physical or psychological degeneration, keeping his physical shape throughout life until (*however*) death, therefore this Longevity does not make him immortal.

### Abilities:

* **High-Intelligence:** Despite being a power-hungry bully, Homelander managed to come up with a plan to create "*super-terrorists*" so that he could be integrated into the U.S. military by giving them vials of Compound V so that they would develop super-powers and he could neutralize them and gain popularity.
* **Leadership:** Although the team of "Seven" is only a cover for the greed for power and profit of the company "Vought International", Homelander still manages to manage his team and its members on some occasions.
* **Charisma:** Capable of compelling or garnering support from anyone, Homelander's charm gives him the advantage of winning people over to him. However, he is unable to maintain his charm for all occasions. After accidentally killing an innocent teen in Africa, Homelander attempted to charm the protesters to no avail.
* **Intimidation:** Homelander is known for his imposing and dominating presence, spreading fear into his teammates and colleagues due to his unstable behavior. Knowing this, Homelander has used his powers to get what he wants, but this has its limits with individuals who aren't scared of him. An example being Stan Edgar, who showed no fear when confronted by Homelander on bringing Stormfront on the team.
* **Manipulation:** In addition to his ability to intimidate, Homelander manipulates the people around him, especially the public, by making them believe all the lies he tells them, like the heroic death of Translucent for example.
* **Hand-To-Hand Combat:** Despite having no in-depth knowledge of martial arts of any kind, Homelander still manages to hold his own in hand-to-hand combat, especially during his fight against Soldier Boy, Super-Butcher and Super-Hughie, Homelander still managed to hold his own temporarily against these three.

## Weaknesses:

* **Love/Affectation:** In spite of his big bully looks, the Homelander has one major weakness: He desperately seeks love and affection from the people around him, such as with Queen Maeve, Black Noir, Stormfront, Ryan & Becca Butcher and Soldier Boy. As well as all his fans who follow him.
* **Mental Illness:** Homelander suffers from crippling anxiety, paranoia, and insecurity. He frequently loses control of his actions when angry, and is easy to manipulate by stroking his ego. He also has an extremely short attention span.
* **Nuclear/Hydrogen Bomb:** During his teenagerhood, Vought had a H-Bomb strapped on him to see if they could trust him, this could potentially be a solution to defeat him, It’s also possible that Soldier Boy’s nuclear beam could possibly take away his powers.

## Trivia:

* He suffers from an Oedipus Complex, being very close to Madelyn Stillwell, who is the closest to a mother he had.
* Homelander's favorite film is *Taxi Driver*, and he relates to and identifies with the film's protagonist Travis Bickle.
* He's an obvious villainous parody to Superman. It is quite plausible that he is far weaker than the Man of Steel as he does not have experience in fighting super-powered and cosmic deities like Superman has done time and time again. Additionally, Homelander's feats are nowhere near as impressive as Superman's.
	+ He also shares a few traits with Superman's *Robot Chicken* incarnation in that they are both arrogant, heroes in the eyes of the public, lecherous, extremely selfish, perverts, the biggest douchebag on their team and that they both treat their teammates like dirt (RC Superman particularly displays this towards RC Batman and RC Aquaman). It was also implied in one episode that Superman's son, Superboy, was the result of an affair between Superman and Wonder Woman. However, Homelander is considered worse as he shows little to no care towards citizens. Also, RC Superman chooses which teammates to abuse while Homelander just abuses everyone.
* Antony Starr has received widespread critical acclaim for his performance as Homelander.
	+ Likewise, Homelander is considered by many to be one of the best villains in TV history as a result of the strong writing of his character arc, as well the combination of his depravity and ruthlessness with his complexity and depth. Ironically, his comic counterpart has been retroactively criticized for having none of these traits.
* In the comics, Homelander is brutally killed by Black Noir in a few minutes as he is revealed to be a clone of Homelander. However this is not the case in the series: Black Noir is not Homelander's clone, as when his face was partially shown, he was revealed as black.
* Homelander embodies six of the **Seven Deadly Sins:**
	+ **Wrath:** He's generally cruel, cold, violent, sadistic, impatient, intolerant and throws temper tantrums when he does not get his way, as well as causing destruction and deaths.
	+ **Pride:** He suffers from deep Narcissistic Personality Disorder, seeing himself as a godly entity superior to the whole of humanity and any supe. His powers and sense of entitlement have led him to exhibit extreme megalomania, causing him to commit crimes against innocent people, including acts of rape and mass murder, out of the idea that he can do anything he wants because of who he is.
	+ **Sloth:** Despite to be the most powerful super of world, Homelander uses his heat vision to take down his enemies with disastrous consequences: his laziness with his eye beam usage is what would end up causing the Flight 37 disaster to play out like it does, carelessly destroying the plane’s control panel while killing the terrorist, and when he accidentally killed a innocent civilian during the task in Africa.
	+ **Greed:** He's violently possessive towards anything and anyone he declares his property, as is shown in his interactions with Queen Maeve, Madelyn and Ryan.
	+ **Lust:** Homelander is very fond about sex, as is show in his relationships with Madelyn and Stormfront and his rape on Becca. He also masturbated on the roof of a skyscraper to raise his self-esteem.
	+ **Envy:** Before murdering her, Homelander was very bitter about Madelyn's affection on her baby Teddy due his Oedipus Complex and treats Queen Maeve and his son Ryan more as pieces of property than individuals, disliking their relationships with others people outside of him.
* Homelander's final scene in season 2 of him masturbating on the Chrysler building was actually meant to appear in season 1, but it was cut by Amazon, who felt it went too far this early in the show's run. Kripke says it was brought back to replace another scene they had in mind to end Homelander's season 2 arc. This time around, Amazon thought that scene did not portray Homelander's broken state of mind well enough, so Kripke suggested the masturbation scene and they approved it.
* Homelander has appeared once so far in *DEATH BATTLE!*, fighting and losing against Omni-Man.
* Both Antony Starr and co-star Karl Urban (who plays Butcher on the show) were born in Wellington, New Zealand.
* Antony Starr was considered to reprise his role as Homelander in *Mortal Kombat 1*, but in November 2023, he revealed that he would not be playing the character for the DLC through an Instagram comment. It is unclear who will voice Homelander in the game.