The Boys turned Homelander into one of the most impactful villains in TV history. It’s not enough that he’s a beloved celebrity and the de facto head of a major corporation; he’s also practically invincible. Billy Butcher and his Boys have been struggling to find a surefire way to put down Homelander since before the show began, but they’ve struggled to pin anything down. Now that fans have seen Victoria Neuman’s head-popping power, it’s worth asking whether she could finally kill the world’s worst hero.
Power levels are a little messy in The Boys. The show isn’t really concerned with accommodating power-scaling conversations. One of the most interesting elements of the series is watching the titular team struggle to find weaknesses in seemingly godlike beings. Frenchie comes up with a selection of fascinating anti-supe technology, but Homelander is still the team’s white whale. Most fights wind up a little less intelligent than the attack against Translucent, but there’s still plenty of room for creativity in The Boys.
How do Victoria Neuman’s powers work?
Victoria Neuman enters The Boys as a much-needed new ally in the fight against supes. She’s a young and beloved congresswoman from New York who seems to be dedicated to countering Vought’s influence. As a fairly obvious fictional equivalent to widely-beloved progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, many assumed she would be a newfound hero. Then over a dozen whistleblowers and court officials working to bring a case against Vought died simultaneously from inexplicable head explosions. The conclusion of The Boys season two revealed that Neuman was responsible for the attack. She’s also controlled opposition, working to keep Vought in power by pretending to fight against them. Neuman’s powers still aren’t known to the public. Only a few people are aware that she killed all those people. She only provided a deeper look into her gift in Gen V.
Victoria Neuman’s power is blood manipulation. It works very similarly to that of Marie Moreau, though she’s had more time to develop her skills and use them in different ways. She demonstrates the same control over her own blood that Moreau uses, but she typically manipulates the blood of others. Her usual tactic is to cause her target’s body to explode from within. It’s visually indistinguishable from an internal explosive. The only obvious tell is that Neuman’s eyes roll over white while she uses her power. Neuman requires a direct line of sight to wield her gift. She also has a standard suite of superpowers, including superhuman strength, senses, and reflexes. Her durability recently became an open question, as it appears almost no weapon can harm her. The limits of her ability have yet to be tested, however.
Could Victoria Neuman’s power kill Homelander?
Victoria Neuman’s blood manipulation power almost certainly couldn’t kill Homelander. The show provides several pieces of evidence to suggest this unfortunate truth. Neuman has no trouble quickly killing humans, but her power isn’t unstoppable. While she did kill the speedster Shockwave in her initial attack, the runner who played second banana to A-Train likely wasn’t much harder to break than any other person. Victoria later faced Tony, a fellow former resident of the Red River Institute who demonstrated superhuman strength. When she tried to kill Tony, he resisted her initial strike, suffering only a minor nosebleed. She eventually killed Tony, blasting apart his hand and jaw before destroying his body, but that initial struggle suggests that she’d have a hard time damaging someone as durable as Homelander. Victoria might be able to subject Homelander to enough damage that it would eventually cause his death, but it would not be instantaneous. Even a moment’s pause would be enough for Homelander to notice the attack and respond, likely killing Victoria instantly.
The other obvious point against Victoria’s ability to kill Homelander is her consistent fear. If Neuman could kill Homelander, she likely wouldn’t regularly work to keep the supe happy. She could have simply eliminated him alongside the other participants at the trial. Victoria could have decided to spare him, seeing some use for him in future schemes, but it’s likely that killing him was never on the table. At the end of Gen V‘s first season, Neuman takes command of the anti-supe virus by killing the scientist who developed it. Butcher taunts her, pointing out Homelander’s obvious control of Neuman’s political career. Without Edgar around to keep Neuman safe and Homelander on a leash, Neuman is forced to answer to Homelander. Butcher knows that Neuman has the virus and that it isn’t strong enough to kill Homelander. This strongly implies that Neuman is actively seeking a safe way to dispose of her supposed ally. If her powers could handle the job, she wouldn’t need to muck around with a virus that might put her in danger too.
What could kill Homelander?
This tough question has at least a couple of answers. Here are a few existing options that could almost certainly kill Homelander under the right circumstances:
- Soldier Boy: Homelander’s biological father has the ability to launch an explosive blast that can burn Compound V out of a target’s blood. This would presumably leave Homelander without his powers and finally make him vulnerable. Butcher only stopped Soldier Boy from eliminating Homelander to protect young Ryan, but Soldier Boy’s unconscious body lies in wait under Grace Mallory’s care. Someone could set him free or weaponize his unique power to kill Homelander.
- Queen Maeve: Though Homelander is generally more powerful than Maeve, the mighty warrior got the best of him in their season three fight. She was always close to Homelander’s level, but the difference in training and drive could have allowed her to win. Maeve is currently without her powers. She considers herself retired after sacrificing herself and going into hiding. She could, however, take another dose of Compound V and reclaim her previous strength. Kimiko lost her power to Soldier Boy’s blast, but she got it back with a single shot of V. Maeve could do the same.
- Ryan Butcher: Ryan certainly isn’t as powerful as Homelander yet, but he has a lot of potential. If anyone can develop the powers and skills necessary to defeat the world’s strongest supe, it has to be his biological son. The battle for Ryan’s soul is massively consequential, and it’s likely that Ryan will play a massive part in Homelander’s defeat.
- Age: Homelander is aging, and it eats away at him inside. While Stormfront lived for more than a century, Homelander is rapidly showing signs of normal human degradation. He can survive anything, but he won’t live forever. This could take a while, but there’s no telling how his later years might affect him physically and mentally.
While there are still a few reasonable methods to kill Homelander, Victoria Neuman isn’t one of them. Her powers struggle with supes, Homelander is tough to kill, and her work on the anti-supe virus suggests that she knows her limits. Neuman may develop the perfect solution to use against her current de facto boss, but it’s unlikely that fans will have to thank this secondary villain for killing the primary one.
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