Despite the changes in story arcs and relationships with other characters, in print and on screen, both, Homelander remains a vile individual who cares for no one else but himself on The Boys. On the show there is a slight caveat in the form of Ryan, his son with Becca Butcher. He seems to genuinely help Ryan, although he lacks the paternal skills to do so. But he tries, nevertheless, and shows viewers the one redeemable quality about him. In the comics this side-plot is missing—Ryan’s counterpart having been killed by Butcher at birth—and so is, therefore, a side of the narcissistic Supe that might have endeared him to us.
The other way around, there are quite a few things that pop out quite shockingly in the comics—and add to the character development of the Supe—but get a tamer adaptation on the show. Admittedly, some scenes work better in print than on screen, but other incidents could have probably been spiced up a bit more.
10 Black Noir Is His Clone
On the show, Black Noir is not (as of yet) related to Homelander in any way. He’s quiet and aloof, and a proficient pianist, but he doesn’t seem to share the megalomania of the comic book version. We’ve only caught a glimpse of his face under the mask, and it seemed to be burned or scarred due to a previous accident.
In the comics, of course, Black Noir is the most inhumane of characters. A clone of Homelander, Black Noir was birthed to keep the leader of the Seven in check, but had ended up completely losing his mind in the end. The Black Noir on the show is like an innocent puppy compared to the one in the source material.
9 Turns Into A Mass Murderer
In the comics, a series of unfortunate events lead Homelander to believe that he needed to seize control of the government. He prepares a careful plan of staging the coup, enlisting a group of Supes to aid his cause, and is quite successful at killing practically everybody inside the White House. He seems pretty pleased with it too, until a revelation about his past makes him realise the terrible mistake he had just made.
On screen, Homelander is more restrained. Sure, he daydreams about killing a crowd of erstwhile supporters when they start to “boo” him, but he reins in his anger and doesn’t cross the line.
8 Accidentally Kills One Of The Seven
During the hostage situation in the comics, Homelander attempts to slow down the plane from the outside, by taking control of the tail, but instead he makes the situation much more worse. Prior to that, he had seemingly decided to abandon the plane and was on his way back to headquarters, but Mr. Marathon hopped onto his shoulders and convinced him to stay and help. So, with the speedster still holding on to him, Homelander took aim for the plane’s tail and dived into it, killing Mr. Marathon in the process and crashing the plane on the Brooklyn Bridge.
In the show, he is not so hasty. He is a lot more concerned about his co-Supes’ safety. (Show-Mr. Marathon is already retired, because he got too slow, and A-Train is in his place.) When Translucent disappears, he is the one Supe who is actually concerned that he might be dead.
7 Repents His Past Actions
It takes a long time for him to understand the consequences of his horrible deeds, but it comes nevertheless. Covered in blood after his siege of the White House, Homelander is quite proud of his actions and is talking about his successful coup to Billy Butcher, when Black Noir arrives at the scene and upends the whole situation, revealing the fact that all Homelander had just done was for naught.
His remorse at killing so many people, unnecessarily, shows us that deep down there are still some morals in him which, as of now, is missing in the show. He’s had his moments of weaknesses, but he still hasn’t realised how wrong his actions are and how much unneeded destruction he’s causing to everyone around him.
6 A Lot More Respectful Towards Butcher
In both mediums, Homelander deems Butcher to be a formidable foe. But on the show, while his reason for keeping him alive is to torture him with Becca’s existence (and Homelander’s son with her), in the comics, he grudgingly respects the leader of the Boys, and considers him to be an honest, if a bit direct, man. There is a moment, for instance, where he could have blamed Jack from Jupiter’s troubles on Butcher, but he chooses not to. He maintains neutrality.
Perhaps this respect is founded on the fact that Butcher and the Boys also have Compound V in their veins, and Homelander considers him to be someone of worth and not just an ordinary human.
5 Unintentionally Tortures Hijacked Passengers
With Maeve in tow, Homelander arrives on board a hijacked plane and tells the passengers that everything is going to be fine. He is all smiles, and confident he’ll be able to rescue them. But then things go wrong, so very terribly, that he decides to abandon them all rather than try to save a few. His reasoning is PR-related, nothing more.
His decisions on the show are much simpler, however terrible, than what he undertakes in the comics. First of all, every Supe is present at the scene. Secondly, when Homelander opens the door of the aircraft, he ends up killing a few kids, and then when he can’t stand the panic of the passengers, he lets out a terrible shout of “Shut Up” that makes their ears bleed. Lastly, he makes matters worse by unintentionally breaking the tail and making the plane dive into the Brooklyn Bridge below. He makes the worst possible choice at every turn.
4 The One Act Of Atonement
Near the end, perhaps realising that he needs to make some amends for how he has behaved his entire life, Homelander does one good deed in the White House. Triggered by the reveal that Black Noir was behind his recent troubles, Homelander launches at him and delivers a horrific blow to his clone. He himself dies in the process, but leaves the field clear for Butcher to finish the job and defeat Black Noir.
Show-Homelander is yet to atone for his mistakes. Faced with the consequences of his terrible decisions, he has only retreated into his shell and solidified his belief that everyone in the world is against him. Redemption is not out of reach for him,, though. Perhaps, in a later season, he’ll make up for all his dubious deeds.
3 Forges Truce With The Boys
On the show, his only plan of action towards the Boys is to attack them or manipulate them. He can think of no subtle way to dampen their efforts. But in the source material, he (as well as Vought) realises the importance of a truce and how it might be better for the two factions in the long term.
The truce comes about after Lamplighter mercilessly kills Mallory’s grandchildren. Homelander meets the Boys and offers them Lamplighter as consolation, allowing them to do whatever they want with him, and puts forward quite a measured statement: “An irreversible degree of turmoil profits no one. What we’re suggesting is a mutual retreat from the brink.”
2 Note Entirely Immoral
On the show, when Stormfront explains her Nazi background to Homelander, he seems unbothered by the fact that she was an active participant of such a terrible part of history. He shows more concern when she reveals her real age, and that who he had thought to be her grandmother was in fact her daughter. Morals are thrown out of the window then and there.
In the source material though, Homelander is deeply horrified when someone starts to blackmail him with pictures of him committing all sorts of terrible acts. It’s not just the fact that he can’t recall ever committing those crimes, but he genuinely believes the acts in the pictures have gone too far.
1 Kills A Family Of Four
One of his early despicable acts on the show is when he, without any remorse, kills off a senator and his child by crashing their plane. His reason for doing so is simple—the senator had knowledge of Compound V and its role in creating Supes—and he could not let that information go public.
But what Homelander does in the comics, in a similar moment in the sky is made all the more awful by the fact that he did it because he could, akin to a human swatting a fly on the wall. What he does is this: he takes a family of four in their car, high up in the sky, and upturns the vehicle to make them all fall down to their deaths. He doesn’t even give them a reason for their excruciating pain.