The Boys Season 4 Trailer Teases The Comics' Ultimate Villain
Possible spoilers for "The Boys" follow.
We now have a new trailer for season 4 of bloody superhero satire "The Boys," and it looks like a full-blown supe-pocalypse is boiling. After the end of "The Boys" season 3, when Homelander (Antony Starr) killed a protestor in front of a crowd and got only cheers, he's no longer content with being a mere celebrity. No, he's reshaping the Seven into "wrathful gods." He's also got Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), a head-popping supe and Vice Presidential candidate, in his pocket.
Fans of "The Boys" comics (by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson) might see where this is all going. In "The Boys" volume 11 (issues #60-65), "Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men," Homelander launches a coup against the U.S. government and the Boys go to war to overthrow him. Without spoiling all the twists in between, issue #65 concludes with team leader Billy Butcher finally avenging the assault and death of his wife Becky with the help of a crowbar. The show eventually adapting some version of this was inevitable.
However, comic fans will also know this is only the penultimate arc of the comics. Volume 12, "The Bloody Doors Off," is the series' postscript where the team faces their last adversary: Butcher himself. Convinced all supes must be exterminated, Butcher plans a targeted strike to kill all individuals affected by power-bestowing chemical Compound V. He kills most of the team (MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko) before being defeated and killed by Hughie.
The season 4 trailer for "The Boys," and lingering threads from college-set spin-off "Gen V," hint that Karl Urban's Butcher will be going down the same path as his comic counterpart.
Why Billy Butcher could break bad in The Boys
Let's recap where Butcher is at season 4's onset. In season 3 of "The Boys," he took a temporary form of Compound V to gain superpowers and fight Homelander hand-to-hand. But when the time came to kill him, he blinked. The Temp V left Butcher with terminal brain cancer and about 18 months left to live, so his revenge is now on a timetable. "I want to do one thing right with the time I got left," he tells the other Boys in the trailer. Meanwhile, "Gen V" season 1 featured a manufactured virus that kills supes. The season ended with Butcher investigating the lab where the virus was made. Going off the season 4 trailer, he's found some samples and calls the virus, "The answer to all our prayers."
All of this, mixed with Homelander prepping for war, means Butcher will be pushed to even further extremes than before. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's new character Joe Kessler (in the comics, a CIA analyst and ally of the Boys) is also pushing Butcher to take action "before the Supes start rounding us up and dumping us off in camps."
It's likely that the virus is a simplified version of Butcher's supe-genocide plan from the comics (using a worldwide sonic signal to detonate Compound V particles). "The Boys" creator Eric Kripke has said in the past the show will likely have five seasons. (Though, granted, he backtracked in October 2023 and once said his show "Supernatural" would have five seasons too, when it ultimately ran for 15.) Season 4 being the march to war, followed by season 5 adapting the comic's last two volumes — with Homelander's death at the midpoint and Butcher's plan taking up the last few episodes — would be a solid structure.
The Boys season 4 might take a different path than the comics
Thematically, Butcher has to be the final villain of "The Boys." The story is a takedown of toxic masculinity and Butcher is just another shade of that. He's not the story's hero; Hughie (Jack Quaid) is. Butcher roped Hughie into a violent lifestyle, and so the story must end with Hughie rejecting him.
That's how it was in the comics, but the show has already made changes. Generally, "The Boys" adapts its source material in the same manner as "The Walking Dead" did. The show has the same beats and essential characters, but with details rearranged or added. One new detail is Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), Homelander's supe son born from when he raped Butcher's wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten). This brings a whole new angle to Butcher and Homelander's intertwined story that the comics lacked, and will surely change the show's endgame.
Another difference is the show has more of a heart than the comic — which could actually be an argument in favor of Butcher going off the deep end, since it would sting more painfully. Butcher also has more of a connection with Starlight/Annie (Erin Moriarity) in the show than the comics. Butcher and Ryan are currently on the outs, but in the season 3 finale, Billy sacrificed his chance to kill Homelander in order to protect Ryan. If Butcher decides to unleash the virus and deems Annie and Ryan acceptable collateral damage? Ouch.
Fans have already asked how long the show can keep Homelander alive without losing credibility. "The Boys" season 4 might give fans their answer. Hughie says in the trailer, "If we're ever going to win against monsters, we need to start acting human" — and the last monster he faces may be one that was hiding in plain sight.
"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video, with season 4 scheduled to debut on June 13, 2024.