The Boys are famously disgusted by superheroes, but one scene exemplifies why Homelander is so despicable.
The most unsettling of The Boys’ many various sorts of monsters is a metaphor that describes how fans are intended to perceive Homelander, and indeed all of the Supes that work to implement Vought-America’s vision for America. While no one would call the original The Boys comics subtle – Billy Butcher and his black-clad team spend far too much time beating superheroes to death with crowbars for that – they do have a consistent take on corporate misbehavior, political corruption, and the poisonous influence of unchecked power.
Homelander is the most obvious example of these concepts, as the unstoppable Superman-pastiche realizes throughout the novel that no one, including his corporate handlers, can prevent him from doing anything he wants. Ultimately, Homelander is a living falsehood. While the public believes he is continually protecting the planet, his biggest struggle is secretly executing rebellious Supes before they see him. Homelander gives nothing to those who love him, and in exchange, he wants that his every need be met immediately, reacting to any irritation with the furious impatience of a child. This kind of corrupt power is depicted throughout The Boys, as the powerful take whatever they want while giving nothing back to the world they are taking from.
This message is hammered home in a number of ways, but the most disturbing is a story from Hughie Campbell’s childhood related in The Boys: Highland Laddie, from Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and Keith Burns. In issue 3, Hughie relates the story of his Auntie Mary, a family relative and house guest who is eventually found to be infected with a tapeworm, grown to gigantic size due to communication issues that prevent her seeking help. The young Hughie is unfortunate enough to come face-to-face with the seventeen-foot-long parasite, and is so severely traumatized that he doesn’t speak again for an entire year.
Homelander Is a Parasite
It’s a grim story, but it’s not included in the series for the sake of pure body horror. Rather, the tapeworm is one of The Boys’ most visceral metaphors for both Vought-America’s Supes and the company itself. The tapeworm is a parasite which is stealing the nutrients from its host, causing immense pain and suffering without being detected by anyone but the woman it’s hurting. This process is inherent to the parasite’s nature, just as the series argues that Vought-America will take whatever it can to further its interests unless stopped by an outside force, and just as Butcher argues all Supes need to be stamped out because the powerful will always take advantage of the powerless when given the chance.
The tapeworm has a particular tie to Homelander, however, due to the Supes’ hidden origin, where Vought-America forced a woman with no family into giving birth to their latest experiment. In both cases, vulnerable women are forced to expend their own wellbeing for organisms which only cause them harm (Homelander’s biological mother is killed during his birth, as Vought expected.)
The Boys’ Supes Are a Critique of Unchecked Power
The Boys‘ handling of these stories is far from perfect – the series is often cavalier with its depictions of cruelty exacted on vulnerable people – but they are chosen deliberately to speak to the larger theme of how parasites like Homelander and Vought thrive in secrecy and silence. While The Boys may be ‘about’ superheroes, its central thesis is that they’re a multicolored lie used to make brazen, predatory behavior palatable to an uninformed public – none more than Homelander himself. At different points, The Boys uses Supes as metaphors for business, crime, and even organized religion, but the tapeworm is one of the comics’ most potent metaphors because it gets down to what the story thinks is so disgusting about the abuse of power.
