The Boys/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Boys

Billy Butcher

  • All a Part of the Job: Besides wanting to take out The Homelander, this is the reason he joined, remained with and reformed The Boys. Billy loves nothing more than getting an opportunity to maim or murder a superhero.
  • Anti-Hero: Type V.
  • Badass Abnormal: Granted super-strength through Compound V like all members of The Boys, but is otherwise normal.
  • Badass Longcoat: Standard issue uniform for The Boys.
  • Berserk Button: Superheroes, period. To the point where Billy was ready to assault Superduper because one of their members, The Klanker, accidentally called him a "fucking cunt" due to his Tourette's Syndrome and was willing to murder Jack From Jupiter over a dog.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Like you wouldn't fucking believe. Abusive dad, fighting in the Falklands, losing his wife via rape-induced pregnancy and premature birth of a super-fetus...Butcher has a Dark And Troubled LIFE.
  • Fantastic Racism: If people with superpowers can be considered a race, Billy definitely qualifies.
  • Fake American: Something he does in case he needs to fool someone, although he admits his Yank accent is crap.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Played with; he admits this about himself in Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker. Billy was well on his way to being a violent sociopath until he met his wife Becky. Once she died, Mallory set him back on the fast-track to this by recruiting him into The Boys. Played straight {{spoiler|when Billy gets superpowers and his response is to[context?]
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Comes off as this if you're feeling generous.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Comes off like this if you're not.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Played with. He will say or do anything it takes to to get the results he wants. When it comes to recruiting Wee Hughie he's no different, but he does seem to have genuine affection for him although that doesn't stop him from plotting to use Hughie as a soldier and a way into The Seven via Starlight.
  • Morality Pet: Has a literal one in Terror.
  • Noble Bigot: Constantly mocks gays and transgenders, calls Americans "Septics" (Septic Tank = Yank) and refers to Chinese food as "Chinky" and of course his prejudice against anyone with superpowers, but is (arguably) one of the good guys nonetheless at first.
  • Poisonous Friend: When he begins to suspect Hughie of being a spy for The Seven after catching him with Annie outside the Flatiron, he immediately hatches a plan to keep Hughie out of the way by sending him to monitor Superduper after Malchemical joins their ranks.
  • Recycled Script: Part of Billy's backstory is similar to The Punisher's motive in the comic "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe", being driven to murderous hatred of superheroes after a superhero caused the death of his wife.
  • Spot of Tea: Butcher's partial to a nice cup of tea.
"When you're done we can go in and you can have your girl make me a nice cuppa tea. Proper tea, Monkey. Not that shit with a fuckin' tampon string in it you Septics think is tea."
Billy Butcher, The Boys "The Name of The Game."
  • Tranquil Fury: Displays this when he goes off to murder Jack From Jupiter when he thinks Jack killed his dog Terror.

Wee Hughie

Mother's Milk

  • Afro Asskicker
  • Good Is Not Nice: At all. Well, if you're a Supe. Otherwise he's pleasant to be around.
  • The Reliable One: Butcher specifically cites him as the guy holding the group together, he's the best investigator/detective of the group, and once Mallory was gone, the only sane one before Hughie was brought on.

The Frenchman

The Female (of the Species)

Greg D. Mallory

  • Fake Brit: When following Hughie back in Scotland after he leaves The Boys temporarily.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Not forever, but a very long time thanks to Compound V. Or at least until he's presumably killed by an off-panel assailant.

The Legend

The Seven

The Homelander

Queen Maeve

Black Noir

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Batman. And of Superboy.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Even the other members of The Seven are scared of him, excluding Homelander, obviously. And Queen Maeve.
  • The Quiet One: Has only spoken in one instance, and that's when he was at Herogasm and shoved his thumb up Wee Hughie's ass, saying "Good soldier, good soldier." after catching him.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: Threatens Starlight when she refuses to accept her new makeover and origin.
  • The Reveal: He's a Homelander clone, and behind most of his atrocities, including raping Butcher's wife.
    • Worse: The fact that Homelander thought he was doing those deeds himself and couldn't remember it wrecked such havoc with his brain that he, as Butcher put it, basically turned into 'a complete fucking psychopath by accident.'
    • Oh, and the entire reason for his existence is that he's the only supe with the power to end The Homelander. Not being given permission to do so is what sent him completely insane.

The Deep

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Aquaman.
  • Butt Monkey
  • Enemy Mine: Suggests the Boys and the Seven do this after they're set up to wipe each other out. Everyone around him treats him like an idiot for it.
  • The Faceless: His face is almost always covered up by his old time diving helmet.
  • Flat Character: Has the less screentime and characterization of all The Seven. Probably Ennis commenting on Aquaman's (lack of) relevance in the grand scheme of things.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Facing the impeding war with The Boys courtesy of the Homelander he left the The Seven's HQ, advising A-Train to take his copy of the Seven's merchandising contract and lay low.
  • Token Minority: "The least black black man on the planet" as described by Jack from Jupiter.

Jack From Jupiter

A-Train

Starlight

The Lamplighter

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Hal Jordan
  • Ax Crazy
  • Came Back Wrong: returned as a braindead zombie prone to soil himself. Currently locked up somewhere in The Seven's HQ where the other supers took turns cleaning his mess.
  • Complete Monster: Murdered Mallory's granddaughters as revenge for being blackmailed by The Boys.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Did not take the news that The Boys were going to blackmail The Seven over their 9/11 rescue catastrophe well at all, so he murdered Mallory's granddaughters as revenge.

Mister Marathon

Vought-American

James Stillwell, the Unnamed Vought-American Executive

  • Repeat What You Just Said: When Jimmy The One accidentally spills the beans about Homelander's plan to take over the government going into effect.
  • The Unfettered: To degree so frightening that it disturbs even the members of The Seven, who could obliterate him with no effort.

Jess Bradley

  • Only Sane Man: Was the first person in years since 9/11 to even suggest that it might not be worth training Black Noir to fly a plane because of his unpredictable nature.

United States Government

Robert "Dakota Bob" Schafer

  • Reasonable Authority Figure: To a degree. The protagonists never directly interact with him, but he certainly comes off as cool, competent, albeit probably a little ruthless.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: His solution to the problem the real life US has with bombing/attacking Pakistan is solved by him bribing the Pakistani government into letting the US do whatever it wants.

Susan L. Rayner

  • Slap Slap Kiss: With Butcher. Except the "Kiss" part is vigorous hate-sex.

Kessler, A.K.A "Monkey"

  • A Date with Rosie Palms: He was "in the act" during his introduction.
  • Attempted Rape: He tried to assault a paraplegic former athlete. She started kicking his ass and then Butcher intervened.
  • Butt Monkey: Being nickmaned "Monkey" could be seen as a unnintentional Lampshade Hanging. Then he became this literaly, after being raped by Terror under Butcher's command.
  • Fetish: He seems to have a thing for female paraplegics, which led to the events described above.

Victor K. "Vic the Veep" Neuman

Teenage Kix

Big Game

Shout Out

Dogknott

Popclaw

Blarney Cock

Whack Job

Gunpowder

Jetstreak

Payback

Stormfront

Soldier Boy

Tek-Knight

Laddio

Crimson Countess

Mind-Droid

Swatto

The G-Men Franchise

John Goldokin

Silver Kincaid

Five-Oh

Coldsnap

Critter

Groundhawk

Europo

Nubia

Divine

Flamer

Superduper

Auntie Sis

  • Team Mom: Pretty much the only thing holding the group together, but she doesn't seem bitter about it.

Bobby Badoing

Black Hole

Klanker

Kid Camo

Flat Character: Has the least interaction out of all of Superduper.

Ladyfold

Stoolshadow

  • Power Incontinence: Constantly walks into walls, assuming she has control over her phasing powers at the time.

Malchemical

Other Characters

Janine

Swingwing

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Nightwing. The resemblance was far closer when he first appeared on-panel, but he abruptly became a blond in the next issue.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Big time. Though "Mean Actor" is a bit of an understatement, considering when Swingwing was actually "mean" he pushed a young gay man off of a roof who had confessed his love to him.

Vas, "The Love Sausage"

Oh Father

Doc Peculiar

Team Titanic