Warning! major spoilers for The Boys comic series and potentially the television series!
Homelander is one of the most terrifying superheroes in The Boys universe. The Supe has the powers of a God and isn’t afraid to use his pure power to get whatever he wants. So, how do you take down a superhero that’s practically invincible? The Boys comics showed that in order to beat Homelander, you need a Homelander of your own.
Homelander’s powerset is equivalent to Superman. He can fly, he’s got heat vision, superhuman strength, and invulnerability. However, the leader of The Seven has the opposite approach to being a hero as his DC counterpart. Homelander in a murderous, sad man who’s own anger has turned him into a villainous monster. At full power, Homelander is a force of nature who’s capable of beating just about everybody in The Boys universe and handily – which makes him extremely scary.
The Boys #65 by Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, Keith Burns, Simon Bowland, Tony Avina, and Darick Robertson is one of the most shocking of the entire 72-issue run of the series. The comic opens with Homelander holding the decapitated head of the President of the United States in front of Billy Butcher. Black Noir joins the proceedings and reveals his true identity, as a clone of Homelander who was created solely as a counter-measure to take out the OP superhero in case they needed to put him down. It’s also revealed Black Noir was responsible for the assault on Butcher’s wife. Homelander has an existential crisis upon learning about his clone and immediately re-examines all of his decisions. He goes insane and attacks an unmasked Black Noir as the White House is lasered to pieces by the two heroes. Noir than takes down Homelander for good.
![The Boys: How Homelander Is Taken Down In The Comics](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Homelander-Killed.jpg)
Black Noir – riddled with bullets and his intestines bursting out of his stomach – emerges from the White House with Homelander’s corpse in his hands. Butcher doesn’t waste a second and jumps on a turret and fires a flurry of bullets at him. Noir survives… barely. That’s when Butcher takes a crowbar, puts it through Noir’s eye, and pops off the top of his skull. He proceeds to rip his brain out with his hands and squish it. Black Noir’s death is even gnarlier than it sounds.
Homelander getting blinded by his own rage and being defeated by literally the being created to take him out (his own clone) is a somewhat fitting ending for the powerful Supe. While the reveal Black Noir was responsible for some of the most gruesome actions Homelander was blamed for, there’s no question he’s still a monster himself. In order to take down a monster, a bigger, scarier monster is needed. The Black Noir reveal is a shocking twist in the comics – even if it seems highly unlikely The Boys show will follow the storyline.