Warning! Spoilers for The Boys below
There are few images from The Boys more iconic than the comic’s first issue featuring Billy Butcher and the team standing around collectively looking at assumably a Supe they’ve just taken down. However, the image, which has also been used for marketing The Boys television series, has a secret tragic meaning. As what they’re looking at was later revealed from Butcher’s perspective, showing his wife Becky in blood, highlighting the heartbreaking trials he’s gone through.
In The Boys comic book series, Billy Butcher becomes the ultimate Supes hunter after Homelander’s assault on his wife Becky led to her later traumatic death during childbirth. Butcher’s tragic history with Supes made him the perfect recruit for The Boys, a group formed by the CIA who find information and often kill superheroes that have become too dangerous for the general public. In an epilogue/prequel comic, one of the most famous images for The Boys, showing the team huddled together, was revealed to have a secret tragic history once the other side of what Butcher was looking at was shown, indicating the death of Becky will always haunt him.
In The Boys comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the main cover for issue one features the team looking at something together. The implication has always been that Billy Butcher, Hughie, Frenchie, the Female, and Mother’s Milk looked at a Supe they just took down.
The image became one of the main posters for The Boys season one streaming series on Amazon Prime Video.
However, in the last comic series from The Boys, the secret tragic image of what Butcher saw when looking down at the bloodied Supe was revealed. On the cover for The Boys: Dear Becky #1, the other side of the iconic image shows a pool of blood with Butcher’s late-wife Becky seen in the reflection.
The secret meaning behind the image is quite a brilliant reveal, as it shows from the very beginning that Billy Butcher was driven by his love for his late wife and that even getting revenge on Supes can’t wipe away the pain he suffered losing Becky. The cover showcases the contrasting nature of Butcher and how tragedy shaped his actions. No matter how hard he tried, Butcher could never overcome losing his wife, as her memory always stuck with him. Butcher’s actions in The Boys comic might make him seem like a monster, but love is what fueled him. By the end of the series, Butcher never overcame his loss, as killing Supes didn’t fix his pain.
The secret meaning behind the iconic image starring The Boys from the series’ first issue and promotional posters for season one of the television series ultimately showed the tragic nature of Billy Butcher. While the loss of his wife Becky drove his violence against Supes, no amount of killing could ever make him forget his love and memory of his life before The Boys.
