Homelander: Born Villain or Misunderstood Hero?

Please note: This article contains spoilers. Read with caution.

A new season of The Boys has just ended, the Amazon prime series that features Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, and his desire to take revenge on the heroes, especially Homelander, who has done him so much harm. Speaking precisely of the Patriot, actor Antony Starr recently spoke of his character, clarifying many things about his future, and that is exactly what I want us to talk about.

Credit: Dynamite Entertainment/Amazon

Before starting with Homelander, I must confess that I have been attracted to this series since the first chapter that I watched on its premiere on July 26, 2019, with the surprise that before starting its first season, Amazon had renewed for a second season; this affirmed the good project that was being created in the studio.

A correct choice of actors, a plot that catches, much more to those who have not read the comics, because yes, The Boys also has its comics which were written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Darick Robertson. They were originally published through Wildstorm before moving to Dynamite Entertainment. Its first edition was published in October 2006.

Back to Homelander: Hero, misunderstood hero? Villain, a great villain? So many questions have been generated throughout all three seasons of The Boys about the Homelander character; at first it seemed that he was being manipulated, but that he would find his true path, but with the passage of the chapters, new events arose that left us with many more questions, that is why I will try to develop an idea that I have been following on the networks and that is gaining strength day by day.

The more seasons I watch of The Boys, the more Homelander's good hero image moves away. Just as you can see in the comic, politics is without a doubt one of the biggest weights in this strange and extraordinary series of The Boys and with each season I feel that weight is getting bigger.

At the beginning of this Amazon series, I perceived Homelander very much in the style of George Bush, I don't know if the series drew certain parallels between Mr. Bush and Patriot. But with the end of this third season, I think that right now the compass has strayed from its course and now Homelander is more like former President Donald Trump, without forgetting that even Antony Starr himself disclosed in a recent Rolling Stone article that said that Patriot is supposed to be Trump or was his main source of inspiration.

So now with a Homelander plus Trump, minus Bush, is his debacle coming? The series has left several factors that can make this possible. Homelander has opted for the cancellation culture, also his way of using his henchmen to do all the dirty work getting rid of political rivals or even the fact that the government could become his against.

All this has caused a stir on social networks, especially on Reddit where its category dedicated to the series has exploded in opinions, many accounts have been suspended, many messages have been deleted and everything is on the way to nobody accepting a possible redemption of our "hero" Homelander. Was this what the series was looking for? Or is it simply that the political weight ended up making the difference.

The truth is, it is not the first time that we see a basically very bad character being adored by millions of spectators, to the point of wishing that everything saves him well, although in his mind all his plans are wrong. Although, in the case of Homelander it seems that he has reached a very different level. This guy showed how he was from the first episode, we saw how despicable and egotistical he can be, after that things did not improve at all, what's more, everything got worse as the seasons went by, until we had a concept of someone extremely fascist dangerous. It was very clear that it was not going to change, however, it seems that there is a large sector of the audience that had hope in the redemption of their hero, and it had to reach a very extreme point for everyone to understand it.

Credit: Amazon

It is my opinion that Homelander is a misunderstood villain who never manages to be at peace with himself. If we go to the comic, which has a total of 72 chapters, Patriot becomes completely evil, much more than what we have seen now, managing to give him the death of the President of the United States himself in the White House itself. How did you read it and after that, we have some extremely emotional scenes, but I will not spoil them any further. Now we must wait for the outcome of Homelander in the Amazon series, because many things have been changed, the truth is I still don't know how to define this series, but what I do know is that I love it.