Summary
Of all the different anti-hero takes on Superman, the most famous one in recent years has to be Homelander fromThe Boys. On the surface, he’s an all-American, friendly defender of justice. Underneath that carefully constructed image, he’s a twisted, self-obsessed, thin-skinned sadist who’s just as corrupt as the rest of his superhero team, The Seven.
He caught on via Amazon’s adaptations of the comic books, where actor Antony Starr really brought out Homelander’s character as a weak bully putting up a strong facade well. While he’s perhaps the strongest hero inThe Boys’ universe, he’s nowhere near as strong as he thinks, and he knows it. If he ended up in the DC Universe, he’d be in trouble, as these DC characters could beat Homelander easily.
Updated on 21st July 2024 by David Heath:Season 4 ofThe Boyshas recently ended, and has provided an interesting setup for Season 5, which, as of this writing, is planned to be the final season of the show. No spoilers, but it looks like Homelander will have a lot to unpack. All that remains to be seen is how that final season will end. Will it use more from the comics? Or will it be a completely different conclusion?
The Man in the Sky can be thankful he’s just got the Butcher and his crew to deal with, as they have to work harder to challenge him. In the DC Universe, he’d hit the ceiling pretty fast, as there are more superheroes there that could take him on. Some might have to sweat for it, yet the new heroes here would have little trouble grounding Homelander.
1Superman
The Original Article
At first, it seems Homelander has advantages over his inspiration.Supermanis affected bymultiple kinds of kryptonite, while Homelander is weak to nothing. However, all this would do is even the playing field. Using all his might, Homelander can lift roughly 480 tons, or “a dozen Mag trucks” according to Black Noir. By contrast, Superman has no limit on his strength beyond the writer’s imagination.
BeforeCrisis on Infinite Earths, Superman could juggle planets. Afterward, he could shift them out of orbit.All-Star Supermanhad him lift 200 quintillion (a billion of billions) tons with one hand. Homelander may share many of Superman’s powers, like heat vision, X-ray vision, etc. But even with kryptonite, he wouldn’t be walking away from a bout with the Man of Steel.
2Wonder Woman
Bringing Homelander To Heel
On top of everything else, Homelander is also a horrible misogynist who’ll do terrible things to women just because he knows he can get away with it. He could barely keep it together when he saw people online making memes about Stormfront in Season 2, Episode 4. Coming up short against a heroine likeWonder Womanwould likely break him.
She doesn’t have as many powers as Homelander- no heat/X-ray vision, flight (usually), etc. Yetshe’s still strong enoughto carry cruise ships and has even defeated Superman on occasion. She’s also a highly skilled warrior, with access to a variety of enchanted weapons, whereas Homelander coasts on his superpowers. In a head-to-head contest, he’d be humbled quickly.
3Supergirl
Superman’s Super Cousin
Superman’s cousin Linda, aka Kara Zor-El, akaSupergirl, wouldn’t be any better for Homelander. Whether it’s her classic pre-Crisischaracter, her post-Crisisincarnation, or her more General Zod-like character inMy Adventures with Superman, she’s got all the strength and superpowers Clark Kent has. In fact, she’s potentially stronger as she’s been able to endure the effects of kryptonite for longer.
Her extra endurance made her the possessor of the Immortal Power of Strength, one of the Eight Immortal Powers seen inMonkey Prince. She’s a touch more resilient, with a touch more willpower and, in her post-Crisisform, learned from the Flash how to use her super speed to vibrate fast enough to phase through objects. So, even if Homelander got to put a hand on her, he wouldn’t be holding on for long as she’d knock him into next week.
4Power Girl
Shutting Homelander Down on Earth-Two
Power Girlis the Earth-Two version of Supergirl, which is basically the Golden Age continuity. She survivedCrisis, and many other events that fiddled with her past and memories, likeFlashpoint,Infinite Frontier, etc. While she’s got titters for her infamous costume, it doesn’t distract from the fact that she can still hit as hard as any other Kryptonian in the DC Universe.
On top of being strong enough to pummel Homelander into mulch, Power Girl also has a keen mind. She usually uses it for her computer programming job, but she can use it to figure out her foes' weak spots and use them to her advantage. Then, while Superman and Supergirl can get by just cold-clocking people, Power Girl’s additional knowledge of boxing and martial arts means she can use Homelander’s swipes against him and hit him where it really hurts, shutting him down with less effort on her part.
5Starfire
Too Spicy for Homelander to Handle
Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran, better known asStarfire, is another unlikely threat to Homelander. Or at least she is to those who don’t know. She’s the dainty, cutesy one in the Teen Titans, figuring her way through those strange Earth customs and comparing them to her upbringing on Tamaran. As polite as she is, even Homelander would run her patience short, which would be a bad move on his part.
She doesn’t have the strength of a Kryptonian, but she can still lift 475,000 tons, nearly 1,000 times Homelander’s max strength. He’s faster, but she’s just as durable as him, if not more so, which she could test by using her energy blasts. Whether they’re fired from her hands or channeled through her eyes, they’re capable of melting metal. Her stamina is practically endless, as she can soak up energy from multiple sources, including the sun as well. All she’d need to do with Homelander is tire him out, then deliver a 475k ton hammer punch to him to finish him off.
6Lobo
Don’t Mess With The Main Man
Before Homelander, there wasLobo. Only instead of being a twisted version of Superman, he was a parody of Dark Age edgy antiheroes (The Punisher and Wolverine in particular). Lobo was the last member of an alien race called the Czarnians because he killed off all the others. He works as an intergalactic bounty hunter to fuel his bloodlust and need for wanton violence.
Strength-wise, he’s rivaled Superman on occasion. But even if he was more on par with Homelander, his regenerative abilities could heal him back up from a drop of blood. Even when he did die, he caused so much havoc in both Heaven and Hell that he was banished from both realms, effectively becoming immortal. Chances are he’d kill Homelander for annoying him, then find some other planet to torment.
7Metamorpho
In His Own Element
Originally a mercenary, Rex Mason was betrayed by Simon Stagg when he tried to get him the Orb of Ra. He was knocked out and left for dead next to the radioactive meteorite the Orb was fashioned from. But, like the gamma radiation inThe Incredible Hulk, or the toxic waste inDaredevil, the meteorite changed him from a human toMetamorpho, a hero who cantransform into any element on Earth.
Homelander has no mineral weakness, though he can’t see through zinc, and could potentially be knocked out by extremely toxic gases like Novichok. Since Metamorpho can replicate any element and compound, he could test that hypothesis by giving Homelander plenty of Novichok to breathe in. That’s if his regular, invulnerable, super-strong, immortal form wasn’t enough to bring The Only Man in the Sky back down to Earth.
8Green Lantern
The Power Of Imagination
It might be because Alan Scott and Hal Jordan didn’t conjure up the most imaginative things with their rings, but Green Lantern’s powersare actually quite broken. Previously, the only way someone like Homelander could’ve gotten around the Men Without Fear was to paint himself entirely yellow, as the Lantern’s projections did not affect the color.
But with Parallax’s defeat, the Green Lantern rings can now hit anything and everything. Instead of physical strength, they rely on the strength of willpower, and none of the Lanterns from Scott to Kyle Rayner have been lacking in that department. If they’re not trapping Homelander in a bubble, they could swat him down with anything they could conjure up.
9The Flash
A Speedy Victory
A fight betweenthe Flashand Homelander wouldn’t so much be a slugfest as death by a thousand cuts. Whether it’s Barry Allen, Jay Garrick, Wally West, etc, the Flashes have never been known for grand feats of strength. If they got in Homelander’s grasp, they’d potentially be in trouble. Or at least they would be if it weren’t for the Speed Force, which would keep Homelander from grabbing them to begin with.
They’re the fastest heroes alive, able to inflict multiple blows in fractions of seconds. The Speed Force also allows them to vibrate fast enough to phase their atoms through objects, so even if they were caught, they could escape and continue to subject Homelander to a constant barrage of attacks. Then, with the Speed Force’s momentum, they could build up a punch strong enough to floor Superman, let alone Homelander.
10Zatanna
Magic Can Just As Easily Defeat Homelander
The DCU wouldn’t need to call out big hitters like Superman or insane characters like Lobo to deal with Homelander. In fact, they likely wouldn’t need someone physically strong to sort him out at all. They could get a powerful magic user instead, likeZatanna. A master of both stage magic and real magic, she has a library’s worth of techniques to handle threats like Homelander.
With her Logomancy, where she can conjure spells by speaking backwards, she could freeze Homelander in place, shrink him to the size of a pea, trap him within forcefields, reflect projectiles, or mess with his mind directly. Even if he got to lay a finger on her, she could use Antipathy to
reverse the damage and place it on him instead. If worst came to worst, she could send him off to another universe with a single sentence.
