Deku vs. Homelander: Who Would Win & How?

Izuku Midoriya, also known as Deku, is the protagonist of his own universe and has the potentially strongest Quirk of them all. He is actually a very powerful character from the My Hero Academia universe and is often used in comparisons in these times. His opponent in this article is going to be an American comic book character from The Boys; you’ve guessed it – it’s Homelander. Deku is a true hero and Homelander is… well, he is everything that Deku isn’t and this article is going to reveal who would win in a clash between these two characters and how.

Homelander would win in a fight against Deku. Homelander is stronger than a base-level Deku, but if Deku uses his Quirk, the One For All, he would definitely gain more power and would be able to surpass Homelander. Homelander is at his peak and he cannot really progress much, whereas Deku’s Quirk allows him to become extremely powerful, and that would be enough for him to defeat Homelander.

The rest of the article is going to be all about comparing the two characters from My Hero Academia and The Boys, respectively. You’re going to find out who Izuku Midoriya and Homelander are, as well as what their exact powers and abilities are. In the end, based on what we have presented earlier, we’re going to give our final verdict on who is stronger. It’s promising to be a fun story so keep reading until the end!

Homelander and his powers

Homelander is a patriotic superhero who leads the superhero team Seven and is the most powerful superhuman ever created by Vought-American. The company spreads the cover story that Homelander is an alien who entered the US as an infant, like Superman, while he was actually grown in a secret laboratory from Stormfront’s genetic material and injected with Serum V when he was still a member of the Hitler Youth.

One of Homelander’s main abilities is his vast superhuman strength, being the strongest man alive. As a child, he broke a woman’s back while embracing her. After intercepting a robbery with Queen Maeve, he sent the first robber high up in the air with ease. He also easily pushed through a door blocked by scaffolding with one hand and rammed his fist into a shooter’s chest.

He was then able to throw a baseball from New York to Boston, throw a football into a small plane with such force that an emergency landing was needed, throw another baseball in the air, and hit Blindspot so hard in the head that he ruptured his eardrum and caused strong bleeding. He also crushed a terrorist with his foot.

Homelander is the toughest of the Seven Supes, if not all of them, being almost impervious to any physical injury. Because of this, he is not only impervious to bullets but also unaffected by explosives, such as when Billy blew up the Stillwell house while he was inside or a complete power plant. Madelyn Stillwell claims that not a single weapon in existence has succeeded in defeating him, making him immune to nuclear explosions. Even more, Maeve challenged Neuman to try to blow him up by describing him as unbeatable. However, his incredible toughness has its limits. Homelander is shown to have a significant facial bruise after a vicious struggle against Soldier Boy, Butcher, and Hughie, indicating that he can be instantly hurt or killed with sufficient power.

While Homalander is able to fly at speeds that are fast enough to follow and kill airplanes, he can also move at speeds that are faster than the speed of sound on the ground. Homelander broke the sound barrier even as a little child. Homelander is swift enough to avoid shots and defenseless shooters with many weapons before they have a chance to react.

A C4 bomb blast travels at about 8000 m/s, which is 23 times faster than the sound, therefore Butcher was able to escape the detonation after deciding to detonate the bombs fastened to Stillwell’s corpse. He can move faster than the human eye can see while producing little to no noise (the best-trained human eyes can detect movement in 1/220 seconds or 0.0045 seconds), therefore he could escape from Billy Butcher’s flat without anyone knowing.

Homelander is capable of producing powerful heat energy in his eyes and beaming it outward. His energy bursts are so strong that they seem capable of breaking through anything, including aircraft. He once used his heat vision to melt the revolver of a robber in his palm. Homelander is well known for breaking people in blood with his optic beams, which readily melt bone and flesh. Most Supers can’t escape his heat vision. Homelander can also change the rays’ power and intensity. Homelander has heat vision and the ability to fire concussive power beams from his eyes that are the same color as his regular heat vision.

Izuku Midoriya (Deku) and his powers

Izuku Midoriya, also known as Deku, is the protagonist of the story and a rival of Katsuki Bakugo. He never manifested a Quirk, however, that didn’t stop him from dreaming of being a hero. He is a great fan of All Might, the number one hero and symbol of peace for the population. An encounter with him leads him to one of the great adventures of his life and the main plot of the anime: the story of how Deku becomes the number one hero.

He has a shy disposition and is easily frightened, having been bullied as a child, but has a great sense of selflessness and justice. He has good analytical skills and being a hero aficionado, he knows their Quirks well and their capabilities in the field in minute detail. He is one of a very small number of people that have been born without a Quirk, for which he is repeatedly taunted with the nickname Deku; later, thanks to Uraraka, this nickname will become a source of pride for Izuku, who will choose it as his hero alias.

Although he was born without powers, he has always dreamed of becoming a real hero. His dream could come true when he earned the respect of peace champion All Might, who took him under his wing and revealed a secret to him: he possesses a special Quirk called One For All, which combines the strength of more than men in one body giving him extraordinary physical abilities. Midoriya was therefore chosen by him as his successor since this ability is not innate but passed from one person to another.

The Quirk’s initial flaw is that if the body isn’t hardened enough, its power would risk killing its new container, so Midoriya trained to strengthen himself. Driven by his successful entry into Yuei and his determination to become a hero, Midoriya begins to acquire an ever greater self-awareness that over time has led him to put aside his cowardice, even causing him to stand up to Bakugo on multiple occasions.

In him, the One For All manifests itself as veins that appear on the limb or the part of the body in which the Quirk is activated or, when instead using the Full Cowl, as electric discharges that the boy emits from the body.

The Quirk is still too much for his body to handle if used all of it: the maximum power he can use so far without breaking his limbs is 20%, although using it at this level still causes him to feel severe pain from the strain muscular; beyond this level, Midoriya has repercussions on his body and was often forced to use 100% of his powers, which led him to break his arms and legs several times.

Precisely for this reason, taking inspiration from Iida, he subsequently developed a fighting style known as Shoot Style, focused in particular on the use of his legs, which makes Izuku even more powerful and faster. After Tomura wakes up and begins destroying everything with his overpowered Quirk, Izuku uses 45% of the One For All for the first time.

As seen against Muscular, when on an adrenaline rush, Midoriya can also outrun 100% and unleash devastating blows, with worse repercussions. Izuku is also the only owner of the One For All who has managed to interact with its previous owners: the One For All, in fact, draws strength from those who have owned it and this peculiarity has meant that in the maze of the Quirk there remain, together with their power, also parts of the consciousness of the predecessors.

Izuku Midoriya (Deku) vs. Homelander: Who would win?

And now for the most important and interesting section of our article – the analysis. Here, we are going to use what we have found out about these two characters and analyze how all these facts would (or would not) help them in a fight against each other. Let us continue.

This was a fairly complex analysis, to be honest. Namely, the worlds of My Hero Academia and The Boys, although both rely on superpowers and heroes vs. villains, are vastly different. The Boys tries to keep things as ”normal” as possible, as it is a product of a century-long Western comic book tradition, whose words try to be realistic as possible. My Hero Academia, on the other hand, is also based on Western superhero comics, but it also follows different anime traditions and tropes, which are often exaggerated in comparison. This is why it was difficult for us to objectively compare them, but we have managed to do it.

The thing that saved us here is that both Deku and Homelander are superheroes with superhuman powers, and these powers are – for the most part – similar, if not completely comparable. So, in his base form, Deku is not really up to Homelander’s standards. Homelander is an experienced fighter and although their speeds and physical powers are somewhat similar, Homelander still surpasses the child Deku in these aspects. Plus, in his base form, Deku would not be able to counter Homelander’s heat vision and would be cut in half easily.

On the other hand, Deku has his Quirk, the One For All, which gives him an enormous power boost. It increases all of his abilities so much that Homelander wouldn’t even know how to react. This is a direct result of My Hero Academia being an anime, as such things aren’t usually seen in Western superhero comics. With his Quirk, Deku easily surpasses Homelander in every category and would, ultimately, be able to defeat him.

And there you have it. Homelander is generally stronger than Deku in his base form because Deku cannot really counter Homelander’s powers in that aspect. On the other hand, Deku’s Quirk, the One For All, allows him to surpass Homelander’s abilities and in that aspect, he would definitely be able to defeat him.