How Does The Boys Comic Book End? Shocking as Always

The Boys is one of the most popular and most outrageous series that you can stream today because it is full of craziness, gore, and vulgarity. However, the TV series was adapted from the comic book of the same name, and it is actually more vulgar and brutal than the live-action version. It is also full of twists and turns that will shock just about anyone. But how does The Boys comic book end?

In the comics, Butcher unleashes chemical weapons that make sure that everyone that carries Compound V in their genes dies. Meanwhile, the rest of The Boys stood in his way but ended up getting killed, with Hughie becoming the only survivor. In the end, Hughie was the one that killed Butcher.

Billy Butcher’s journey has always been a path towards self-destruction, and that is what happened to him in the comics. In that regard, he took a Daenerys character arc that led him to become the ultimate villain in The Boys, and that could be possible in the series as well. So, with that said, let’s look at how The Boys comic book ends and whether or not the series will follow it.

How Does The Boys Comic Book End?

Ever since the beginning of The Boys series, we already saw how Billy Butcher was willing to do whatever it took to kill supes, especially Homelander, who he has a massive personal grudge. And The Boys, in its three seasons, has been teasing us of Butcher eventually killing Homelander, which might be the ultimate catharsis for him.

However, in the comics, the story doesn’t quite end in Homelander’s death. The comic book version of The Boys still features the same Butcher vs. Homelander narrative where they eventually went toe-to-toe, only for Black Noir to enter the scenes to surprise everyone by revealing that he was Homelander’s clone and that he was the one who had been doing all of the crazy things.

In the end, it was Black Noir that killed Homelander in an epic fight between the two powerful supes. However, Billy Butcher pounced on the opportunity to kill Black Noir when he was injured and vulnerable. As a result, he was able to take revenge on him for all of the horrible things he did to him.

But while some people might think that The Boys comic book ends with Butcher finally getting the revenge he always wanted, he takes it a step further. After killing Black Noir, who had been disguising himself as Homelander to do some of the horrible things he did to a lot of people, Butcher realized that his crusade against the supes did not have to stop there.

Butcher eventually decided that the world had no further use for supes, regardless of how good or bad they may be. That’s because he didn’t care about the good supes but focused more on the bad ones. And, of course, the chances of another Homelander or Black Noir popping up was still there, and that means that history could eventually repeat itself.

That led to Butcher using chemical weapons to eliminate those who had the Compound V in their genes so that the gene would never resurface and produce more supes in the future. Butcher was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that his crusade against the supes ended with no more supes existing in the world.

But while Butcher was willing to take drastic measures, the other members of The Boys weren’t in line with what he was doing. Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, the Female, and Hughie were all willing to prevent Butcher from taking innocent lives. This led to Butcher murdering all of the people that he once called allies except for Hughie, who was the only survivor of The Boys. And the only person that could stop him from enacting his twisted plan was Hughie, who he dragged into this entire mess at the start of the comic book.

In the end, it was Hughie that had to kill Butcher in the hopes that he would not be able to kill innocent people with his plan. The man that wanted nothing to do with Butcher’s plans from the start but was dragged into it because of his personal issue with the supes had to end things with his own hands by stabbing the person that took him under his wing.

As such, the ending of The Boys comic book mirrors the very same ending of Game of Thrones, which allowed us to see Daenerys turning from protagonist to antagonist near the end of the story. But the difference here is that it was already clear that Butcher was on his way to self-destruction from the start. On the other hand, Daenerys only turned into an antagonist near the end of the series in what was a rather quick development that fans didn’t necessarily like. 

Still, in the end, Butcher had to die not only because of his twisted plan but also because his actions throughout the story had always hinted at his eventual death. There was no happy ending for a man that had to take drastic measures to ensure that he was able to succeed in his personal crusade against the supes.

Will The Show Adapt The Comic Book Ending?

While there are a lot of differences between the comic book version of The Boys and its live-action adaptation, there are a lot of reasons to believe that we are eventually going to see the same ending in the Amazon Prime series.

From the start, we already saw how Butcher was willing to do whatever it took to kill supes, even if it meant hurting the people he cared for and antagonizing the allies that were always there to help him. Then, season 3 happened.

In season 3, we understood that Butcher was now willing to become the monster he always sought to destroy as he took V24, a different version of Compound V that allowed him to have temporary supe powers. And it became an addiction to him once he realized that he was strong enough to take on any supe and was even able to go toe-to-toe with Homelander himself.

His personal crusade against Homelander also caused him to alienate Ryan, the boy who he treated as his own son, and the rest of the members of The Boys. Butcher was so desperate to kill Homelander that he was willing to ally himself with Soldier Boy even though he knew that Mother’s Milk had a personal issue with the legendary supe. And, finally, in his alone moment with Queen Maeve, he even admitted that he wanted all of the supes to die.

But does that mean that the series will also follow the ending of the comics? It appears to be the case. Butcher has already alienated MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko by treating them as tools and by disregarding their feelings for the sake of his personal vendetta against the supes. And from the fact that he told Maeve that all supes needed to die, it appears that he doesn’t plan on stopping with Homelander’s death.

Then again, there are still a few issues that need to be fleshed out before the live-action series can follow that path. Ryan is most probably the biggest issue because Butcher cares so much for the boy that he was willing to alienate him so that he wouldn’t have to follow in his footsteps. And if he plans to kill all of the supes in the world, that includes Ryan, who is basically Homelander’s son.

In any other case, it does appear that Butcher is on his way to a path of self-destruction. But it should be better if The Boys dedicate an entire season to Butcher’s descent into madness instead of rushing his development as a villain. This would allow the series to avoid the massive negative feedback that fans had in relation to Daenerys’s transformation into an antagonist, which only took a few episodes to develop.