What Happened To Billy Butcher In The Comics? Tragic Ending Explained

The Boys is one of the most popular series today because of how it follows the story of ordinary people who are up against extraordinary superhero figures. This series is an adaptation of the comics of the same name as the story follows Billy Butcher and The Boys’ crusade to kill supes and the most powerful of them all, Homelander, for all of the things that they were doing to regular people. We are yet to see the conclusion of the live-action series, but what happened to Billy Butcher in the comics?

Billy Butcher killed Black Noir, the Homelander clone, but still felt empty inside and tried to kill all of the supes so that no one ended up suffering the same kind of pain that he suffered when his wife was raped. However, the other Boys stood up against him as Hughie, the only survivor, killed Butcher.

The tale of Billy Butcher is one that is focused on self-destruction because it was already clear from the start that there was no happy ending for him. In that regard, the ending to Butcher’s story was quite fitting because he did some horrible things himself just so he could take revenge. Now, let’s look at what happened to Butcher in the ending of The Boys comics.

What Happened To Billy Butcher In The Comics?

At the very beginning of The Boys, it was already clear that this was not a superhero series. Instead, it was a story that followed the journey of ordinary people who were trying to kill horrible superheroes that were treating regular people like garbage and were basically doing despicable things without any accountability on their part.

The leader of The Boys is Billy Butcher, who has a personal vendetta against the supes for what happened to his wife. In the live-action series, Butcher believed that Homelander, the most powerful supe of them all, assaulted and eliminated his wife. And that was what pushed him to a path of revenge against Homelander and the rest of the corrupt supes all over the country.

In the series, we are still in the middle portion of Billy Butcher’s mission to get revenge on Homelander. However, the comics tell a story that is somewhat different from the live-action series, even though the themes are still similar. In fact, the comics have already concluded the story of The Boys. So, what happened to Butcher in the comics?

Similar to his live-action counterpart, Butcher is on a quest to avenge his wife. He believed that Homelander assaulted and impregnated his wife, and this led to her death when she couldn’t handle giving birth to a powerful baby supe. As such, Butcher’s actions in the comics steered him towards eventually finding a way to get revenge on Homelander so that he could avenge his wife.

Homelander, whose mind had become distorted, took over the White House. Butcher went there to stop him. But as he and his archnemesis were about to battle, a supe named Black Noir, an ally of Homelander, arrived to make things more interesting.

Black Noir, who was always wearing a mask and kept himself silent throughout the comics, finally revealed his true identity as Homelander’s clone. He was created to kill Homelander in case the hero were to go rogue. Because Black Noir got bored and was obsessed with his life mission of killing Homelander, he dressed himself up as Homelander and did all of the horrible things that people thought were done by Homelander himself. This included the assault of Billy Butcher’s wife.

After the revelation, Black Noir and Homelander engaged in an epic battle. However, it was Black Noir, who was created to be stronger than Homelander, that won the fight. Butcher took the chance to avenge his wife by eliminating a heavily injured Black Noir.

Although Butcher had avenged his wife, he still felt empty inside. He realized that not even the deaths of Black Noir and Homelander could heal his wound inside, and that was what caused him to break down both emotionally and mentally. Butcher believed that the supes were responsible for his misery, and that was what made him think that getting rid of all of the supes would heal him and prevent people from suffering the same pain that he felt.

Butcher’s plan was to release a chemical weapon that would have eliminated the people who had Compound V in their genes so that all of the supes would die and that everyone who had the Compound V gene would also die and would not be able to pass the gene on in the future.

However, the other members of The Boys were not in agreement with what Butcher was planning because this was genocide on a large scale. As such, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and the Female all tried to stop him but were eventually eliminated by Butcher himself. 

Still, the ending of The Boys needed to show that Butcher’s plan was not going to come to fruition. Despite the fact that he killed almost all of the members of The Boys, he still ended up dying at the hands of Hughie himself.

How Did Butcher Die?

In the end, the only one remaining was Hughie, who was only pulled into the entire mess at the very start when Butcher convinced him to take revenge for his dead girlfriend. It was only fitting that Hughie, who never wanted to harm supes, was the final member of The Boys standing.

The two fought as they fell off the Empire State Building. In the fall, Butcher ended up getting paralyzed after a serious injury. At that moment, he realized that his life was over and that he could no longer fulfill his plan. This meant that the only thing left for him was death.

Butcher goaded Hughie into ending his life, as the young member of The Boys eventually did. Hughie finished off Butcher with a steel pipe as he saw his former mentor dying with a smile on his face. This was the ending that was fitting for Billy Butcher, who was on a path to self-destruction from the very start of The Boys.

Will Butcher Die on The Show?

Those who have read the comics or, at the very least, kept up with their story would know that Butcher died at the very end of the story. Of course, there are a lot of differences between the comics and the live-action version. But will Butcher also die on the show?

It is possible that Butcher is also going to die at the very end of the live-action version of The Boys. His fate has already been hinted at during season 3 when he alienated the other members of The Boys and made them feel like they were disposable or, at the very least, not worth his care. Butcher was so obsessed with getting revenge on Homelander that he no longer cared about the feelings of his allies.

There was also a point where Butcher, after a talk with Queen Maeve, told the supe that all supes needed to go away. This meant that he was perhaps already thinking that every single supe in the world needed to pay for their crimes, and not just Homelander.

As such, fans of The Boys series will have to prepare themselves for another Daenerys Targaryen moment when Butcher finally snaps and tries to eliminate all of the supes. Of course, the only people that would be left standing in his way would be the other members of The Boys, as there is a chance that Hughie will also be the one to deal the final blow to the man that dragged him into this mess at the very start.