This is a stark contrast to the Boys of the comic books who are an established outfit with numerous links to the FBI and other officials that take an anti-superhero stance. Most notably, however, Butcher and the gang inject themselves with regular doses of Compound V to enhance their strength and durability, allowing the quintet to go toe-to-toe with genuine superheroes. Nothing of this sort happens in the TV adaptation. Instead, the team use blackmail on Popclaw and underhand tactics to kill Translucent, while Butcher employs a mixture of explosives and hostages as leverage during his climactic confrontation with Homelander in The Boys’ season 1 finale, never wanting to choose a fist fight as a preferred option.
While it might be assumed that The Boys is saving its physical fight scenes for season 2, when the characters have grown into a more cohesive unit, a certain story arc in season 1 makes this impossible. In the first volume of the comic series, Butcher explains to Hughie that Compound V is what originally introduced superpowers into human biology, and that a cut version of the drug is used by all members of the Boys to keep up with the “supes.”
However, The Boys has already written itself into an ethical conundrum should it ever be permitted to adapt this particular element of the comic books. The TV version of The Boys includes a subplot focusing on A-Train who, desperate to maintain his status as the world’s fastest man, relies on regular doses of Compound V to keep himself at peak performance. This results in something resembling a typical drug addiction storyline, where A-Train’s use of V causes his life to spiral out of control and also results in him accidentally killing Hughie’s girlfriend while high.
The Boys season 2 is currently without a release date. More news as it arrives.
