But I know how they started and the show is only just starting to feel like it's approaching the point where 'the boys' might have the attitude they're meant to as a gang. I know the show deviates a lot but it'd be weird to never realise that element fully, and I can totally see why they might build up to that point on-screen (plus some of this stuff they're drawing out I recall specifically thinking felt a bit rushed originally) rather than entering into it as the status quo, or give us a glimpse then take a second bite at the apple.
I think the important thing to talk about as far as the writing of the show is concerned is the fact that, unlike the comics, Butcher and Homelander are actually well-written characters.
Butcher in the comic is such a blatant gary-stu who is constantly getting away with making the stupidest and more miserable decisions in the entire story and the only thing more reoccurring than his blatant plot protection is the fact that anybody who stands up to Butcher is going to be made a patsy out of even if Butcher himself has no actual response to the antagonism. And unlike the show which is constantly putting Butcher's actions to scrutiny, Comic Butcher ends the entire series getting exactly what he wants. He greatly destroys the foundation of Supes and Vaught as a whole, he kills his entire crew with next to no trouble sans Hughie who he easily goads into killing him to stop a rampage Butcher himself admits to wanting to stop. His death isn't even
painful and the jackass
dies smiling.
Meanwhile, Homelander in the comic is a hilariously incompetent, shallow villain who actually has almost no bearing on the plot aside from brief cameo appearances where he stands around looking like a complete joke next to Butcher. Any instance where Homelander gets an edge over Butcher, such as the scene where he's reading Butcher's heart rate trying to guess his backstory, is punctuated by a joke or slight against his character. (Butcher's dog fucking pees on him at the end of aforementioned scene.) Homelander and the rest of the Seven almost never directly get involved with anything regarding the story and when they do you can guarantee that it's their exit from the series in the form of an embarrassing, gruesome death. (Not that they aren't deserved, mind you.) As antagonists go, Homelander is fat sack of nothing who only does awful shit to nobodies or people who are unsympathetic to begin with. He is such a brainless character that he doesn't even
die on-screen after the whole story builds up his final confrontation to be the crux of the entire comic.
The show took these absolute dumpster-fire characters and made them into instantly recognizable pop-culture icons in the span of a couple of years. Homelander's actions and personality in the show are so infamous at this point, and Butcher like-wise has reached similar levels of popularity thanks in part to his bad-ass credentials actually being worth a damn and his much better written morality and influence on the story.
The show isn't perfect by all means, but I think the fact that it understands the dichotomy of Butcher vs Homelander to this extent means that they're writing a different show that's better than what many others would have done with The Boys as an IP. I'm thinking a status quo shakeup is in the works because of how the show is constantly rotating characters in and out of story threads. The Deep is back on the Seven, A-Train is actually arguably a worse person than his comic counterpart somehow, Maeve might be dead, Stan Edgar has walked away much earlier than Stillwell did in the comics, and Starlight's constant position on the Boys means that already things are more different than anyone might've expected. In my honest opinion, I think Soldier Boy is going to be a red-herring that's going to reinforce the desperate means the protagonists are going to have to go to. If he was the solution Butcher thinks he is, I don't think his scenes would be as unstable and paved in horror as they currently are.
I just want to give the show more time. Yes, it's not fun to be retreading similar ground, but I'm going to have a little faith because stuff done well in this show is better than what I'm used to with this Super-Hero Deconstruction crap.
