There’s an episode of The Simpsons that I don’t care for that much where Homer and Mr. Burns are trapped in a mountain cabin. Both men go a bit insane with the confinement, and when they both start to hallucinate, each imagines the other with an army of some kind. For Homer, he just sees Burns with what looks like snowmen in World War I era German military uniforms. Homer, for his part, claims he has powers…political powers! From there, Burns sees a lot of dead statesmen on Homer’s side.
Anyway, this episode seems to show how terrible the leadership is on both sides because the wrong men have political power.
Sort of.
See, this episode highlights a bit about Butcher and Homelander and their distinctive brands of cruelty to get what they both want.
Homelander is, well, a bit more obvious. It could be argued that Billy Butcher might have some good intentions. Homelander is an obvious menace that Butcher (and a whole lot of others) see as someone who needs to be taken down. However, Butcher is also motivated by revenge. As a result, whatever good he might be doing–and Homelander is objectively terrible in every way–is tainted by his methods. Sure, he tries to keep Hughie away from the temporary V, but Hughie knows it exists and is tired of being pushed around by everyone to say nothing of how emasculated he feels when Starlight has to save him all the time.
I know the show is very different from the comics that inspired it, but Hughie has some very old fashioned ideas on masculinity in both mediums that greatly end up causing problems with his relationship with Annie. I’d say I can’t wait for that, but quite frankly, that seems like it’s gonna be a painful moment, and I’d actually rather not see that. Besides, for all Butcher wants to keep Hughie out of the worst of what’s going on–a big change from his own comic book counterpart–that doesn’t mean he won’t force Kimiko to go assassinate a Russian mob boss.
Side note: it is a very Boys thing to have that assassination basically amount to Kimiko killing a bunch of armed men with Seven-themed sex toys. Plus, the anti-Seven graffiti everywhere in Russia was a nice touch. Oh, and while I am commenting on changes made from the comics to the show, the show’s version of Kimiko is about a thousand times better than her counterpart, a mute woman who basically committed random acts of lethal violence, specializing in the forced removal of faces. This one arguably has a personality and isn’t just a punchline.
But that’s Butcher. What about Homelander?
Well…he cut a deal with Victoria Neuman and took over Vought. Then he made Starlight regret talking to Supersonic about the plans to take Homelander down because that fool talked to A-Train and A-Train…he knows who butters his bread. I don’t know how Homelander is going to explain Supersonic’s disappearance. I don’t rightfully think he cares. It’s the sort of power movie it’s always been suggested he might pull. Only now he’s finally done it. And he didn’t do it to keep Supersonic in line…he did it to keep Annie in line. Homelander is arguably getting worse, particularly since the only thing he cares about are his ratings and public approval.
Maybe Annie should be glad Hughie slipped himself some of that temp V.
Eh, I doubt it. Annie knows better than anyone how traumatic that stuff makes everything.
Oh, and of course Solider Boy isn’t dead, so I guess that supe-killing gun doesn’t exist as I suspected. He also has a beam that can steal a supe’s powers.
I wonder how bad of a psycho he is going to turn out to be…
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