Last year, Amazon Prime’s The Boys took the streaming platform industry by storm. Created by Eric Kripke based on the comic book series of the same name written by Garth Ennis. Strongly political and anti-establishment at its core, The Boys gained much notoriety for its gruesome violence and extremely diabolical characters.
The series has pulled no punches in staying faithful to its source material. Starring Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, The Boys is arguably the most violent show to have come out in recent times. Its excessive gratuitous violence, horrific sexual harassment, strong language, and unbelievable moral decadence has received widespread acclaim.
Ahead of its second season, a video clip was released in Comic-Con@Home which featured The Boys in a boat being chased by The Deep, a member of The Seven. Having committed their fair share of violence to bring down the Supes in the first season, The Boys have become a target for the enraged ‘heroes’. To stop them, The Deep commands a whale to block their path on the shore. Staying true to its graphic nature, The Boys impale the whale with their boat to escape in the most disgusting manner possible.
Despite being faithful to the comics, the series has gone a separate path when it came to the fate of a major character. In the comics, Billy Butcher’s anger towards Vought International and The Seven is quite justified as his wife, Becca Butcher, is supposedly dead due to the actions of Homelander. Yet surprisingly, Becca Butcher is found to be alive at the end of the first season.
Unfortunately, the Becca Butcher in the comics was not so lucky. In the comics, Billy and Becca visit a beach in Miami, Florida on a vacation. On the beach, The Seven make a brief appearance and leave quickly. On the second last night of their vacation, Homelander, the leader, and the most powerful member of The Seven visits Becca when Billy goes out for a walk. Homelander then rapes Becca and leaves. The traumatized Becca suddenly becomes withdrawn and silent which Billy notices.
One night, Becca loudly gasps for air which wakes up Billy from his sleep. The loud gaspings come to a sudden halt that alarms Billy. As Billy wakes up, he finds his worst nightmare in the room. After discovering Becca covered in blood, he finds an infant boy floating above her body with the umbilical cord still attached.
The result of the horrific night at Miami, the infant boy has some powers of the Homelander. As Billy tries to grasp the bedside lamp on Becca’s side, the infant boy attacks him with his laser eyes. Somehow, Billy evades the lasers and manages to get his hands on the lamp. Horrified and traumatized at the unholy sight, Billy grabs the infant by his throat and pins him down. Then, he continues to pulverize his head with the lamp until the infant dies in the most grotesque manner possible. But by then, Becca had died from her injuries since the super-powered infant had burst her open to come out.
As the show decided to go separate ways from the comics in this regard, we can only imagine how grotesque this scene would have been if the show had decided to stay absolutely faithful to the source material. Yet, the series did show a few super-powered infants who were injected with the Compound-V to gain their powers.
In ‘Good for the Soul’ episode, Billy and Mother’s Milk discover a secret chamber where Vough International is injecting Compound-V into infants to make them the next generation of superheroes. Upon getting discovered by the guards, Billy uses an infant as a weapon who can shoot lasers from its eyes to brutally injure and kill the assailants.
The second season of The Boys is slated to be released on September 4, 2020, on Amazon Prime.
