The Boys: 25 Strongest Super-Abled Characters, Ranked

Warning! Contains spoilers for The Boys season 4!

Summary

• The Boys
  features strong characters rivaling Marvel and DC heroes, offering a cynical take on superheroes.
• New and powerful supes like Soldier Boy shake up the ranking of the strongest characters in
  The Boys
  .
• Homelander reigns as the most powerful supe, with abilities that make him nearly unbeatable in the show.

The Boys‘ strongest characters match up with any superhero series, especially from Marvel or DC. The Amazon Prime Vshow is based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and The Boys has a much more cynical approach to superheroes, bringing to TV a new ‘dark’ take on the genre. Since that first season was a huge success, Amazon Prime has developed more seasons of The Boys as well as spinoffs, both animated and live-action, with Gen V introducing a new generation of supes — some of whom with abilities that rival those of the super-powerful heroes from the Seven.

With the addition of characters like Soldier Boy and even the Boys themselves getting powers of their own when needed, the roster of contenders for the title of most powerful Supe in The Boys has changed significantly across the show’s four seasons. The strongest Supes in The Boys, however, are absolute power-houses compared to their weaker counterparts, with the strongest of all being such a threat that they’re a genuine threat to global stability.

25 Blindspot

Played By Chris Mark

Blindspot may have only appeared for a single scene in The Boys season 2, but from his abilities, it’s clear he could have been an incredibly powerful (and dangerous) Supe had he stuck around. He may never have been in the running for the strongest Supe in The Boys overall, but he’s also clearly more powerful than some of those who had much more screentime. While seeking a replacement for Translucent, Ashley Barrett discovered a blind person with abilities. She believed he’d not only be a great addition to The Seven but also a welcomed, positive light on Vought’s public image.

Blindspot’s abilities include super hearing and amazing agility with proficiency using daggers and bow staves. Unfortunately, Homelander wasn’t too thrilled. To prove a point and assert his dominance over Barret, he smacked the young hero’s skull, causing him to bleed from the ears. This led to him exiting the show almost as soon as he’d arrived. However, it’s also clear that Blindspot is a take on Marvel’s Daredevil — and if his inspiration is anything to go by, Blindspot could have been an effective addition to the Seven, and a dangerous foe for Huey, Butcher, and the rest of the Boys.

24 Naquib

Played By Samer Salem

Like Blindspot, Naquib didn’t appear much in The Boys, though this doesn’t change the fact that he was clearly one of the most powerful Supes in the show – and, unlike Blindspot, the show made this abundantly clear thanks to Naquib’s incredibly destructive powerset. Desperate to create a super terrorist for the headlines, Homelander forced a man named Naqib to ingest Compound V. Naquib’s resulting powers included super durability and self-detonation.

Naqib was a living bomb capable of emitting massive amounts of energy from his body, creating an explosion. While this doesn’t quite put him on the level of the likes of Homelander or Black Noir, a bomb that goes off anytime, anywhere, and survives for more explosions is a supreme threat. Homelander unleashes him onto an American military base in season one which he quickly destroys. The character appeared again in season 2 during Black Noir’s attempt to clean up the mess.

23 Mesmer / The Mesmerizer

Played By Haley Joel Osment

Telepaths have a long history in comic books, and Mesmer is The Boys take on the popular trope. Mesmer was a super telepath capable of both mind reading and memory manipulation. The ability to read minds and manipulate the thoughts of others makes it pretty self-explanatory why Mesmer is one of the most powerful Supes in The Boys. However, as with the many characters in comic book history he parodies, it also explains why he could never really be considered the strongest.

While he’s a play on the trope of mind-oriented heroes who can’t really fight, his abilities give him a dangerous edge over other Supes. Mesmer can manipulate memories to change public opinion or even make other Supes view him as a god. He could have actually ended Homelander’s tyranny if he’d been more invested in bringing down The Seven. In the show, Mesmer uses his mind-reading abilities to find out more about Kimiko. After several sessions, he discovered her tragic backstory but ultimately betrayed The Boys by offering their identities to Vought.

22 Crimson Countess

Played By Laurie Holden

Crimson Countess was introduced in The Boys many decades after her career as an active Supe, and so there’s a definite sense that the show didn’t portray the character in her prime and at full strength. That being said, while viewers didn’t really get to see the full extent of her powers, it was hinted many times that she was a force to be reckoned with when she was younger.

Many Supes in The Boys are analogs of popular Marvel and DC characters, and Crimson Countess is a clear homage to Marvel’s Scarlet Witch. However, while Wanda is one of the most overpowered heroes of all time, the Countess is much more limited in strength. Crimson Countess can create and shoot powerful balls of energy that explode on impact. The only caveat, which proves to be a sizable weakness, is that she needs to bring her hands together in a triangle shape to do it. The Boys are able to tie her up, and she’s rendered largely harmless.

21 Cate Dunlap

Played By Cate Dunlap

While she doesn’t look as strong as other Supes on The Boys, Cate Dunlap — one of several Supes Gen V focused on — is one of the most powerful characters on the show. She has similar powers to The Mesmerizer and, to a lesser extent, to Mindstorm. She’s a Supe who ranks among the strongest not because of her physical abilities or her durability in a fight, but because of what she could potentially do with her powers.

She is a student at God U and can control the minds of others. However, what makes her less powerful than someone like Mindstorm is that she struggles to control and maintain her powers. She also has to touch someone to begin the mind control, and her energy drains as she uses her powers, so there are true limitations. However, the fact Cate can control someone and make them die for her means that she’d clearly be a threat even to the likes of Homelander if she caught them unawares.

20 The Deep

Played By Chace Crawford

The Deep is The Boys’ version of Aquaman. In terms of his personality and his role in the show itself, The Deep is portrayed as somewhat pathetic, and is often mainly included for comic relief (at his expense). Despite being a member of The Seven, The Deep is widely ignored by Vought International and is often treated as a joke. However, this doesn’t mean that viewers should underestimate how powerful he actually is.

His powers include aquatic respiration and telepathy, as well as above-average strength and endurance. There are a few moments when The Deep gets serious and actually flexes his abilities to their full potential, and these show that the main thing holding him back isn’t having weak powers but his flawed personality. In the comics, The Deep always wears a diving helmet that he is unable to take off due to an ancient curse. Moreover, the hero distances himself from The Seven to join a different team in the comics.

19 Popclaw

Played By Brittany Allen

By the time viewers met Popclaw — whose real name was Charlotte — on The Boys, she was no longer an active super-abled hero. As a young girl, Popclaw was part of the Teenage Kix team and starred in the in-universe movie franchise Terminal Beauty. Over time, however, she develops a more private life and focuses on dating A-Train.

In terms of her powers, Popclaw has a set of abilities that instantly rank her among the most powerful Supes in The Boys — although, admittedly, she’s far from a contender for the top spot. Popclaw is able to retract a claw from both of her wrists and has an above-average strength in comparison to other humans. Despite the fact that she is quite strong, she is far from being the strongest super-abled person in the universe of The Boys. However, had she not been killed by A-Train, she could have been a singificant threat to the likes of Huey and the Boys.

18 Lamplighter

Played By Shawn Ashmore

Introduced in The Boys season 2, Lamplighter is one of several Supers who viewers meet after their career as an active superhero. However, in Lamplighter’s case, there are several moments where Shawn Ashmore’s character flexes his powers and makes it clear that he’s a force to be reckoned with. Audiences learn in the first season that an ex-member of The Seven, Lamplighter, retired into obscurity. For a while, the most known about him was that he was a pyrokinetic and Starlight took his place.

His story picks up in season two when the main cast meets him as an orderly at Sage Grove Center, a secret Vought facility. Instead of a retirement, Vought has him tending to Compound V subjects. His role involves burning the evidence of failed experiments. With a lighter in hand, he blasts innocent patients until nothing remains. Additionally, this shows Lamplighter needs a source of fire to work with instead of creating it himself.

17 Translucent

Played By Alex Hassell

In terms of the narrative of the show, Translucent serves a single purpose – to be the first Supe viewers see Butcher and the Boys kill, and to demonstrate that getting rid of super-abled individuals is always a difficult undertaking. However, it’s also established multiple times when the character is mentioned posthumously by other members of The Seven that he was an incredibly powerful Supe. Translucent is a bulletproof character who has super-abled strength and endurance and can also turn himself invisible.

Needless to say, Translucent is among the strongest of The Seven and is largely regarded as nearly undefeatable. On The Boys, Translucent is captured by the Billy Butcher-led Boys team, which struggles greatly to find a way to actually kill the hero. Eventually, Translucent dies at the hands of the Boys, who figure out that the super-abled character is nearly impenetrable from the outside, but not from the inside. It was when they found his weakness that Translucent proved he wasn’t as powerful as many thought.

16 A-Train

Played By Jessie T. Usher

Much like telepaths, speedsters — heroes that can run incredibly fast — are a staple of comic books, and The Boys has several. However, A-Train is the most prominent, and demonstrates multiple times that his mastery of his powers makes him not only one of the fastest, but also one of the strongest Supes in The Boys. A-Train is known as the fastest speedster alive on The Boys, thus granting him the chance to be part of Vought International’s The Seven.

However, while he is clearly one of the strongest super-abled character in the series, most of his peak performance comes from experimenting with Compound V rather than relying on his actual skills. A-Train goes through many ups and downs while on The Boys, going as far as killing his girlfriend Popclaw after finding out that she had given the Boys confidential information. Later seasons of The Boys saw A-Train dip in power a bit due to issues with his heart.

15 Kimiko

Played By Karen Fukuhara

Kimiko, who is more commonly referred to as The Female, ends up joining the Boys crew after being “rescued” by them. Portrayed by Karen Fukuhara (Katana in Suicide Squad), Kimiko has super-abled strength, reflexes, endurance, and speed, as well as the power to regenerate/heal her wounds.

Outside of her lack of claws, Kimiko’s powers seem to mirror those of Marvel’s Wolverine, and just like Logan, she proves time and time again that she’s more than a match for other Supes — even those who are technically more powerful than her. When first seen in season 1, Kimiko appears to be traumatized and highly violent. Over time, however, Frenchie enables her to open herself up to him and The Boys as a whole. She soon becomes a valued member of the group, even taking part in some of their heists.

14 Starlight

Played By Erin Moriarty

By the time The Boys begins, Starlight is an up-and-coming super-abled character hired by Vought International following The Lamplighter’s retirement from The Seven. All in all, Starlight (a.k.a. Annie January) is a small-town hero who was raised by a single mother and has strong religious beliefs. Her abilities include the absorption and manipulation of electricity, as well as above-average strength and endurance.

While she may not be the absolute most powerful Supe in The Boys, she is definitely the strongest in terms of overcoming trauma. She faced sexual assault, was subjected to corporate constraints, and came to grips with her religious affiliations while with The Seven. After dealing with Homelander’s threats in season 2, Starlight proves she’s more than capable of being a supe to fear. It’s also entirely possible that Starlight hasn’t reached her full potential yet in The Boys, so by the time the show concludes it may well be that she establishes herself as an equal to even the likes of Homelander.

13 Black Noir

Played By Nathan Mitchell

Being one of the few Supes that the egomaniac Homelander seemed to actually respect, it was always clear that Black Noir was among the strongest Supes in The Boys. Much of Black Noir’s personality and backstory is a mystery, but he had his time to shine in season 3. In the comics, Black Noir is a clone of Homelander and is Vought International’s secret weapon to stopping the seemingly unstoppable Supe if needed.

However, on the show, Black Noir is a former Payback teammate of Soldier Boy who suffered brain damage and abuse at the hands of his former leader. Noir is made more relatable (but less powerful) than his comic counterpart. Noir still has enhanced durability, but Homelander effortlessly puts his fist through Noir’s chest, killing him almost instantly. A new Supe took up the Black Noir mantle in season 4, and seems to have a similar powerset, though with the additional ability of flight.

12 Golden Boy

Played By Patrick Schwarzenegger

Introduced in Gen V, Golden Boy was tipped as a possible Homelander replacement, both in-universe and (through clever marketing on Amazon’s part) outside the show. Of course, this turned out to be a red herring, though Golden Boy’s tragic ending doesn’t change the fact that he has some of the strongest powers in The Boys universe.

Golden Boy was the face of God U and the hero who stood tall as the best among all the students there. He had thermonuclear powers and this meant he could control and utilize fire and also resist explosions and fly. When powered up, he also had superhuman strength and durability. He wasn’t seen much in battle since he died in the first episode of The Boys: Gen V, but he couldn’t really hurt Jordan Li and his brother Sam knocked him out in a fight. However, he was still very powerful, and the Seven actually offered Golden Boy a spot with the team before he even graduated from God U.

11 Sam Riordan

Played By Asa Germann

There are some Supes in The Boys that are so powerful in their youth that Vought feels they need to be contained and conditioned, and one of the best examples is Gen V’s Sam Riordan. While Golden Boy was the head of the table for Gen V at God U, even he knew that his brother was more powerful. Sam Riordan is Golden Boy’s brother, and he is so powerful that Vought kept him locked away, sedated, and imprisoned below the God U facilities.

Despite all their precautions, Sam escaped more than once and resisted capture when other supes came searching for him. The show mostly reveals that Sam is more powerful than Golden Boy, with superhuman strength and durability, and he even knocked out his brother once. The only downfall here is that Sam was never trained to control his powers and focus them properly.

10 Jordan Li

Played By Derek Luh & London Thor

At first, Jordan Li seemed like an unlikely contender for the title of strongest Supe in The Boys. However, as Gen V progressed and the full nature of their powers revealed itself, it quickly became apparent that Li was a force to be reckoned with. Jordan Li is a supe with two different sets of powers. When it comes to this member of Gen V, Jordin Li can gender swap, and their powers change if they are a male or a female.

When a female, Jordan Li can shoot energy pulses and can utilize energy blasts. However, when it comes to pure strength, Jordan Li is strongest when they are a male. In their male form, Jordan is indestructible and has enhanced strength. When The Boys: Gen V started, most people felt Golden Boy was the most powerful member of the team, but when Jordan Li battled Golden Boy and Sam, they took almost no damage and stood tall in the end.

9 Queen Maeve

Played By Dominique McElligott

Being a clear parody of DC’s Wonder Woman, it’s not surprise that Queen Maeve is one of the most powerful Supes in The Boys, and showed that she could even go toe-to-toe with the likes of Homelander — and, while Homelander may be stronger, Maeve would put up a solid fight (which is saying a lot, considering just how powerful the primary antagonist of the show actually is). Queen Maeve’s powers include above-average strength, endurance, and reflexes, as well as the ability to jump upwards of 12 feet high and being immune to virtually any physical harm.

There is no doubt that Queen Maeve is one of the strongest super-abled members of The Seven, thus being one of the most powerful characters on The Boys. Despite being complicit in most of Homelander’s crimes, Maeve is still caring toward Starlight and displays more resentment for Vought International’s evil secrets than other members of The Seven do. However, in The Boys season 3, she took a beating and lost most of her power.

8 Marie Moreau

Played By Jaz Sinclair

Much like Starlight in The Boys, Gen V’s Marie Moreau is a Supe who has yet to unlock the full extent of her powers, and it’s highly likely that she’ll rank much higher by the time both shows conclude. Marie Moreau has powers in The Boys: Gen V that are unlike any hero or villain in Marvel or DC. Marie can control blood in both her body and the body of others as well — a skill that fans have affectionately dubbed “blood-bending”.

The only thing that holds her back compared to others is that she struggles to control her powers. She accidentally killed her parents with her powers, and they are extremely dangerous if left unchecked. She can use her own blood and turn it into sharp weapons, send it out like a rope to bind people, and she can even take control of the blood in someone else and blow them up from the inside out.

7 Victoria Neuman

Played By Claudia Doumit

Of all the Supes, one of the most mysterious in The Boys was Victoria Neuman. A big mystery in season 2 was figuring out the identity of the head-exploding Supe that killed several characters, including those about to testify against Vought in court. The finale revealed that the killer was Victoria Neuman, a politician that nobody knew had powers.

Season 3 of The Boys clarified Victoria’s powers a bit, revealing that she can explode any body part that she can see. It’s not known if she can explode non-biological targets, and she does still fear Homelander, so it appears enhanced durability may overrule her powers. Gen V also further revealed that she and Marie have the same power, she’s just seemingly mastered hers. Unfortunately, Neuman didn’t survive long enough for fans to find out if she could put an end to Homelander once and for all, but should he ever meet Marie Moreau, this question could finally be answered.

6 Billy Butcher

Played By Karl Urban

Viewers who never read the source material may have been shocked to see Billy Butcher get powers as he’s made it his life’s work to take out every Supe he can. However, thanks to repeated doses of Temp V, Butcher gains Homelander-level durability and eye lasers. These abilities allow Billy to go toe-to-toe with Homelander and Soldier Boy. Billy is only held back by his lack of knowledge and experience using his powers, but he is able to go toe-to-toe in battle with Homelander and can do most of what the Seven’s leader can do other than fly.

However, Butcher’s powers changed completely in The Boys season 4. After taking the full, non-temporary version of Compound V, Butcher began to experience strange hallucinations and blackouts. During one of these episodes, he awoke to find he’d, somehow, ripped the elastic Supe Ezekiel into multiple pieces. By the end of the season it was revealed that Butcher had manifested tentacle-like growths that can sprout from his chest. Given everything that happened afterward, it’s highly likely that Butcher may now rival even the likes of Homelander in terms of his super-abled capabilities.