Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys made one major change from the comics: everyone on the team save Kimiko stays human. They’re just regular people going up against super-powered gods. Showrunner Eric Kripke wanted
When Season 3 introduced Temp V, the show finally revealed why keeping The Boys human mattered so much. Butcher and Hughie both take the temporary enhancement, and the powers they get are mirrors of who these characters are and what they want. More importantly, Temp V acts as a metaphor for how inherently corruptive it is to seek power for oneself.
Supes in the comics, humans in the TV series
In Garth Ennis’s comics, Billy Butcher gave Hughie, Mother’s Milk (M.M.) and Frenchie Compound V without their consent early in the story. Everyone gets enhanced strength and durability. It’s practical and makes the story easier to tell.
For the TV show, Eric Kripke’s version keeps the team human specifically because it creates tension. When someone faces off against a supe, there’s actual danger. The team is forced to rely on their wits or use tactics like blackmail and espionage to gain the upper hand. The David versus Goliath dynamic only works if David doesn’t secretly have superpowers too.
But there’s another reason for the change. The Boys is about corruption. It’s about what power does to people and how easy it is to become the thing you hate. That theme falls apart if your protagonists are already super-powered from episode one. You need the moral high ground first. Then you need to lose it.
Temp V as a character test
Season 3 introduces Compound V24, a modified version of the drug Compound V that gives users superpowers for 24 hours. The powers the user gets seem to be based on their personality traits or deepest desire, along with enhanced physical traits like super strength, durability and speed.
The show presents this as a solution to their problem. Finally, they can fight supes on equal footing.
Only two people take it: Butcher and Hughie. M.M., Frenchie, and Kimiko refuse because they see it for what it is. A compromise. The beginning of becoming what they’re fighting against.
One glaring difference between Temp V in the show versus permanent Compound V in the comics is that it’s a choice with consequences. In the comics, Butcher makes the choice for everyone. The team is turned into supes whether they like it or not. There’s no character journey, no moral test, no moment of temptation.
The show makes power a decision that can kill you. Later in the season, we learn that Temp V is extremely unstable with numerous side effects ranging from nausea, muscle spasms, and projectile vomiting. It also causes fatal brain lesions after three to five doses.
Butcher’s heat vision: becoming your enemy
When Butcher takes Temp V, he gets heat vision, super strength, hearing, reflexes and durability. In other words, the only abilities Butcher didn’t get that resembles Homelander’s are the ability to fly, X-ray vision and the enhanced sense of smell. These aren’t defensive powers. They’re built for survival, domination and destruction.
The symbolism couldn’t be more obvious if the scripts were written in blood. While Butcher’s lasers are golden instead of Homelander’s signature red, it doesn’t change the fact that he has more in common with the man he hates more than anyone in the world. Every time he uses that power, he’s visually becoming Homelander.
This detail was something the show has been building toward since the beginning. Butcher is willing to lie, manipulate, and use people as tools. Just like Homelander. His obsession with control and his refusal to let anyone else make decisions? That’s Homelander’s ego. His conviction that he’s the only one who can save the world? Again, very Homelander-like.
M.M. calls this out in season 3. He sees what Butcher’s becoming and he hates it. But Butcher doesn’t care. Or worse, he does care and chooses the power anyway.
Butcher’s powers reflect who he already is. They don’t corrupt him so much as reveal him. He’s always been willing to burn everything down to kill Homelander. Now he literally has the tools to do it. The tragedy isn’t that Butcher becomes a monster. It’s that he was already one, and the powers just made it impossible to deny.
Hughie’s teleportation: running from yourself
Hughie gets the opposite power set. He can teleport, heal from his injuries, and punch through body armor with enhanced strength. Oh, and he loses his clothes every time he teleports, because Hughie can never catch a break.
If Butcher’s powers are about confrontation, Hughie’s are about escape.
Teleportation is a defensive ability. It removes you from danger. It lets you avoid conflict. Even the enhanced strength and healing factor represent preservation. Hughie’s body wants to protect itself and others, not dominate them.
The nakedness is an interesting detail. It’s emasculating, the opposite of intimidating. Butcher shows up to a fight shooting golden death rays like a knockoff Homelander. Hughie shows up nude and vulnerable. The Boys isn’t subtle about this being a comment on toxic masculinity and what “power” actually looks like.
Hughie’s powers should reinforce who he is. The guy who wants to protect people, who got dragged into this world by tragedy. Instead, they corrupt him.
Hughie uses teleportation to insert himself into situations where he doesn’t belong. He uses his powers to “protect” Annie when she tells him she doesn’t need protection. He violates her consent by teleporting her without asking, which is exactly the kind of boundary-crossing that supes commit against normal people.
Annie tells him he’s not protecting her. He’s just feeding his ego so he’ll stop feeling insecure. He’s proving something to himself, trying to be “man enough” for the job.
This is how Temp V corrupts Hughie. It lets him indulge in his worst impulses. He’s always felt inadequate, like the weak link. When he gets powers, instead of using them to help people, he uses them to prove he can be a hero.
The problem with wanting power
The Boys make it clear that having powers doesn’t corrupt you. It’s the reason why you want them in the first place.
Kimiko has powers throughout the entire show, but she didn’t choose them. They were forced on her. She sees them as a curse and longs to be normal. When she temporarily loses her powers and then chooses to take Compound V again, it’s because she wants to be strong enough to protect the people she loves. The show treats this as being distinct from what Butcher and Hughie are doing. They want to feel strong and capable and that desire is what damns them.
Well, it damns Butcher. After taking six doses of Temp V, he has 18 months to live by the start of season 4. Hughie on the other hand, only took three doses and appears to be fine.
The show uses superpowers for a corruption arc. Butcher’s heat vision reveals the monster he is. Hughie’s teleportation represents his desire to escape mediocrity.
Power doesn’t corrupt, the desire for it does. In a show about superheroes as fascists and celebrities as gods, that’s the most important lesson of all.
