How The Boys comic ends: the one twist the show refused to adapt
The Prime Video series wrapped in May 2026 after five seasons, ending more or less where Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic did back in 2012: a battle at the White House, a dead Homelander, and Hughie pulling the trigger on Butcher. But the comic reaches that finale through a bombshell the show deliberately binned.
Spoilers for both versions from here.
The twist: Black Noir is a Homelander clone
The comic's silent, masked Black Noir barely does anything for 64 issues. Then issue #65 detonates. Noir is revealed as a clone of Homelander, created by Vought as a fail-safe with one job: kill Homelander if he ever goes rogue. The order never came — so Noir, unravelling, engineered it. He committed the vilest crimes in the series himself, including the rape and murder of Butcher's wife Becky, and photographed the scenes to frame Homelander.
The frame job works twice over.
Butcher's entire revenge crusade was aimed at the wrong supe, and Homelander — confronted with photographic evidence of atrocities he can't remember — concludes he's blacked out and done them, snaps, and leads a superhero coup on the White House. There, Noir finally fulfils his purpose and kills Homelander. A wounded Noir is then finished off by Butcher, who tears his skull open with a crowbar.
How the comic actually ends
- Butcher's endgame — revenge complete, he plots to wipe out everyone with Compound V in their blood, which by this point includes his own team.
- The Boys die — Butcher murders Frenchie, Mother's Milk, and the Female when they stand in his way.
- Hughie ends it — atop the Empire State Building, Butcher goads his last surviving friend into killing him, and dies satisfied.
- The quiet coda — Hughie settles down with Annie and keeps a watchful eye on the supe population.
Why the show refused it
Showrunner Eric Kripke never planned to adapt the clone reveal, and the series dismantled it early: TV Black Noir was a completely different character — an ex-Payback member executed by Homelander in season 3 for hiding that Soldier Boy was his father. His replacement, a method actor, was killed by The Deep in season 5. More importantly, the show wanted Homelander guilty. On television, he really is the monster Butcher believes him to be, so a last-minute "he was framed" reveal would have undone eight years of character work.
What the show did instead
Same destination, different road. Homelander is depowered and Butcher kills him in the White House — using, in a sly nod, the exact crowbar-through-the-skull move that finished Noir on the page. Butcher still tries to release the virus, and Hughie still stops him, at Vought Tower rather than the Empire State Building. The rest of the team survives (bar Frenchie), Ryan takes over the comic twist's job of pushing Butcher past his limit, and Stan Edgar strolls back in to reclaim Vought.