Billy Butcher is one of the most dangerous characters inThe Boysuniverse, as proven by him having killed six different supes throughout the show’s four seasons. Billy Butcher has made it his life goal to kill as many supes as possible, with his first introduction in the show revolving around him and the other core members ofThe Boys’ensemble castfiguring out the best way to kill Translucent. By the time ofThe Boysseason 4’s ending, Butcher has managed to rack up a pretty impressive kill count.
The Boysseason 4 has come and gone, with the highly anticipated continuation of the show setting the stage for an epic final season.The Boysseason 4 will lead directly intoThe Boysseason 5’s climactic story, with the titular team reckoning with Butcher’s new status as a dark-sided supe asHomelander gets closer to being Presidentof the United States of America. Although Butcher has not been able to kill his main target, Homelander, he has left a pretty major path of carnage behind him throughout his journey inThe Boys.
6Mesmer
Dies In “The Self-Preservation Society”
Thefirst supe that Billy Butcher kills in Amazon Prime Video’sThe Boysis Mesmer, played by Haley Joel Osment. The telepathic supe got his start as a child star, with him being the leading role in the TV showThe Mesmerizer. Although Mesmer was once one of Vought’s most exciting rising stars, his misuse of his telepathic abilities led to Vought cutting ties with him, causing him to fall out of the spotlight. His subsequent criminal activities led to him falling even further, putting Mesmer in a pretty tragic place by the time he enters the lives of the Boys.
Butcher lures Mesmer into a bathroom and bashes his head into a sink multiple times, killing the psychic supe for good…
InThe Boysseason 1, the titular team finds Mesmer while he is signing DVDs ofThe Mesmerizer, blackmailing him and explaining that he can get time with his daughter if he agrees to perform a psychic reading on the then-unknown supe Kimiko. Mesmer gives the Boys the information that they wanted, and they part ways. However, Mesmer sees the encounter as an opportunity, and, having learned about the Boys' desires to kill Homelander and take down Vought, Mesmer decides to betray Billy Butcher and the team.
Mesmer goes to Vought and reveals information about the Boys to members of The Seven, hoping that this will put him back in Vought’s favor. The Seven uses this information to track the Boys as well as their family members, with their identities now being on Vought’s radar. Because of this, Butcher hunts down Mesmer, explaining that he placed a tracker on the supe upon their first meeting. Getting revenge, Butcher lures Mesmer into a bathroom and bashes his head into a sink multiple times, killing the psychic supe for good.
5Unnamed Supe Patient
Dies In “The Bloody Doors Off”
The second supe that Billy Butcher kills inThe Boysdoesn’t come until season 2, and unlike the first supe to meet his fate at the hands of the Boys' leader, this supe is unnamed.The Boysseason 2, episode 6, “The Bloody Doors Off” sees Starlight find her way into Stormfront’s laptop, discovering that the Nazi supe has been emailingVought leader Stan Edgarabout a mysterious facility known as the Sage Grove Center. The Boys decide to investigate, with the team heading there in an attempt to discover what Vought’s intentions with the facility are.
Upon arriving,Butcher and the gang secretly make their way through the center, attempting to investigate Vought’s plans. While things go well for a while, Frenchie eventually encounters Lamplighter, setting off a disastrous chain of events. Using his powers, Lamplighter attempts to blast the Boys, but the Boys manage to knock Lamplighter’s ball of fire away. Instead, the flame hits the wall of a nearby cell, with this cell containing one ofThe Boys' most powerful supes: Cindy. Cindy exits the cell, kills a Vought guard, and starts a riot at Sage Grove.
Cindy rips the cell doors off of each patient’s room, allowing the Sage Grove Center’s superpowered prisoners to roam free. Caught up in the middle of the riot, the Boys attempt to escape the facility, but they are required to face several supes along the way. One of these is an unnamed escapee who has the ability to shoot what seems to be psychic blasts of energy. After blasting the team and causing their van to flip, Billy Butcher shoots the patient several times, killing him and saving the Boys.
4Gunpowder
Dies In “The Only Man In The Sky”
The next supe that Billy Butcher kills is the far-right gun-toting hero Gunpowder, with him appearing inThe Boysseason 3, episode 2, “The Only Man in the Sky.“Gunpowder was the original sidekick of Solider Boyand one of the foundingmembers of Vought’s premiere 1980s superhero team, Payback. As the name implies, Gunpowder heavily relies on guns and other types of projectile weaponry to pull off his supe feats, with him having the abilities of a master marksman who rarely misses a shot. However, he wasn’t a good enough marksman to kill Billy Butcher.
While attempting to find out what really happened to Soldier Boy, the Boys decide to investigate the former members of Payback, with Billy Butcher deciding to take up the case of Gunpowder. Butcher goes to a gun show and confronts Gunpowder, asking about his history with Soldier Boy and his role in the supe’s disappearance and subsequent cover-up. After bringing up Soldier Boy’s harassment of Gunpowder, Gunpowder attempts to kill Butcher in the parking lot. Butcher manages to escape, but this isn’t the last time that the two meet.
Butcher decides to confront Gunpowder again, and although Gunpowder shoots him, Butcher has a trick up his sleeve. As it turns out,Billy Butcher has gained superpowers from Temp V, with him having increased strength and laser eyes. Gunpowder realizes that he has been beaten and admits the truth about Soldier Boy to Butcher, hoping to make it out alive. However,Butcher beats Gunpowder and then uses his laser eyes to kill him, putting an end to the life of Soldier Boy’s sidekick and the former Payback member.
3Splinter
Dies In “Life Among The Septics”
Although Butcher kills plenty of humans, he doesn’t kill another supe again untilThe Boysseason 4, episode 2, “Life Among the Septics.” In the episode, the Boys decide to investigate Firecracker, a new supe that Homelander and Sister Sage are planning on recruiting to The Seven.This trail leads them to TruthCon, a far-right convention themed around various real-world and in-universe conspiracy theories. Although TruthCon is mostly attended by humans, the Boys run into one supe that they weren’t expecting to see: Splinter.
Splinter is a new supe inThe Boysseason 4 who has the ability to split apart into multiple clones, although he rips through his clothes during the process. Splinter attends TruthCon in order to host the panel that Firecracker is speaking at, with him introducing her before Firecracker’s presentation on the conspiracies surrounding Starlight. The Boys then attempt to follow Splinter as he leaves the room, and while they do get more information from his phone, they open the sauna to seeThe Boysseason 4’s most disgusting scene yet.
Although the Boys go to the purported meeting place of Firecracker and Sister Sage, the team soon realizes that this is a trap, with several armed clones of Splinter arriving to kill them. This leads to an all-out brawl between the two factions, with the Boys fighting Firecracker and her army of Splinter clones. While each member of the Boys gets to kill at least one clone of Splinter, the supe isn’t truly defeated until the original Splinter is killed. As it turns out,Butcher is the one to get the killing blow on Splinter Prime, with him stabbing Splinter with a crowbar.
2Ezekiel
Dies In “Wisdom Of The Ages”
The final supe that Billy Butcher has killed inThe Boysso far is Ezekiel, the former supe pastor of Starlight. Ezekiel was first seen back inThe Boysseason 1, and while he has sporadically appeared and been referenced throughout the show, his final appearance occurs inThe Boysseason 4, episode 4, “Wisdom of the Ages.” In the episode,Firecracker invites Ezekiel to speak at her anti-Starlight event, with him taking the stage and delivering a sermon on the evils of the Starlight House.
Later in the night, Frenchie breaks into Firecracker’s trailer in an attempt to learn more about her. However, Ezekiel catches him in the act, preparing to kill the member of the Boys. Luckily, Butcher arrives in time to help him, freezing one of Ezekiel’s arms and breaking it off. However, Ezekiel quickly wraps his elastic arm around Butcher, choking him unconscious and seemingly killing him with his strong, useful powers.
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However,Butcher wakes up to find Ezekiel dead, with his body having been ripped apart and his blood strewn across the room. Due to Butcher revealing that he took Compound V, it makes sense that Butcher’s superpowers manifested while he was unconscious and killed Ezekiel. In the show’s fourth entry, it was revealed in abig twist thatThe Boys'“Joe Kessler"is the dormant superpower inside Butcher which manifests as giant tentacles that are powerful enough to rip supes apart, proving what happened to Ezekiel.
1Victoria Neuman
Dies In “Assassination Run”
The sixth supe that Billy Butcher kills inThe Boysis Victoria Neuman. Neuman was the object of the titular group’s desires inThe Boysseason 4, with the team spending the majority of the story trying to figure out a way to kill her. This was in order to prevent a superhero with ties to Homelander and Vought from influencing the political state of the United States, though this proved a fruitless venture with Homelander becoming the pseudo-President going intoThe Boysseason 5 and likelyGen Vseason 2also.
After trying bullets, acid, and killer sheep, the Boys were left despairing over how to kill Victoria. That said, a fortunate turn of events meant that they may not have to after Victoria decided to turn against Homelander and ask Hughie and his friends for help. Meanwhile, Butcher gave himself over to his dark side and the superpowers it possessed after Ryan turned against him and Mallory.
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After Neuman met up with Hughie, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and the rest of the Boys, she thought she and her daughter were safe. Butcher made sure that was not the case. Now healed from his illness by “Kessler” who simply wanted control of Butcher’s body, the protagonist/anti-hero ofThe Boysarrived and unleashed his powers on Neuman. Just as he did with Ezekiel, Butcher used his tentacles to rip Neuman apart, setting up a dark future forThe Boysseason 5 as Butcher increased his kill count and, potentially, placed himself on the hit list of the titular team.
The Boys
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The Boys is a gritty and subversive take on the superhero genre, focusing on a group of vigilantes who confront powerful superheroes abusing their abilities, exploring themes of corruption and moral ambiguity in a world where heroes are not always what they seem.
