Does Butcher Die in The Boys Comics?

Summary

• Season 4 of The Boys showed Butcher slowly but surely losing his humanity.
• This is consistent with the original storyline, but there he began preying on his former allies.
• While Butcher's fate may be similar in the show, it is likely that circumstances will change.

Billy Butcher has gone completely insane. Well, we've been hearing similar things from both the characters and the fans since the first season of The Boys. The leader of the titular group of vigilantes has been portrayed as a deeply traumatized man from the very beginning, and not just because of Becca's disappearance and subsequent tragic death. He grew up in a family with an abusive father from whom he inadvertently inherited his anger issues, and as we learned in Season 4, he and Joe Kessler committed no small number of atrocities during the War on Terror.

Now, with his brains slowly leaking out of his ears due to the deleterious effects of Compound V, Butcher has embraced his dark side, sinking into a brutal, amoral cynicism and stopping at nothing to destroy all Supes on Earth. We can't say for sure if Butcher's days are numbered, but based on the comic's storyline, we can expect a rather tragic ending.

Let's find out if Billy Butcher will die according to the plot of the comic series created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

Butcher's Fate in the Comics

In the final volume of The Boys, the collapse of Vought and the Seven was not enough for Butcher and his new goal was to eliminate all Supes, as he now had the technology to remotely attack the neurons of Compound V carriers.

However, it turns out that the serum was not only being used for its intended purpose but was also being added to food and cosmetics by Vought. As a result, Butcher, just like Marvel's Thanos, was prepared to literally wipe out half of Earth's population. Naturally, the prospect of genocide did not sit well with The Boys.

What followed was long and incredibly cruel machinations to lure The Boys to his side. But when his allies (who are also Supes in the comics) refused, he first beat his best friend, Mother's Milk, to death and then blew up The Boys' office, where Frenchie and Kimiko were.

The only one who managed to resist him was Hughie. After a brief struggle, they both fell from the top of the Empire State Building, breaking Butcher's neck and leaving him paralyzed. Although Hughie wanted to spare his former friend, Billy, knowing that he would never be able to move again and would end up behind bars, forced him to kill himself by lying that he had killed Hughie's parents.

Will Butcher Follow the Same Path in the Series?

Of course, Eric Kripke's show has deviated from the source material in many ways, but judging by current events, Season 5 will follow most of the original's plot. As we know, Homelander is indeed planning to assassinate the President, and Butcher himself would generally be willing to use the virus if he had it in his hands.

But while Butcher may very well die in the series finale, it's unlikely that events will play out exactly as they do in the comics. In the show, we are directly told that he still has a shred of humanity left, expressed through Becca's hallucinations. And who better than him to show Ryan the light?

Also, the main reason the members of The Boys were murdered was because both Frenchie and MM were Supes in the comics — even if Butcher does go down the path of genocide, he would have no motivation to kill his allies since they are human in the show.

The final episode of The Boys Season 4 will air on July 18, 2024.