In their latest marketing stunt, The Boys' social media team mocks former President Trump's digital trading card with a similar Homelander NFT. The comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis satirizes the superhero genre, imagining many metahumans as corrupt media stars who only act good for the cameras and their loyal followers. Amazon's The Boys adaptation takes the idea one step further, subtly creating a resemblance between the most influential and dangerous hero of all, Homelander, and former President Donald Trump throughout the show.With The Boys leaning more into real-world political parallels, the show's supplementary page, Vought International, imagines their version of Trump's new digital trading card collection with a Homelander parody. The Homelander trading card announcement features similar phrasing to the Trump announcement, claiming that Homelander fans can celebrate the hero's life by paying 777 VoughtCoin for a non-fungible JPEG. The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke later responded to Trump's ironic announcement. Check out the tweets below:
How The Boys Can Push Homelander's Political Parallels Further In Season 4
The Vought International "announcement" is a clever and timely post that strengthens Homelander's ongoing characterization in the Boys TV adaptation. Kripke previously confirmed that he always saw the volatile superhero as an analog of Trump but that the likenesses were less evident in seasons 1 and 2. In The Boys season 3, however, Homelander publicly admits his feelings of superiority over the unpowered population, a controversial outburst that ironically grows his popularity. Additionally, his relationship with the Nazi Stormfront and other misdeeds stir up a cult following.
Homelander's newly outward wickedness has the opposite effect that the eponymous Boys wanted, which parallels Trump's controversial rise to power and passionate fanbase. Therefore, the response to the former President's digital trading card collection, which unironically takes advantage of the Boys' season 3 writing of Homelander, bolsters Homelander's analogous characterization in the Prime Video series. Vought International as an organization resembles some right-wing media conglomerates, so the move is also a clever way to go beyond the Homelander and Trump parallels and address the overall political landscape in America.
Assuming The Boys continues the trend of Homelander paralleling Trump, audiences should expect more parodies of his more controversial or humorous social media posts and additional mirrorings of real-world events in The Boys season 4. For example, if Kripke and The Boys writing team get particularly bold, Homelander could, perhaps, instigate a full-scale riot against a government entity like the Bureau of Superhero Affairs. So although Homelander's similarities to Trump generally involve the core themes of a desire for power, far-right extremism, and personality traits such as insecurity, The Boys season 3 set a precedent for more apparent parallels, which are likely to escalate in season 4.
Source: Vought International, Eric Kripke/Twitter