Content Warning: This list contains mentions of sexual assault
The Seven, the superhero team at the center of Amazon’s The Boys, were conceived in comic book form with direct parallels to DC’s Justice League. Homelander is an evil Superman, Black Noir is an even cooler and more mysterious Batman, Queen Maeve is a Wonder Woman analog, The Deep is a less useful Aquaman, A-Train is nowhere as selfless as The Flash, et cetera.
But in the era of the MCU, the satire of Amazon’s TV adaptation has veered closer to Marvel’s Avengers. There was even an overt spoof of Endgame’s A-Force moment with the Seven’s “Girls Get It Done” slogan in the second season.
Updated on July 7th, 2022, by Shawn S. Lealos: The Boys returned for its third season in 2022 and the so-called heroes in the Seven were worse than ever. While The Boys themselves were far from heroes, what they did was at least a touch more morally right than anything the superheroes who worked for Vought ever dreamed of doing. As the episodes roll on, it is clear that the Seven are as far removed from superhero teams like the Justice League and Avengers as anyone could be. While Marvel's greatest heroes are a genuine heroic team, the Seven have continued to prove in this new season that they won't do anything if there isn't something in it for them in the end.
They Work For A Public Company
The Avengers worked for the United States government when they first started. In the comics, it was directly for the government with paychecks and everything. In the MCU, it was for S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of the government. Either way, they worked to protect the United States from threats.
However, the Seven works for a private corporation. They are not government employees and instead answer to Vought stockholders and executives. They are not here to protect the U.S. or the world but to make the company that employs them wealthier.
They Don't Care About Saving People
The first appearance of Homelander and Queen Maeve in action as superheroes showed that they were not heroic at all. A plane was going to crash and they had to make a decision. While Homelander could have possibly used his immense powers to land it safely, he didn't.
A woman asked Maeve to at least save her young daughter, but Homelander convinced Maeve to just leave. The plane crashed and everyone died, including the children, and neither hero even attempted to save them. It was one of many evil things Homelander has done. Every member of the Avengers would have done everything possible to bring the plane down safely.
Their Membership Is Based On Popularity
The Deep believed that he was above reproach, like the other members of the Seven. However, when Starlight told the world what he did to her and the backlash started, Vought removed him from the active lineup. That was really deserved, but they didn't do it to punish him.
Vought got rid of The Deep to save their public face. They wanted to get rid of Starlight, but her overwhelming popularity among the public forced them to keep her on the team. The Avengers have the most worthy heroes on their team. The Seven have the most popular to help them sell movies and toys.
They Mock Other Superheroes
Homelander is supposed to be the Seven's version of Superman and he does a great job of fooling the public. Everyone loves him thanks to his two-faced personality and the machinations of Vought pushing him like a genuine hero. However, he is nowhere near a good person in any way.
Homelander and other members of the team like A-Train openly mock other heroes in the world. This is the Seven, the best of the best, and they feel every other hero around is either a joke or beneath them. The Avengers respect their allies. There is no respect in the Seven.
None Of Them Trust Each Other
The key thing that makes the Avengers so successful is that they trust each other. Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and everyone else in the group know that the others have their backs. They work as a team and beat the most powerful villains that threaten Earth.
No one on the Seven cares about defending Earth from powerful villains, and that is a good thing. This team does not trust each other and has no reason to. Homelander has openly threatened his teammates, including the woman he once claimed to care about in Queen Maeve. They have all betrayed each other and they will likely never come together as a cohesive unit if the world needed them.
Most Of Them Abuse Their Powers
The central thesis in The Boys is that, if superheroes were real, they wouldn’t be goody-two-shoes like Steve Rogers; they’d be totalitarians like Homelander who abuse their powers.
While mainstream superhero stories from Marvel and DC rarely dig into the notion that absolute power corrupts absolutely, The Boys has given this concept an eye-opening spotlight.
They’re More Interested In Publicity Than Saving People
Since the Seven are sponsored by a big corporation, saving people isn’t their top priority. Rather, protecting Vought’s corporate interests and maintaining a positive image in the public eye are considered more important.
With each member of the Seven desperately trying to cover up a long history of misgivings, their embattled PR representatives have their work cut out for them.
They All Have Dark Secrets
While the Avengers all have a more or less clean slate, as far as we know, the Seven all have really dark secrets that they’re desperate to keep the public from finding out.
The Deep is a sexual predator, Homelander is a rapist and murderer, and Queen Maeve let the passengers of Transoceanic Flight 37 die horrifically. Every couple of episodes, a member of the Seven is presented with a damning video that could end their career.
Their Workplace Environment Is Extremely Toxic
The Avengers are more like a family than a workforce. They’re happy to spend endless hours going over each battle strategy, like Endgame’s “Time Heist” planning sequence, and they’ll always provide a shoulder to cry on or listen to one another’s problems.
By contrast, the Seven’s workplace environment is extremely toxic. For starters, everyone’s terrified of Homelander. The Seven can hardly stand each other – their friendships are all for show.
They All Got Their Powers From A Corporation Drugging Them As Children
At the beginning of The Boys, Vought keeps up the pretense that superheroes are born with their powers. However, midway through the first season, it’s revealed that every hero in America got their powers by being drugged with Compound V throughout their childhood. The Vought corporation cuts shady deals with parents to drug their kids and turn them into supes.
In this regard, every member of the Seven has essentially the same origin story. The Avengers, however, all have different origins: Iron Man created his own suit, Cap was given the Super-Soldier Serum, Thor is a literal god, the Hulk was exposed to gamma radiation, etc.
They Star In Their Own Movies
While there are plenty of movies starring the Avengers in the real world, Earth’s mightiest heroes don’t star in their own movie franchises within the fictional universe, because they’re too busy being superheroes. In the world of The Boys, superheroes star in their own movies for the Vought Cinematic Universe.
Captain America was initially a propaganda tool in World War II, but after becoming a full-on superhero, he never acted again. All the supes in The Boys, on the other hand, are essentially corporate-sponsored products. They spend more time on the sets of their movies than in the field, saving lives.
They Kill Without Remorse
It’s not common for superheroes to kill innocents without remorse, but it happens a lot in The Boys. Whenever an Avenger accidentally allows innocent people to die in the MCU, like Wanda at the beginning of Captain America: Civil War, they feel terrible about it.
The Seven, however, don’t mind too much if they kill innocent people. A-Train callously jokes about running through Robin. Granted, her death was an accident, but it’s still messed up to joke about it.
None Of Them Are Particularly Heroic (Except Starlight)
While the Avengers are all bona fide heroes who have given up their personal lives and dedicated themselves to a life of heroism, no one in the Seven is particularly heroic – except for Starlight.
The Seven got its first dose of heroism when she joined the team. Unlike the rest of her fellow heroes, Starlight actually goes out of her way to save people and wants to help them, whether there are news cameras present or not.
They Believe The Myth That They’re Gods Among Mortals
In the real world, there’s a lot of discussion about superheroes being the modern-day equivalent of the gods of ancient folklore. Within the world of The Boys, the Seven are treated like gods and they buy into that myth and believe they’re above the regular people they’re supposed to protect.
Steve Rogers is admirably humble, but Homelander is a murderous sociopath with delusions of grandeur backed up by his immense strength, which is probably more realistic.
Their Leader Doesn’t Really Care About Them
Steve Rogers would do anything for his fellow Avengers. Leading the team became his main priority after the several decades he spent in the ice left him without any friends or family, and he was a great leader because he cared about everyone on the team.
Homelander, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the rest of the Seven. He only takes an interest in them if they come close to usurping him.