Ryan Butcher has become a central character in Boys television series on Amazon Prime Video due in part to the fact that he is the son of Billy Butcher and Homelander (Homelander being his biological father). However, the character who would have become Ryan Butcher had a decidedly shorter career in the comics.as he was killed just a few short panels after his introduction.
Ryan Butcher was introduced in the final episode of Boys season 1. He was raised alone by his mother, Rebecca, until Homelander discovered his existence and decided to play a more present role in his life (much to Becky’s horror). At the end of season 2, Homelander’s interference in Ryan and Becky’s lives led Ryan to accidentally kill her mother with her powers while he was trying to save her from Stormfront. Afterwards, Ryan lived with Butcher for a while before finally being taken in by Homelander, who currently has custody of Ryan in the show.
From the beginning of the series, Ryan has been set up as a main character who will surely become a super with great influence on the trajectory of the series. While this is an exciting change from the source material, it also stays true to the core of Becky and Butcher’s story in Boysis still a huge departure from what happened in the comics, as ‘Ryan’ was killed by Butcher before he had a name.
Butcher killed ‘Ryan’ in the boys’ comic when he was just a baby
In The boys: butcher, baker, candle maker #4 by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, readers are shown in gruesome detail the real reason why Billy Butcher became a founding member of the CIA-backed outfit the Boys. It shows how Becky Butcher was assaulted and impregnated by Black Noir (pretending to be Homelander), as well as the subsequent birth of baby ‘Ryan’.
‘Ryan’ exhibited superpowers at birth, killing Becky as a result, which happened in bed right next to Butcher while they were sleeping, only for Butcher to wake up in complete shock at this horrible scene. Not only was the woman he loved dead, but his own life was also in immediate danger. The baby flew across the room, its eyes glowing with deadly heat vision, and was apparently doing everything it could to kill Butcher (at least, that was Butcher’s perception of the event). In the end, Butcher kills the super infant, both to save his own life and in a fit of incomparable rage.
‘Ryan’ Almost Did What Homelander Couldn’t in the Boys’ Comic (And Still Could on the Show)
If ‘Ryan’ had killed Butcher the night he was born, it’s more than likely that Vought-American would have picked up the baby, at which point he would have become a marketable weapon in the same way the other supes were, including and especially Homelander himself. But more than anything, if ‘Ryan’ killed Butcher when he was a baby, then he would have done what seemed impossible, as is assumed throughout. Boys Comedians have tried and failed to get rid of Butcher permanently, again, including and especially Homelander himself. However, ‘Ryan’ obviously didn’t kill Butcher in the comics, but rather he was killed by the Boys’ leader as soon as ‘Ryan’ killed his mother. But, in the live-action show, Butcher forgave Ryan after killing Becky, and now Ryan is in league with Homelander. Could the program do what Boys The comic didn’t make it, and Ryan actually killed Butcher. instead of the other way around?
While it’s impossible to say what may or may not happen within the current Amazon Prime Video continuity Boyswhat fans do know is what happened in the complete now Boys Comic series, including every gruesome detail of how Homelander’s son, Ryan Butcher, died.