History CorruptedCharacterCopy / TheBoys

* The Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica stand-in is The Seven, the most powerful and photogenic group of superheroes Vought has been able to produce.
** Homelander, Expy of Franchise/{{Superman}} and provider of the trope's page image. His "comic origin" is landing on Earth in an alien spaceship and rapidly growing to adulthood, but he was actually created in Vought's labs. He's a racist asshole and self-styled {{Ubermensch}} who only cares about the profits Vought's making off the team (and his cut of them). Ironically, Superman is actually one of the few superheroes Ennis likes.
** Black Noir, sort of an expy of Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, in that he's a clone of Homelander made for the express purpose of killing Homelander if he ever went rogue. This goes as well as you'd expect in an Ennis comic]] Black Noir can also be compared to [[spoiler: ''ComicBook/SupermanSpeedingBullets'' Batman, where Batman is a CompositeCharacter with Superman, To drive things home, both Black Noir And Speeding Bullets Batman wear masks that completely cover their faces. He also turns out to be a dark parody of Bizarro, being a mentally unstable clone of Homelander with weird speech patterns, however whereas Bizarro is well-intentioned, friendly with his clone template and only considered a "villain" due to his incompetence, Noir is an utter monster who revels in the misery he causes]].
** Queen Maeve, expy of Franchise/WonderWoman. It's implied she genuinely wanted to be a good, heroic person, but [[spoiler:the bungled attempt to stop 9/11]] drove her into alcoholic apathy.

** A-Train, expy of Franchise/TheFlash (ComicBook/WallyWest, specifically). His, Hughie's, and the audience's introduction to the world of superheroes in The Boys is A-Train reducing Hughie's genuinely nice, lovely, wonderful girlfriend to bloody smear and a pair of severed arms. He participates in the coerced [[CastingCouch blowbang]] of Starlight (along with Homelander and Black Noir) and later tries to straight-up rape her.

** Former members include Lamplighter, expy of Franchise/GreenLantern, who [[WouldHurtAChild burned children alive]], and Marathon Man, another Flash expy, who we learn nothing about.

** Tek-Knight, mostly an ComicBook/IronMan expy, but with a few elements of Franchise/{{Batman}} (very young sidekick Laddio which is a legacy title, a Tek-Cave, and a loyal butler). He's recently started having sex with anything that catches his fancy, including other members of Payback, small animals, cups of coffee, and his butler's ear. Turns out this was the result of a fist-sized brain tumor. [[SubvertedTrope Aside from that, actually seems a decent guy.]] He tried to get help for his condition, and after it destroys his hero career, he sacrifices his life by saving a woman and her child from falling a wheelbarrow full of bricks and destroying a gigantic meteor by having sex with it (though the latter is actually a DyingDream of his).

* The ComicBook/XMen stand-in is the G-Men, run by John Godolkin, who [[spoiler:abducts kids off the street, raises them in his mansion and gives them superpowers, selling the idea that he's created a safe place for superpowered orphans. He sexually abuses the children under his care, which results them all being severely damaged adults who turn around and assist Godolkin's abuse when he brings in a new batch of kids]]. The most blatant parody out of them is [=GroundHawk=], an expy of ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}. As Wolverine is Ennis's least favorite superhero (which is saying something, considering his dislike of the genre as a whole), so [=GroundHawk=] is portrayed as a blithering idiot with hammers for hands.
* Billy Butcher, the leader of the Anti-Superhero team known as The Boys, is this to ComicBook/ThePunisher. He wears dark clothes complete with leather jacket, has a backstory as a Marine (a Royal Marine in thie case) who saw active combat, and his family was killed and he swore revenge. Butcher, however, is even more unstable, cruel and willing to hurt or risk the lives of innocents than Frank ever was ([[ComicBook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse with one notable exception that was also written by Garth Ennis]]).

** Homelander, Expy of Franchise/{{Superman}} (his "comic origin" is landing on Earth in an alien spaceship and rapidly growing to adulthood, he was actually created in Vought's labs). He's a racist asshole and self-styled {{Ubermensch}} who only cares about the profits Vought's making off the team (and his cut of them). Ironically, Superman is actually one of the few superheroes Ennis likes.

* Billy Butcher, the leader of the Anti-Superhero team known as The Boys, is this to ComicBook/ThePunisher. He wears dark clothes complete with leather jacket, has a backstory as a special forces agent, and his family was killed and he swore revenge. Butcher, however, is even more unstable, cruel and willing to hurt or risk the lives of innocents than Frank ever was ([[ComicBook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse with one notable exception that was also written by Garth Ennis]]).

** Black Noir, sort of an expy of Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, in that he's a clone of Homelander made for the express purpose of killing Homelander if he ever went rogue. This goes as well as you'd expect in an Ennis comic]]. Black Noir can also be compared to [[spoiler: ''ComicBook/SupermanSpeedingBullets'' Batman, where Batman is a CompositeCharacter with Superman, To drive things home, both Black Noir And Speeding Bullets Batman wear masks that completely cover their faces. He also turns out to be a dark parody of Bizarro, being a mentally unstable clone of Homelander with weird speech patterns, however whereas Bizarro is well-intentioned, friendly with his clone template and only considered a "villain" due to his incompetence, Noir is an utter monster who revels in the misery he causes].

** Black Noir, sort of an expy of Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, in that he's a clone of Homelander made for the express purpose of killing Homelander if he ever went rogue. This goes as well as you'd expect in an Ennis comic]]. Black Noir can also be compared to [[spoiler: ''ComicBook/SupermanSpeedingBullets'' Batman, where Batman is a CompositeCharacter with Superman, To drive things home, both Black Noir And Speeding Bullets Batman wear masks that completely cover their faces]].

** Black Noir, sort of an expy of Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, in that he's a clone of Homelander made for the express purpose of killing Homelander if he ever went rogue. This goes as well as you'd expect in an Ennis comic]]. Black Noir can also be compared to [[spoiler:ComicBook/SupermanSpeedingBullets Batman, where Batman is a CompositeCharacter with Superman, To drive things home, both Black Noir And Speeding Bullets Batman wear masks that completely cover their faces]].

** The Deep, expy of ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Not all that bad, but doesn't really try and curb the excesses of the supes in TheVerse. In the love-action series, he is the one to sexually assault new team member Starlight.

''ComicBook/TheBoys'' has a fair share of this, owing to Creator/GarthEnnis disliking superheroes in general (with a few exceptions), and writing the comic as a parody of them. It's all displayed in the [[Series/TheBoys2019 live-action series adaptation]] as well.

** The Deep, expy of ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Not all that bad, but doesn't really try and curb the excesses of the supes in TheVerse. In the series, he is the one to sexually assault Annie/Starlight.

** The Deep, expy of ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Not all that bad, but doesn't really try and curb the excesses of the supes in TheVerse.

''ComicBook/TheBoys'' has a fair share of this, owing to Creator/GarthEnnis disliking superheroes in general (with a few exceptions), and writing the comic as a DeconstructiveParody. It's all displayed in the [[Series/TheBoys2019 live-action series adaptation]] as well.

** The Deep, expy of ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Not all that bad, but doesn't really try and curb the excesses of the supes in TheVerse. In the live-action show he really is that bad, committing sexual assault on a colleague who is secretly a fan. In that medium his evilness is mitigated by his incompetence and his sad psychological motivations, as well as a clumsy and likely doomed Heel Face Turn. This supposed redemption is a public relations conspiracy to begin with, although at least the Seven would qualify as an asshole victim. However, even in his purest moments of regret, he can only seem to understand his role in his own demise as *a role in his demise* rather than the reverse: his demise being an inevitable consequence of his behavior and values, including the reasons he seeks absolution to begin with.

** The Deep, expy of ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Not all that bad, but doesn't really try and curb the excesses of the supes in TheVerse.

** Soldier Boy, expy of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. A DirtyCoward PhonyVeteran. The [[Series/TheBoys2019 TV adaptation]], meanwhile, makes him a different kind of corrupted copy, as a result of AdaptationalBadass where he's proficient in combat and did fight alongside the military, but is also an AxCrazy BloodKnight and StrawMisogynist. Captain America is one of Ennis' most hated superheroes, considering him an insult to TheRealHeroes who fought in World War II.[[note]]Never mind that Cap's comics were quite popular among those very soldiers, making this more [[AuthorTract his opinion]] than theirs.[[/note]]

** Soldier Boy, expy of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. A DirtyCoward PhonyVeteran. Captain America is one of Ennis' most hated superheroes, considering him an insult to TheRealHeroes who fought in World War II.[[note]]Never mind that Cap's comics were quite popular among those very soldiers, making this more [[AuthorTract his opinion]] than theirs.[[/note]]

** Homelander, Expy of Franchise/{{Superman}} (his "comic origin" is landing on Earth in an alien spaceship and rapidly growing to adulthood, he was actually created in Vought's labs). He's a racist asshole and self-styled {{Ubermensch}} who only cares about the profits Vought's making off the team (and his cut of them), and raped Butcher's wife (resulting in her death when the superpowered infant came to term). Ironically, Superman is actually one of the few superheroes Ennis likes.

** Black Noir, sort of an expy of Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, in that he's a clone of Homelander made for the express purpose of killing Homelander if he ever went rogue. This goes as well as you'd expect in an Ennis comic]], Black Noir can also be compared to [[spoiler: ComicBook/SupermanSpeedingBullets Batman, where Batman is a CompositeCharacter with Superman, To drive things home, both Black Noir And Speeding Bullets Batman wear masks that completely cover their faces]].

* Billy Butcher, the leader of the Anti-Superhero team known as The Boys, is this to ComicBook/ThePunisher. He wears dark clothes complete with leather jacket, has a backstory as a special forces agent, and his family was killed and he swore revenge. Butcher, however, is even more unstable, cruel and willing to hurt or risk the lives of innocents than Frank ever was ([[ComicBook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse with one notable exception]]).

** Soldier Boy, expy of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. A DirtyCoward PhonyVeteran. Captain America is one of Ennis' most hated superheroes, considering him an insult to TheRealHeroes who fought in World War II...never mind that Cap's comics were quite popular among those very soldiers.

** Starlight, who could be seen as a pastiche of ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, ComicBook/{{Stargirl|DCComics}}, and ComicBook/{{Starfire}}. [[SubvertedTrope One of the only actually decent people in the entire series.]]