The superheroes of Vought International are among the greatest celebrities in the world. Passionate, brave, dedicated to protecting America and her people, and most definitely not jaded psychopaths. For this special battle, Vought has commissioned Wiz and Boomstick, along with special guest commentator Black Noir, to determine who among their premier super-team, The Seven, would win a death battle.
Due to the Seven's leader Homelander obviously being several leagues more powerful than his teammates, his participation will be a bit different. Instead, Queen Maeve, A-Train, the Deep, and Starlight will battle each other, along with a fifth guest fighter from outside the team: Wanted criminal and leader of the Boys, Billy Butcher.
The analysis opens on Homelander, who, even though he is not participating directly, will receive a rundown anyway. Homelander is the single most durable superhero in the world, stated to have survived every known weapon on the planet. He can fly faster than an F-15 and throw a baseball into orbit, but his preferred method of attack is his trademark laser vision, which can slice through his enemies like a hot knife through butter. Despite his immeasurable power, Homelander is a genial and humble man who always makes time for his fans.
Powerful as Homelander is, the rest of his team is nothing to shake a stick at. Queen Maeve is a longtime veteran of the Seven and considered by many to be second only to Homelander. Maeve is both superhumanly powerful and a master martial artist and can power through a great deal of pain, continuing a rescue of schoolchildren even though she shattered her arm stopping a bus from falling off a cliff. Maeve is impervious to nearly any kind of harm, but her greatest asset is her compassion. She will never leave a civilian to die, especially not civilians on a crashing plane.
A-Train is the fastest man in the world. He is able to run well over the speed of sound at 371 meters per second and is able to kill a person just by running into them - not that he is liable for such an occurrence, of course. Unfortunately, there are rumors that A-Train is addicted to Compound V, a drug that increases his power output, at the cost of his body's health. Fortunately, Black Noir was present to stop Wiz and Boomstick from spreading such vile rumors.
The Deep is able to talk to fish, breathe underwater, and... that's about it really. He also has a record of sexual assault, including of his newest teammate Starlight, which got him exiled from the Seven to Ohio. All in all, he kinda sucks.
Starlight is the newest member of the team, and is so relatable she may just be the girl next door. Starlight is able to absorb light from nearby electronic sources, then channel that energy into plasma that she can fire at will. Her flashes are so bright that they can be potentially blinding at close range. She is skilled in Taekwondo and is both super strong and super durable, able to take rounds from a Serbu BFG-50A rifle without her skin breaking. The only mark on her record is her choice of associates.
Upon first joining the team, Starlight was dealt a harsh lesson that her teammates are not invulnerable. A small criminal gang murdered Translucent, her teammate and friend. The criminals in question? A gang of five dedicated to hunting and killing superheroes known only as "The Boys." Mother's Milk, Hughie Campbell, The Female, and The Frenchman. They are wanted by every law enforcement agency in the country and are personally being pursued by the Seven. But none of them are more dangerous than their leader, Billy Butcher, who doesn't even have the decency to be American.
Obviously, Billy is the villain here and not Homelander. Black Noir saw to it that Wiz and Boomstick understood just how heroic and goodnatured Homelander is... with a hand to Wiz's throat. As stated above, Billy and his team are skilled at finding ways to work past a superhero's powers and find ways to kill them. For example, Billy's team found out how to kill Translucent despite the latter having impervious skin, by blowing him up with a plastique suppository. In order to prove the Seven's ability to handle unexpected threats, Billy will be participating in this battle as the fifth combatant.
With the feats of the Seven properly analyzed, all possibilities safely accounted for, and Vought's guidelines properly obeyed, it's time for a Death Battle!
On a rainy night in an abandoned New York City apartment lot, Maeve, A-Train, the Deep, Starlight, and Butcher make their way onto the field of battle while Homelander, who will be refereeing the bout, flies above. In a departure from Death Battle tradition, our hosts are watching over the simulation directly to offer commentary, in the manner of the more recent Death Race events; once the combatants are in place, Boomstick gives the age-old cue for hostilities to begin:
"FIGHT!"
Billy draws his gun, demanding a challenger. The Deep attempts to rally the rest of his teammates to join him in taking out Billy first, but his request falls on deaf ears as A-Train splatters him in the opening seconds of the fight. Billy opens fire on A-Train, but he is able to effortlessly disarm Billy.
Dismissing Billy as a non-threat, he launches a direct attack on Maeve, who forms a brief, unspoken alliance of convenience with Starlight to fight him off. When a stray blast hits Maeve, all bets are off, though, and the Seven get to work on fighting each other. Billy, meanwhile, beats a hasty retreat.
A-Train gets the jump on Starlight, despite being visibly winded, but is driven away by Maeve. Both Starlight and A-Train attack her at the same time, but Maeve is easily able to fend off both opponents. Meanwhile, Homelander looks on with quiet amusement.
A sniper round fires on Starlight. Billy has retreated to a nearby apartment building and has started taking potshots at her. Starlight opens fire on Billy but he escapes, recovering his ace in the hole: A baby with plasma vision. The blasts cause a fire that lights a civilian on fire. It seems the battlefield was not abandoned after all! Despite Wiz's attempts to stop the match, Black Noir intimidates him into submission.
A-Train throws Maeve into a nearby wall and attacks Starlight. She retaliates by generating enough light to blind A-Train. Hearing a noise nearby, he loses his temper and attacks the source... who turns out to be Maeve, who responds by punching the top half of his body off.
Billy confronts Maeve and Starlight and fires his baby lasers at them, which Starlight matches with her own beams. Realizing he won't win the duel, Billy redirects his baby's lasers at a nearby building, causing it to fall on Starlight and Maeve. While Maeve survives, Starlight is crushed to death.
Maeve emerges from the wreckage and makes one last-ditch charge on Billy, but her skin is unable to resist the baby's eye lasers, and Billy effortlessly slices her in half. In a stunning upset, the winner is— SPLAT! Homelander charges down at Billy from above, reducing him to a bloody paste. While Wiz and Boomstick are confused on whether or not the rules allow Homelander to do such a thing, they are convinced when Homelander kindly and gently lasers Wiz's other arm off. Before Homelander can celebrate his hard-earned victory, Stormfront, the Seven's newest member arrives and challenges Homelander to a one-on-one showdown, which he gladly accepts.
K.O!
With the battle royale concluded, our hosts return to their usual analysis-presentation studio to reveal who won and why. Despite appearances, three out of four members of the Seven were very evenly matched, with natural and logical counters to each other, assuming Homelander is not participating. The Deep's abilities, however, are only useful in or near water, and as such, he was guaranteed to be the first one out, even though his skin was slightly more durable than the average human. Starlight, by contrast, was far stronger, more durable, and had more useful and dangerous powers to fall back on. Where she falls short is experience and lethality. On top of that, but even in canon, she was defeated by A-Train in a one-on-one fight.
Speaking of which, A-Train's speed is truly incredible, and the raw power it takes to splatter a human makes him easily one of the most dangerous fighters in the Seven. However, A-Train himself is not particularly versatile, as he relies on his speed and as such, can easily be taken by surprise. Queen Maeve, by contrast, is not only super strong, durable, and highly-skilled, but unlike the others, she had no tactical weaknesses to exploit. She was able to withstand a truck running through her without feeling a thing. A-Train's power was nothing compared to the raw force and weight of the truck.
In the end, the fight was always going to come down to Billy and Maeve. While Billy couldn't possibly hope to match Maeve fighting her directly, his in-depth knowledge of her abilities, cunning, and his pragmatic ruthlessness, such that he snagged a superpowered baby capable of firing lasers before the fight, proved to be too much for her. Ironically, Billy was helped by his own weakness, as attacking him directly would have opened the attacker to a strike from one of the other combatants. This gave Billy time to form a strategy. The baby's eye beams are ionized gas that emit over 14 billion joules per attack, and Maeve could never have survived it. All Billy had to do was hide his secret weapon long enough for A-Train to die before it revealed itself.
Boomstick: Until Butcher showed up with a laser baby. Then he butchered the competition.
Wiz: I feel like that one was too easy.
Boomstick: Aww, Starlight-en up, Wiz! Maeve-e it was, but I've A-Trained in the art of the pun! I figured a joke any more Deep might not have Homelanded.
Wiz: The winner is Billy Butcher. Was, until Homelander brutally murdered him.
...With the fight over and done with, so too is our hosts' contract with Vought Industries - a fact that they make no effort to conceal their relief of. Boomstick offers a parting shot at the company as Wiz bemoans the blackmail that led to the bargain... failing to realize that their camera is still rolling. The two quickly rush to halt the recording as the episode ends.
The Seven Battle Royale features examples of:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The members of the Boys are all accompanied with negative labels... except for Frenchie, for whom being French is apparently negative enough.
- Battle in the Rain: The fight takes place on a rainy night.
- Beam-O-War: Butcher pits his laser baby against Starlight's energy beams.
- Butt-Monkey: The Deep is the single worst performer in Death Battle history. His rundown is the shortest of all and ends with Boomstick concluding he sucks and his own teammate Black Noir nodding in agreement. When the battle rolls around, A-Train kills The Deep before it starts. Even Michelangelo, the previous record-holder for fastest death, outlasted The Deep.
- Call-Back: Boomstick makes a comment about "math and the vampire god it's named after" during the post-fight analysis.
- Composite Character: The fight serves as a Composite Episode, being a well-researched and factual outcome like Death Battle proper, but with the hosts observing the conflict and giving commentary in the manner of Death Race.
- Dark Horse Victory: Twofold. First is the fact that Billy Butcher is the winner despite having no powers, but then Homelander kills him and gets himself declared winner, despite the fact that he wasn't even a fighter.
- Dumbass Has a Point: There's no doubt that the Deep is an idiot, but he was right about one thing: the Seven should have killed Billy at the beginning of the fight. Their failure to do so ends up securing Billy the win.
- Everyone Has Standards: Wiz and Boomstick are no saints, but even they are appalled by how much rampant destruction the Supes (Homelander in particular) have caused both intentionally and as Collateral Damage. Vought has keep Black Noir on standby to prevent them from speaking out.
- Foreshadowing: The Deep ridicules the idea of Billy taking out his teammates. Guess who wins?
- Mythology Gag: The Deep dies in the same way that Robin Ward does: A-Train runs into him, bursting his body.
- Noodle Incident: Vought Industries apparently dug up something on Wiz and Boomstick that they used to blackmail them into presenting a Death Battle, one of which is apparently a war crime.
- The Political Officer: Effectively Black Noir's role in this episode - he is present (presumably on orders of Mr. Edgar) to ensure that Wiz and Boomstick paint Vought in a favorable light. This is why the previews of the fight have markedly different dialogue than the actual pre-battle rundown. It also saves Wiz and Boomstick time figuring out his strengths and weaknesses, since at this point in the series, Noir had too few showing to give an accurate gauging of his powers.
- Post-Climax Confrontation: Shortly after the battle is over, Stormfront challenges Homelander to a fight.
- Product Placement: As part of their contract, Wiz and Boomstick are made to advertise many of Vought's products.
- Sequel Hook: The episode ends just before Homelander and Stormfront get into a fight. The former even lampshades it.
- The Unfought: Despite being in the Seven, Homelander, Black Noir, Translucent and Stormfront don't participate in the battle. Respectively, Homelander is the referee, Black Noir is a guest commentator who's actually there to monitor Wiz and Boomstick, Translucent is dead, and Stormfront only appears at the very end to challenge Homelander.
