14 Marvel Characters That Could Beat Homelander

Key Takeaways

• Homelander is a sociopathic obstacle for ordinary heroes in The Boys, but would struggle against Marvel’s powerful characters.
• Characters like Thor, Silver Surfer, Thanos, and Hulk from the Marvel Universe would outmatch Homelander in terms of strength and abilities.
• Marvel characters like Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Jean Grey, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, and Juggernaut could defeat Homelander due to their unique powers.

It’s not that Homelander needs to be the most powerful figure in the media to stand strong. He just needs to be the most powerful one in The Boys. He’s a sociopathic obstacle that the relatively ordinary heroes need to expose and crush. Having a caped wonder from another universe fix the problem for them Injustice-style probably wouldn’t do much for the series’ fans (or creator Garth Ennis, for that matter).

Nonetheless, fans are always going to wonder how Homelander would fare against classic heroes like DC’s Superman or the Marvel heroes. With his flight, speed, and strength, he could likely get around Captain America, and maybe even Spider-Man. But these Marvel characters would give him a run for his money.

Updated September 5, 2024 by David Heath: The Boys Season 4 ended on a curious note, leaving the titular heroes at the mercy of the Supes, but with some hope for its final season. However, that finale isn’t due until mid-2026, and that’s assuming nothing changes between now and then. All that can be determined for now is that it’s likely to be a very different conclusion from the comic.

Of course, that would be more likely than anyone from Marvel suddenly turning up to shut things down. That would make it a very expensive damp squib, as the Marvel Comics Universe has a range of superheroes who could defeat Homelander. He may be the strongest person in The Boys, but put against this list’s new entries, he’d be sent back to his bottle of milk pretty quickly.

1 Thor

Mighty, Astonishing, And Immortal

• Advantages: Strong enough to destroy planets and withstand neutron stars, invulnerable to anything short of a Celestial’s attack, manipulate energy to form storms, can see to the farthest edges of the Solar System, and move at Mach 32 with his hammer, Mjölnir or similar weapons (Stormbreaker, etc.).
• Disadvantages: Susceptible to Warrior’s Madness, which makes him stronger but more uncontrollable. Speed and flight are reduced without Mjölnir, Stormbreaker, etc.

The problem with gauging the Marvel Universe’s strength is that they kind of give up past 100 tons. DC will put a ridiculous number to rate Superman’s strength, but Marvel is happy to leave their strongest heroes at “an excess of 100 tons.” Compared to Homelander’s estimated max lifting strength of “a dozen Mag trucks” (approximately 480 tons), that doesn’t bode well for Marvel.

Luckily, fans can compare the two by their feats of strength. For example, the Mighty Thor has held up bridges, pulled islands, and destroyed planets with his physical strength alone. He’s immune to all diseases, poisons, ailments, radiation, and more, can see as far as the edge of the Solar System from Earth, and has near-endless stamina. That’s without accounting for his weapons, items, and storm powers. Against that, Homelander’s chances look bleak.

2 Silver Surfer

When Silver Outdoes Gold

• Advantages: Strong enough to throw stars, survive supernovas and all kinds of radiation, move faster than the speed of light, manipulate elements, and see/hear at great distances.
• Disadvantages: Is prone to self-doubt, is noble to a fault, and often holds back to avoid killing his foes.

The same could be said for the Silver Surfer. The Former Herald of Galactus has been able to withstand black holes, shrug off practically all kinds of radiation, and survive in the vacuum of space. He’s withstood supernovas, has thrown dwarf stars around, and can move faster than light with his board.

Without his board, he’s still agile enough to dodge any errant strikes and figure out a winning strategy in a second. The Fantastic Four had to reason with him and his conscience to get him to become more than Galactus’ warning shot. Given Homelander’s lack of said conscience, his cynicism and brutal outlook on life aren’t likely to move the Surfer any more than his strikes.

3 Thanos

His Victory is Inevitable

• Advantages: Super strong and durable, agile with quick reflexes, can sense disturbances and anomalies across the universe, can manipulate forcefields and energy, manipulate matter and minds, fly, teleport, recover from death, etc.
• Disadvantages: His ego has often gotten the better of him, has fallen to other cosmic-level threats, was beaten by Squirrel Girl once.

All those advantages come even without the Infinity Gauntlet and its Gems. The Mad Titan, Thanos, is ridiculously strong. He has powers gained over the years by becoming the universe’s Avatar of Death, and he gained godhood by passing the Witches of Infinity’s trial. Even before then, his unusual genetics of being a part-Eternal, part-Deviant made him an anomaly from a physical standpoint too. He’s built like a tank, and strong enough to fight off Thor and the Phoenix, while being fast enough to keep up with and outflank Captain Marvel.

As such, Homelander would find himself quickly crushed under Thanos’ boot. Only similarly strong cosmically-powered beings like Adam Warlock, or the God Emperor form of Doctor Doom, have been able to defeat him. Thor and the Silver Surfer were, at best, distractions. Homelander’s only hope would be to end up with the Infinity Gauntlet himself, as he’d need all the Gems’ powers to turn the tide against the Titan.

4 The Incredible Hulk

Limitless Rage, Limitless Strength

• Advantages: Super strength and stamina grow exponentially with no upper limit. Capable of destroying planets and withstanding the largest supernovas.
• Disadvantages: Base forms are weaker than Homelander, with some Hulks being weaker than others (e.g. Gray Hulk), susceptible to sleeping gases and cosmic radiation, reverts back to Bruce Banner once calmed down or tired.

Homelander taking on the Incredible Hulk seems just as imbalanced, but the Man in the Sky might have a chance in the early goings. Depending on which form he takes (gray, green, etc.), the Hulk’s base strength starts between 80–150 tons. If Homelander went full-on at the Hulk the moment he transformed, he might be able to stop him in his tracks. The problem is that the angrier Hulk gets, the stronger he gets, and his strength is practically infinite.

He can smash asteroids twice the size of Earth with a punch, and withstand 100 supernovas. Killing him as his human self, Bruce Banner, doesn’t work either (despite Ennis doing that in Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe), as regular continuity has him Hulking out the moment a lethal bullet or blade strikes him. Unless Homelander got smart or lucky, he’d be puny compared to the Hulk.

5 Captain Marvel

Interstellar Hero Can Bring Homelander Back Down To Earth

• Advantages: Strong enough to carry Celestials and knock out Superman-level heroes like Sentry, durable enough to withstand equal blows, can manipulate energy as Binary, and use it to enhance her strength and heal herself.
• Disadvantages: Can run out of energy as Binary, bringing her back to her base level.

Whether it’s as the original Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, or just herself, Carol Danvers has had a messy superhero journey. At first, she was a Human-Kree hybrid who could lift 100+ tons, and catch bullets if she wasn’t in the mood to just let them deflect off of her body. Like this, she’d have a close enough battle with Homelander to annoy him. But then aliens called the Brood experimented on her, and linked her strength with “the primal forces of the universe.”

It gave her the ability to become Binary, an alter-ego who could manipulate all forms of energy. Like this, she could turn any attack Homelander lands into energy to make herself stronger. Even if he didn’t fight, she could do the same with heat, light, radiation, etc., and pulverize the guy. Her ability to make energy duplicates of herself, fire nuclear bomb-level photon blasts, sense his attacks in advance, and survive in space seem like overkill to mention.

6 Doctor Strange

He’s Sorcerer Supreme For A Reason

• Advantages: As Sorcerer Supreme, he can use telepathy, phase through strikes, shift him or others into astral forms, manipulate minds, time and elements, and fire energy blasts strong enough to destroy planets.
• Disadvantages: No super strength or durability. Some of his spells require special items, like the Eye of Agamotto, etc.

Homelander doesn’t have Superman’s level of strength, speed, etc., but he also lacks his weaknesses. Sure, he can’t see through zinc, he’s annoyed by certain sound frequencies, and might be incapacitated (not killed) by enough Novichok gas. But the Boys can’t just find a special mineral and wave it at him to make him humble. However, since magic isn’t a thing in The Boys, Homelander has no special protection against Doctor Strange.

He can turn Homelander into anything he likes, rewire his mind with telepathy, phase through his strikes, reduce him to his astral form, etc. If he wanted to keep things simple, he could just banish him to another dimension. Only someone of equal or greater magic can overcome the latter, and since Homelander isn’t magic, he’d be in trouble.

7 Jean Grey

When Homelander’s Greatest Weakness Is His Mind

• Advantages: Arguably the strongest telepath and telekinetic in the Marvel universe, can rewire people’s brains, change their emotions, memories, and possess them. Can summon superstrong forcefields, and rip people apart molecule by molecule.
• Disadvantages: No super strength or durability.

Doctor Strange shows one doesn’t have to be physically strong to overcome Homelander. But they don’t necessarily need to be Sorcerers Supreme either. Jean Grey gets the mention here, though any of Marvel’s strong telepaths like Professor X or Emma Frost could fit here, as Homelander doesn’t have any special mental protection against them.

Jean Grey alone can manipulate people’s emotions, memories, minds, and more. She could mentally block Homelander from using his powers, send him to sleep, and then probe his deepest traumas to see how he got so messed up. Jean could practically turn him into a completely different person. But if she’s feeling violent, her telekinetic forcefields are strong enough to hold Captain Marvel and honed enough to disintegrate people at the molecular level.

8 Scarlet Witch

If Homelander Gets Vexed, She’ll Leave Him Hexed

• Advantages: Vast magical knowledge, able to warp reality itself, create things from nothing, raise the dead, manipulate energy, predict the future, form forcefields, fly, go invisible, manipulate plants, weather and the elements, augment strength, etc.
• Disadvantages: No super strength or durability by default.

If Scarlet Witch was the same character she was in the 1960s-1970s, putting her up against a Superman-like character like Homelander would have seemed ridiculous. Her hex powers affected probability, meaning she basically cast bad luck on people, which might have gotten her out of some sticky situations. However, writer Steve Englehart felt this was just the tip of the iceberg, revealing her hexes were chaos magic granted to her by the demon Chthon, which she learned to tailor further under Agatha Harkness.

From then on, through training, dramatic interventions, and more, she has become one of the most powerful magical figures in the Marvel Universe. Instead of hexing Homelander into stumbling over stuff, she could split him apart at the molecular level, trap him in forcefields, attack him with energy weapons, break his brain with her telepathy, or change his reality all together. If she could take away nearly every mutant’s powers, she could reduce Homelander to an ordinary man, which he might consider a fate worse than death.

9 Rogue

Look, But Don’t Touch

• Advantages: Is strong enough to match or exceed Homelander’s strength, speed, and flight. Can predict her foes’ movements and counter them quickly. Can drain their energy via skin-to-skin contact, and even absorb their powers.
• Disadvantages: Only has the power-draining and absorption abilities in some continuities.

Depending on the source, Homelander would either have a chance against Rogue, or he’d be outmatched. In the comics, her power absorption abilities were enough to give her Wonder Man and Carol Danvers’ pre-Binary powers permanently. With flight, super speed, and super strength, she’d at least be an even challenge for the hero, with the advantage of Carol’s Seventh Sense to predict Homelander’s next moves, and the reflexes to counter them.

Without those skills, like in the X-Men movies, Homelander could reduce her to a smear…provided she didn’t get to touch him beforehand. All she needs is some skin-to-skin contact to gain Homelander’s powers and durability. Prolonged contact could weaken Homelander further until he’s a withered husk. Few beings have been able to counter her abilities, and they’ve usually been special cases, like Juggernaut’s magic.

10 Shadowcat

Homelander’s Many Ruses Beaten By Shadowcat’s Sole Trick

• Advantages: Her phasing abilities are versatile, helping her escape, hide from foes, or harm them horribly.
• Disadvantages: No super-strength, has difficulty phasing through particularly dense elements like adamantium.

Homelander isn’t exactly a dunce, though he’s gotten so used to being the strongest figure in his universe that he coasts on his powers. He doesn’t handle getting challenged well, or admitting his weaknesses. So, one can imagine how frustrated he could be if he had to deal with Shadowcat. He could potentially be undone by her ability to make herself intangible and phase through objects.

Homelander’s super-strength and powers can’t help him if they can’t touch his targets. Conversely, if she can’t phase into an object to hide, or flee by phasing through them, she can give her opponents grievous injuries. In What If…Wolverine: Enemy of the State, she finished off her mentor-turned-monster Wolverine by phasing her hand through his head, then making it solid again to destroy his brain. If pushed, she could do the same to Homelander.

11 Wolverine

Homelander’s Closest Fight

• Advantages: Healing factor can help Wolverine recover from practically all serious wounds, and his adamantium skeleton is resistant to the hardest strikes.
• Disadvantages: Can’t fly, isn’t super-strong (2-ton max lift), could lose to Homelander if he got serious.

Speaking of Wolverine, the claw-swinging hothead is more of a borderline case against Homelander. He can’t fly, and could still be burned by his heat vision. Only his adamantium-infused skeleton could help him hold up against Homelander’s strength, and his claws would need more heft to slice through Homelander’s flesh. But Homelander wouldn’t be the first powerhouse Wolverine fought against.

He’s fought the Hulk to a standstill and even killed him in some stories. However, the big reason Wolverine’s been able to bounce back has been his healing factor. It’s been capable of helping him recover from being reduced to a skeleton, getting bisected, and worse. So, Homelander could potentially beat Wolverine, but he’d have to go all-out from the start. Otherwise, Wolverine would keep coming back until Homelander was skewered by his claws.

12 Juggernaut

Not Even Homelander Could Stop Him

• Advantages: Super strong, capable of leaping great bounds, invulnerable, can summon a personal forcefield, high stamina, healing factor.
• Disadvantages: Has trouble stopping once he starts charging, powers rely on approval from the demon Cyttorak.

Juggernaut had a brief mention in Rogue’s section as having some magic protection, which is partially right. Professor X’s stepbrother, Cain Marko, gained his gigantic frame and powers when he chanced upon the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, a demon of destruction. By reading its inscription, he became the unstoppable Juggernaut, a force of strength that could withstand the Hulk’s strongest strikes, let alone walk through assaults by Spider-Man, the X-Men and other heroes.

Chances are, if he somehow ended up in The Boys, he’d be more likely to work with Homelander than against him. But if they went head-to-head, Homelander would have trouble wearing him down. He’s durable enough to hold off his multi-Mag-truck strikes, even without his personal forcefield, and strong enough to hand it back to him with some change. At best, Homelander could still flee in a snap, or try to trick Juggernaut into a trap like Spider-Man did. At worst, he’d tire out sooner, and end up as another person crushed under his heel.

13 Iron Man

Homelander’s Unlikeliest Competition

• Advantages: Genius intellect, tactical smarts, vast arrays of strong armors capable of withstanding and delivering Hulk-level attacks, supersonic flight, energy attacks, invisibility, trapping opponents within augmented reality, cast magic, and more.
• Disadvantages: No super-strength or durability outside his armor.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like Iron Man has a chance. Maybe he could do the Batman thing from the DC list and buy out Vought to own Homelander directly. Then Homelander would have to play nice to maintain the public image he’s reliant on. But there’s always a chance he could snap and go mask-off on society, bringing Stark face-to-face with a passenger plane like in his Mortal Kombat 1 fatality, or giving him a heat-vision lobotomy. However, like Batman, Stark has experience dealing with superpowered friends and foes.

From this, he developed a variety of different armors to keep up with them. In his base armor, Iron Man would struggle, and might be left grounded by the Man in the Sky. With others, like the Godbuster, which channels the power of Odin himself, he’d gain Thor-level strength to out-muscle Homelander while retaining the aerial agility required to stay on his tail. That’s without mentioning others, like the AR suit to trap him in a world of illusion, or the Godkiller that can fly into space and fight the Celestials. Compared to them, Homelander stands little chance.

14 Franklin Richards

Potentially The Most Dangerous Figure In The Marvel Universe

• Advantages: Can practically warp reality to his whims, manipulate energy, and has telekinetic and telepathic powers with infinite range.
• Disadvantages: Has locked his powers away for all but one day of the year, but can unlock those powers whenever he likes.

Homelander losing to Jean Grey or Scarlet Witch would be embarrassing to him. They may be omega-level threats, but they’re also women, and he has issues with the fairer sex. However, whether he’d prefer to get beaten by a kid is another matter. Franklin Richards, son of Reed & Sue Richards, has the mental abilities of Jean Grey and the reality-warping powers of the Scarlet Witch, at much higher levels.

Franklin can create whole new universes, create energy constructs, and turn beings as powerful as the Celestials into flowers. He can read, manipulate and take over minds from any distance away, and possess them fully. Homelander’s only hope comes from the fact Franklin purposefully locks his powers away for 364 days a year. But he can unlock them at a moment’s notice. Unless Homelander knew he had to strike him as a regular boy first, he could be destroyed before he knew it.