The Boys: Karl Urban Tease Butcher Crossing a Line With New Super Powers

The major element of The Boys season three that the show's first trailer confirmed is one that has rocked the series at its foundation, the reveal that Karl Urban's Billy Butcher will not only take Compound V but will gain superpowers as a result. Fans of the original comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson will know that Butcher and his team not being super-powered from the start was a major change that the show made, but now Butcher taking Compound V and getting other identifiable super powers is another difference between the source material and the series. Speaking in a new interview Urban opened up about the change that this will bring out in Butcher for the show and how it gets down to the core of the series.

"That's the dilemma: does Butcher become a superhero or a super villain?" Urban said to Entertainment Weekly. "In order to defeat the monster, do you become the monster? And I think that's one of the cool things about this season is every character is faced with that choice. How far are they willing to go? What line are they willing to cross in order to achieve what they want to achieve? For all the characters on the show, it creates a conflict and it's fun to see who actually ends up on whose side."

The trailer for The Boys season three shows Butcher with heat vision just like Homelander, plus enhanced strength as a clip can be seen of him actually beating the Vought-owned hero inside a parking lot. It's certainly possible that this moment is a red herring and a dream sequence, but Butcher taking Compound V to get his ultimate revenge on Homelander seems very in line with the character and something that opens up all-new avenues for the TV series.

"There's definitely a lot of madness," series creator Eric Kripke previously explained in an interview with TV Guide Magazine's Sci-Fi & Fantasy Special Collector's Issue about the new season. "It's not a secret that we're doing an episode about 'Herogasm' from the comics, which is a massive superhero orgy. And we're doing something in the first episode that I think is definitely the craziest thing we've ever pulled off…and might be one of the craziest things anybody's ever tried to pull off."      

Season three of The Boys also stars Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, and Jensen Ackles.

The Boys season three will premiere on Friday, June 3 on Prime Video.