So what is Herogasm? Well, just like the rest of The Boys comics skewer popular tropes from superhero comics, “Herogasm” takes square aim at one of the most time-honored comic cliches, that of several popular superheroes teaming up together to stop some greater evil, akin to Avengers: Infinity War.
“From day one, everyone dared me to make this episode. CHALLENGE MET MOTHERF*CKERS”
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Only thing is, in The Boys comics, it is revealed that the team up between superheroes occurs not to defeat some alien threat that proves too much for any single hero, but rather to give the heroes a luxury vacation unlike any other. Once every year, the superheroes announce that they are going off into space/another dimension to fight an evil entity together.
Instead, the “heroes” gather at a private island set up by their parent companies. There, the superpowered beings indulge in every kind of hedonistic activity imaginable, from orgies to drugs, to some light-hearted torture. The “Herogasm” series presents a cynical look at the “cash-grabby” nature of most superhero team-up stories.
While adding “Herogasm” to the show will make for some entertainingly perverse television, there may be a deeper reason behind including the episode in Season 3. In the comics, the end of “Herogasm” represented a marked shift in the attitude of Homelander, the leader of the superheroes, and the story’s main villain. In the comics, Homelander gets bored of the mindless debauchery at the island, and kicks things up a notch by destroying a plane full of passengers, not for any particular reason, but just as a way of showing that he can do anything he wants.
That sequence was one of the first signals that Homelander, who had hitherto at least pretended to be a hero, was no longer interested in keeping up pretenses. Including the sequence in Season 3 would help confirm that when it comes to Homelander’s actions, the gloves are starting to come off. According to Antony Starr, who plays Homelander, such a story arc would be in line with what Kripke has in store for the character.
“There are two words that [showrunner] Eric [Kripke] has said to me about Season 3. His description for Homelander Season 3 was, ‘Two words, homicidal maniac.’ That’s all I know. I’m actually looking forward to seeing Homelander off the leash. It’ll be really fun, just seeing him go unhinged and exact revenge. If you look at the end of Season 2, some people should be more scared than others, for sure. William Butcher should always have an alarm bell ringing in his head, and I think some other people have firmly put themselves in the line of fire for Season 3. It should be a lot of fun.”
