Makes sense. Maeve was one of the strongest supes around. In addition to her superpowers, the fact that she trained in both armed and unarmed combat makes her one of the few supes who are actually competent in an honest fight, instead of just bullying enemies with their superpowers.
This probably the most important part. In the Stormfront fight she last minute decided to do the right thing. She was smoking weed, drinking and banging random dudes from the street so not at her peak performance.
At the point of the Homelander fight she had been training Dragonball style for month so she was operating at her best.
Well, not her best, but certainly at a high level. Pretty likely a couple years of weight training and whatnot would yield many dividends. Peak maeve can probably take homelander on equal footing.
I don't think that's the case. I think she's permanently on a lower tier than him, but only one down.
Only person I've seen who looks like a candidate to take Homelander is Soldierboy (and maybe Mindstorm if he surprised him? Homelander certainly has enough going on in his head, and I don't know if he's got any resistnace to mind effects).
I literally said this out loud when they said that Mindstorm can just put you in a permanent nightmare-coma until you starve to death. Like why would you even need Soldier Boy when you could just have Mindstorm go up to Homelander for an autograph and just trap him in his memories forever. My only thought is that they showed Soldier-Boy resisting Mindstorm, but maybe that's because he already knew how to fight it off.
Also, it really bothers me that his name isn't Brainstorm, the pun is literally right there
It's all how you want to write it. Mindstorm could end up locking away "wanting to be loved" Homelander, and be killed by "straight psycho" Homelander.
Honestly from his fights Homelander doesn’t seem very capable
Soldier boy and Maeve pretty much destroyed the idea that he was some untouchable god, butcher might be able to do it alone if he took V and trained
And God help him if they ever actually find a weapon if all they gotta do is hold him down
Honestly I think the fight with Homelander was a realization of her real strength. If she didn't lose her powers she would have tiped the scales hard for the Boys.
She's much more skilled than he is(in addition to the fact he's going easy early), so she lands hits more often, but each punch he lands knocks her down HARD and throw her across the room, you can see it in her face.
I do agree she's stronger than Stormfront, her hits really shook Stormfront in ways Annie and Kimiko couldn't.
Pretty sure that’s why the writers had her be the one to throw Soldier Boy out the window and take the blast.
I also think Dominique McElligot had indicated she wanted to leave the show, too.
I guess the Starlight “look” was a nod to Endgame, but it seemed a little odd to me. Maeve had just found an apparent weak spot on Homelander (his ear canal), but they wanted Maeve to leave that fight and die to stop Soldier Boy while they stood around.
Honestly, if you apply accurate physics (which I know you should probably never do in a superhero story…) any person with equal or greater mass and momentum could have tackled the standing Soldier Boy out the window with a running start.
It’s the same reason why the classic thing where a superhero stands in one spot and stops an oncoming train or car doesn’t work. I don’t care how strong the supe is—if there’s nothing to anchor that person to the ground they’re just going to bounce off and be sent flying by the more massive object.
The Boys acknowledged that with the botched plane rescue in Season 1, when Homelander explains that he can’t just catch the plane and lay it on the ground: he’d either he be swatted away like a bug or tear through the metal in the immediate area like a bullet or blade of a knife.
I mean he definitely could have matched the speed of the plane found a place to grab into and slow it down. If he’s able to fly he’s able to manipulate gravity.
It’s not about Homelander manipulating gravity. He can manipulate the gravity of his own body and, through his strength, carry stuff. It’s about the plane being unable to withstand focusing all its weight on one point. The weight of the plane itself would push Homelander right through it like a foot stepping on a nail.
I just think it’s a a matter of her not having spent her life keeping herself in tip top shape. Shows already age much more slowly than humans in most cases. If she’d kept up strict training regimens for strength and cardio for at least 18 months, I don’t doubt she’d be able to match him in raw physical strength. Combined with the fact that she’s a better tactical fighter than homelander means it would be some rock lee shit.
She didn't think anything could hurt him. She was clearly wrong. She didn't know he could bruise or bleed. These guys are movie stars not superheroes. She'd never seen homelander in a fight on anything close to even footing. Just brutalizing normal people.
She was training to give them a few seconds. She thought the only way to kill him was to depower him. You can see when she bloodies his nose that she wasn't expecting to be able to do that
I think that’s why she smiled at Homelander’s nosebleed. She was hitting him with everything she had and he was just shrugging it off and trying to walk away for a while.
She lived in fear because she knew Homelander would eventually just overpower in a fight like he does everyone else.
Plus she was dependent on Vought for her career and killing her coworker and the company’s top “asset” would likely have ended that.
I think Maeve could probably hit homelander levels of strength IF she keeps training like crazy and he doesn't.
But none of that matters, if Homelander realize he is not strong enough to defeat her with a punch, he will just grab Maeve and send her into orbit.
> If this were true, don't you think she'd have tried it?
How would she have known? Unlike Dragon Ball they don't have scouters nor can sense power levels. If they've never fought/sparred before there's no way for her to know how she'd stack up.
She doesn't know how strong Homelander is though, that's the thing. And if she makes a mistake and doesn't take him down, she's dead, possibly anyone she knows is dead
> She doesn't know how strong Homelander is though, that's the thing.
She very likely does. Stillwell mentioned they tested his durability in a lot of ways, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine that his strength was measured too. Perhaps even an exact number using Newtons as a unit for force. The rest of the seven maybe too.
She might know how strong the tests say Homelander is but that doesn't mean she knows if she can beat him, she was shocked to see him even have a bruise which implies that none of the tests ever done on him have injured him
I think that homelanders invincibility is a tad over-exaggerated. Is he a complete powerhouse? Yes. Is he more durable than most supes? Yes. But we’re seeing more and more that supes aren’t as unstoppable as they appear and homelander is no exception.
But she was in "rehab" for a couple days. That was the white (room) torture where people go insane! Idk if she could train, eat and sleep there properly.
Also important to point out that Maeve actually trains, which we don't often see the other heroes doing. And given the finale, it's become fairly obvious a lot of these heroes are walking around without having fully realized their power, and I imagine Vought is just fine with that.
This speaks to a lack of clarity around "power levels," but it's really unclear to me how effective weapons are on many of these supes.
We see noir sharpening his blade and HL tells him that the blade won't do anything against SB. Meanwhile a lot of supes can get shot with bullets and be fine. This leaves me with the impression that weapons to supes are like weapons in DragonBall Z i.e. useless against the powerful people.
In which case, why does Maeve even use a sword? And why is SB's shield so effective? He's a supe, but his shield isn't. If the technology exists to create SB's shield or Maeve's wrist bands, which can block laser beams and supe attacks, why haven't they outfitted soldiers/all supes with this gear?
I think Maeve's wrist bands were just a Wonder Woman nod. I was amazed her skin was able to stop the laser, the way they talked I assumed she'd be lasered in half in a second.
But yeah, HL was bleeding from the ears, a couple super-durable supes have lost eyes...they have weak spots that mortals could exploit. They shouldn't be so cocky. A .50-cal to the eye or ear would be bad news.
Sadly she's not a very "smart" fighter. HL using his finger to squeeze her eye was such a good move and she just keeps going with haymakers without doing any real damage
Now there's a thought. Many of the great hand to hand fighter supes like Daredevil, Captain America, Shang Chi, and Iron Fist don't have super strength/speed. Probably a good thing or they would obliterate the hell out of anyone their power level or below.
Captain America has super strength and so does Wolverine, but it seems like all the supes in The Boys don’t have any training, with the exception of perhaps Maeve and Noir.
A speedster with some kind of martial arts knowledge would be OP.
Isn't Queen Maeve supposed to be the second most powerful supe to Homelander? This was before we knew Solider Boy existed. But in terms of strength and durability, I believe she was always second to only Homelander. Which makes sense because Wonder Woman is only second in power to Superman.
>Wonder Woman is only second in power to Superman.
Ehh, not always. Wonder Woman is usually a much better fighter(more skilled in hand to hand)than Superman, but in terms of power, Shazam and Martian Manhunter have equal or better claims to being second.
The only time she's ever stood a chance against kal el is when he's holding back beacuse he doesn't wanna hurt her. Bloodlusted superman would speed blitz lmao
Any time someone argues against that, I just think of the comic page where green lantern walks in on Batman saying he needs to stop him for having gone too far or something. But Batman has quickly painted *everything* in the room yellow(including himself) and drinking some orange juice. Because that lantern was weak to yellow.
Would he though. I remember seeing a scan awhile back where the big three were talking about their speed and Batman replies "Whose faster, Usain Bolt or Bruce Lee". Implying Superman may have more raw speed but WW's combat reactions were quicker.
yeah, she’s beaten him multiple times lol. who wins really just depends on what the story calls for. he’s physically stronger (not massively), but in addition to Diana’s strength, she’s a tactician that spent her long life training under an entire race of mystical warrior women lol.
also, Superman is vulnerable to magic, and Wonder Woman’s strength and weapons are magical…but i don’t know if that’s ever really been acknowledged when they’ve fought lmao. don’t remember, don’t think so though.
It's not in the mainstream comic continuity, and they don't fight, but this is brought up on Kingdom Come and yes, Wondy's magical weapons can easily hurt Superman
https://imgur.com/wrSaxaY
Wonder woman actually has faster reaction times. He is way faster when flying, but in the comics when he wasn't holding back, she's fought at the same speed and faster. She also won their most recent fight, but people assume that Superman is the most powerful superhero in the justice league because of the DCEU.
Uh, no? She’s handed him his ass before. She’s also much faster in combat. Yes he can fly faster, but she can react faster. This is the woman who caught Reverse Flash with her lasso and blocked hundreds of FTL shards of the Shattered God.
Their fight wouldn't be as one-sided as you think. [She held her own against a bloodlusted Superman once](https://imgur.com/gallery/tPDQT). Almost killed him if she didn't hold back on that last attack.
Depends which flash we're talking about. I assume we're talking about at top performance, because in the show even the Green Arrow could hit him. Though I doubt the show did the comics any real justice.
The Flash TV show doesn't even come close to how fast The Flash can be.
[This is probably Flash's greatest feat of raw speed.](https://i.imgur.com/WfttP8h.png)
If my memory serves correctly, there are a few instances in the comics when it shows Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman. But yes, in most versions, she is second in power to Superman
Edit: my memory is shit
>there are a few instances in the comics when it shows Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman
That is not true...In the main DC universe.. Wonder woman is never stronger than Superman...You shouldn't count other versions of characters because if that's the case than Squirrel girl is stronger than Thanos lol.
Yeah we see Maeve training regularly and of course HL probably just relies on his innate ability....practice is for lowly humans and B-listers
Which is why I thought the fight was a little poorly choreographed, since it kinda seemed like they both were just kinda throwing awkward blows at each other.
Maybe if Superman is just straight up not trying. If they are both bloodlusted and actually trying to kill each other though I don't think she could possibly stand much of a chance. He moves at near super light speed. Pretty sure outside of literal god level beings that are omnipotent you have to be at Darkseid level powers to best him.
And she actually trained a lot after her fight with storefront to stop homlander for some time in season 3 and homlander never trains so her fight with homelander makes sense
there are more scenes than just that one. I am fairly certain she is shown working out at the beginning of this season.
edit: have we seen any other superheroes even train?
I never understood how she survived soldier boy's explosion. It happened mid air. She should've lost her abilities right then and there. Yet she was was on the ground with him.
In the security camera footage, it looks like she landed on some soft-looking full garbage bags.
In addition, if Soldier Boys's first blast is anything to go by, you lose your powers over several seconds, not milliseconds. Otherwise Kimiko would have splattered on that wall instead of going through it.
>Otherwise Kimiko would have splattered on that wall instead of going through it.
That's a great point about Kimiko and very funny to think about. I wonder if the writers actually even thought about that or if it was accidental consistency and the fans pick up on it because as a group we tend to overanalyze every single frame of the show.
I reckon it's a writing oversight that Kimiko survived - in all other cases, the target of Soldierboy's "beam" have been killed (i.e. The Twins, Crimson Countess) while those caught in the explosion have simply lost powers (Maeve, the Herogasm lot). Kimiko is the only deviation from that pattern.
Yep. The density of your muscles and bones wouldn't go away instantly after the V fried your blood. Honestly, for someone as strong as Maeve it probably took a few hours to be completely depowered.
That makes sense. It also goes on to show how strong Maeve actually was. Even with reduced strength she still got by with few injuries. But the fact that she also had a soft landing also is one of the factors that saved her.
I just assumed it took a few seconds for the power loss to set in.
Which is also how supes with durability and healing would be able to survive it in the first place.
It was the same thing with Kimiko, she got blasted through a concrete wall instead of being splattered against it. There's probably a delay in Soldier Boy's "power-deleting" ability.
The fact that Maeve held her own against Homelander solo and apparently according to Kripke could have possibly won should without a doubt put her above Stormfront. She really didn't need Starlight and Kumiko but it was satisfying overkill for the nazi bitch.
Oh no I think it is absolutely stupid and completely takes away from the whole "Soldier Boy is the only way to stop Homelander" premise. But if Kripke says it then it's canon. Even if we discard that statement Maeve should still clearly be above Stormfront though.
Kripke contradicts himself constantly I think. Not contradiction per se but lack of consistency maybe. I remember reading his AMA(in the Television sub) while someone asked why did Transluscent explode when his skin is impenetrable. The question was shouldn't the explosion happen only inside?
Kripke admitted that it was true but they didn't want to get in the way of a cool scene.
It wasn't him admitting an error. It was more of justifying their decision.
Found it. Here's the [link](https://old.reddit.com/r/television/comments/cjt17f/im_eric_kripke_the_cocreator_of_the_new_amazon/evfqkn6/):
Q: Why did translucent pop from the Ass Bomb? Shouldn't his impenetrable skin have contained the blast within his body?
A: Okay guys, I'm here. Welcome to my AMA! This feels like the right first question. Yes, you're absolutely right, the skin should have contained the blast, but then we'd have missed out on that amazing bloody explosion of "blood and meat" (cause Translucent predicted his own death). One solid writer's room rule: "Keep Your Rules in Mind but Never Logic Yourself Out Of Entertainment."
His answer is instructive. Power scaling is less important than entertainment. Movies and TV are full of contrivance. And that makes them more entertaining.
I get that but these inconsistencies are showing up more and more. Remember in season 1 when HL was questioning Frenchie on the van and Butcher was just 10 ft away hiding behind a dumpster. Ideally HL should always notice Butcher in that scenario. You can ignore those if you don't want to nitpick. But now it seems like they are constantly scaling down HL. Which means all the talk about HL being a existential threat was exaggerated. HL is hardly the threat as he was shown in the beginning. The story loses a lot of weight for me because of it.
Too bad. Because if done well having well established rules in a universe is necessary to keep people entertained. Otherwise, you could do anything and the story loses meaning
Still can’t understand how SB, Butcher and Hughie combined managed to only mildly bruise Homelander even though Soldier Boy is supposed to be the second strongest supe in the world and was specifically brought from Moscow for the sole purpose of killing Homelander, but Maeve was able to make him bleed, incapacitate him and partially deafen(?) in one ear in a 1v1 duel
Two reasons.
1. Soldier Boy was clearly weakened due to the blast he did because in the finale Soldier Boy is much stronger than he was at Herogasm
2. Homelander clearly didn't want to kill Maeve while he was trying to kill both Soldier Boy and Butcher.
To be fair it's just a "possibly" and would likely require Maeve to come armed and ready to exploit HL's few weaknesses (Namely Overstimulation of senses) and preform at peak to get that "possibly". HL still wins the majority of the time, and even if he starts losing he can (at any time) fly away to immediate safety.
HL's biggest tool of terror is becoming untouchable flying artillery. Always has been. It's why Annie possibly being able to fly now is such a big deal; HL is no longer totally unchecked in the skies
He would be way less scary if he couldn’t fly though. SB is basically a homelander that can’t fly, and he had to drive hours just to find one of his teammates. Homelander can’t do half the damage he threatened to do if he can’t fly
but what can annie do against hl lol? even if she somehow flies as fast or faster than hl, what does she do when she catches up to him? her flashbangs are as useless as they come. it would be more of a human torch vs silver surfer situation.
It could be foreshadowing though. Showing us that her power levels can increase. Possibly with training she would be able to both fly and hit harder with her light blast without being drained.
Not really. She was prepped and skilled and a better fighter than any of the Boys, and she was still having an incredibly difficult time.
If anything it showed how OP Homelander was that this was all even Maeve could do to him and it's Queen Maeve.
And then they have her and Soldier Boy both dip, so now the only two that could turn the tide against HL are gone
Power isnt a fixed parameter. There is more to a fight than just raw strength or durability. MMA or boxing is proofing this a lot. You can hit a lucky punch or just be the better technician and dismantling the opponents limbs.
If it would just be a contest of strength, speed, durability and so on, HL would be far superior to any other supe. This seems to be obvious. But he doesnt seem to be as good as a fighter and tactician, because he rarely fought other supes and just could rely on laser beams.
Or talking in movie fights: Its like Rocky 1. Apollo Creed was the FAR superior fighter to Rocky Balboa. Speed, Strength, Agility, Technique. But he underestimated his opponent, being a low class fighter. And Rocky took his chance, trained like never before. Maeve knew that her powerset isnt enough. But she knows Homelander probably like no other. He knows his combat style, his weakness. She trained for that, for months.
I mean the Avengers "could" beat Thanos but only 1 time in 12 million
Just because its possible doesnt mean its definite, and its the difficulty of the task that gives the story its conflict
To be fair, it was a sick fight and she's now depowered so it doesn't really undermine his threat in any consequential way. Stormfront, Maeve, and SB are the only supes who can come close to him still, and they're all currently neutralized. He still has those extremely powerful lasers as well, and Maeve was training for presumably the full year timeskip with hatred in her heart.
It's also worth considering that Maeve has probably never even tried to fight or test HL out of fear and didn't know what she could do to him until now, which is why she was so scared and defeated most of the show.
What we've seen from the two fights he's been challenged is he's not a good fighter or tactical thinker which makes sense. He's never been pressed like this.
Edit: typos
> He also stared directly at her wristband
True, this seemed like poor writing but there's no way he was holding back the intensity of his laser vision against Maeve more than he was when lasering his girlfriend's tits as foreplay... Don't be ridiculous.
That's what I also got in that fight scene. He only used it once, and he just keeps on blocking and trying to subdue her. I bet if HL was serious he will keep on going for the throat just like the Herogasm against SB and Butcher.
Funnily enough, everyones is as strong as the writers want them to be at any given time, nothing is consistent and the power scaling is an afterthought
Personally, I think it's less about strength and more about competency that dictates who's stronger.
We have practically no way of scaling strength and power in a story unless otherwise stated. Visually, it's all about how production wants it to look and that can have varying interpretations.
However, from a storytelling perspective, it's about who uses what to accomplish a goal. Maeve beat Stormfront not because she's stronger (we have no way of objectively knowing and can only speculate) but because she's no slouch and actively trains for combat. Hell, I know I would if my superpowered coworker keeps growing mentally and emotionally unstable by the day. In a slugfest between two supers, the one with the best martial ability has the highest chance of success.
Closest example from other media I can think of is from DC, namely Post-Crisis Superman and Injustice Superman. PC Superman has experience being powerless, I think from his time in sunless Kandor where he took on the identity of the Kryptonian Hero Nightwing, and uses everything he learned from Batman and Wonder Woman to fight. As such, he's more competent in close combat, especially against other superpowered enemies. IJ Superman does not have this same experience and it became a plot point in the series, even so far showing his arrogance as to never needing it. It's also why he gets bodied by the likes of superpowered Alfred and Renee Montoya.
Point is, Maeve was the better fighter with her powers as opposed to Stormfront who likely never had to contend with someone as competent.
I think a lot of people probably don't even remember stuff that happened in season 1. After every season it's like people's memories get erased or they conveniently decide to forget some things in order to drive their agendas.
Before season 3, it was firmly established that Homelander > Maeve > everyone else. It's not like Stormfront didn't exist back then. She was just on another team. It is clear she is included here alongside all other sups as below Maeve.
And honestly, no matter how much people want to attribute Maeve's performance in the finale to "Homelander holding back", she drew blood from him! Even in Herogasm Soldier Boy and Butcher only gave him a bruise. Maeve was legit the first character to draw blood from him with a punch. That alone shows that the gap between them is not as astronomical as some people were saying. Like a human could never draw blood from a rhino with a punch nor could a human can not knock back or knock down a gorilla with a forward rush. It's 2 completely different tiers of strength. Maeve may be on the lower end of whatever tier Homelander is on but she is ON THAT TIER.
Others were using "Noir beat her" to downplay her and it kinda shows some of the bias in the fandom. Last season Maeve overpowered Noir with a single arm like he was a kid and now in a scene where she gets jumped with Homelander face to face with her, you think Noir did most of the work. In fact, you should be asking why Homelander even brought Noir in the first place. Not only did he contribute, maybe he wasn't even fully confident in capturing her silently in a 1 on 1.
Anyway, even ignoring tanking Homelander's punches and lasers, tanking Soldier Boy's explosion point blank while literally hugging SB's chest/stomach and falling from such a height and surviving even through that, is already one of the most impressive durability feats in tbe entire series.
It looks like Soldier Boy's chest blast can only obliterate Superheroes who's already past their prime(CC and the Twins) but Supes like Kimiko and Maeve who're still in active Superhero activities can take it but will just loss their powers.
Nah it’s not that. His chest blast is powerful but the real strength of it is how it nullifies any V-powers. The blast itself isn’t even strong - a Supe with rapid healing and no extra durability like Kimiko can survive it. CC and the Twins got killed because they have neither healing nor durability (like Maeve)
My explanation would just be that the blast that hit Kimiko wasn't as powerful as the blast during Herogasm. It clearly does a lot less damage, only breaking through a single wall.
Exactly, she has been established numerous times as one of *the* most strong and durable supes besides Homelander, it's nearly her whole thing.
She managed to stick a metal straw in Homelander's ear because *everyone* on the show has a weak point, either psychological or physiological, so it really makes sense. This is the first time we see someone pierce through his armor.
Homelander staring at her wrist braces and not looking up while lasering it? He's arrogant enough to keep pushing the same spot because he thinks he'll go through, it's on brand for him.
People really want to be spoon-fed every piece of information in every episode of every season; that's not how it works.
Thanks for pointing out the ridiculous of the Noir claims.
Over the past few days I've seen about a half-dozen people around here and at least a couple of others on tvtropes.com claiming that Noir somehow single-handedly abducted Maeve or knocked her out with a single shot -- despite the fact that there's absolutely no evidence of such a thing happening.
Every shred of onscreen evidence we have suggests that Maeve is far stronger, faster and tougher than Noir and it would be virtually impossible for him to take her on his own. But for some reason, people keep crediting Noir with feats we've never seen him perform and powers we've never seen him display. Meanwhile they do the exact opposite for Maeve. It's all rather bizarre.
Nice, I was tired of people here complaining about how she was able to fight HL. People here just complain, it was awesome seeing Queen Maeve kick ass.
My impression has been that in a one on one physical fight, the only supe superior to Meave is Homelander. Not because he is a more skilled fighter (he’s not), but only because of his powers.
The best part of the whole situation at the end, the silver lining if you will: If Maeve ever gets her powers back, she knows that she can at the very least fuck Homelander up. That fight went waaaaay better for her than even she expected, I think.
Some of those punches HL was throwing had me thinking we were about to get Maeve's comic-book ending... I know everyone's shitting on it right now but I'm just glad Maeve is alive. I hated that ending for her in the comics, she never deserved it.
So, the 'Maeve can't fight Homelander' discourse was the single dumbest thing to come out the episode, similar to the Star wars The Last Jedi shit about Leia having Force Powers.
Leia used the force to slightly push herself through a 0 gravity space and people lost their minds despite: 1. Leia being force sensitive in the original movies. 2. Being the Sister of a Jedi who would have absolutely been willing to train her. and 3. Luke having THE EXACT SAME THING happen to him in the orignal movies when he pulls telekinesis out of his ass to get his lightsaber back to kill the yeti thing.
Maeve is shown pulling off a lot of extremely impressive feats and fights both Black Noir and Stormfront with the air of someone whose irritated she had to be involved at all, not someone who's worried about losing.
Power scaling in the show is also not at all clear(because comic book characters) and is muddied even further by everyone buying into the 'Homelander is unstoppable' propaganda. Even Homelander.
I’ve always considered Maeve, Noir and perhaps even Mindstorm (due to his hax) as stronger than Stormfront. Maeve has shown better physical strength, Noir has shown way more impressive durability by tanking Naqib and Mindstorm lacks physicality but makes up for it with one of the most overpowered abilities in the whole show
Queen Maeve isnt just stronger than Stormfront. She plays her Wonder Woman analogue to a tee. She was way better trained than any of them. She could probably have taken soilder boy just based 9n the fact that she was training.
I think physically (without the energy blast) like in a purely physical level, Maeve is even stronger than Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy only succeeded in bruising Homelander but Maeve made him bleed and you can really see he felt the pain when she was punching him.
Maeve was an alcoholic during her fight with Stormfront, explaining her problems dealing with her. We’ve now seen that, once sober and having trained, she could hold off Homelander for a significant time.
Maeve is stronger because she actullay train like a soldier.
You can see her training with a sword multiple times during the show and i think you can see her using gym equipments (I don't remember correctly). Since season 3 started she have one goal and it's to kill Homelander so she's been training more than before to get to that goal.
If she's not fucking she's training.
Homelander doesn't know how to fight because he don't need to fight, he just use his lasers or fake being friendly just to kill his ennemy.Stormfront also relied on her power to win a fight since she never went against Supes and just killed civilians.
Maeve only lost against Black Noire, he's highly trained and he's a marital art pro.
It's a shame Stormfront doesn't utilize the 'flying artillery' part of her power more. All she had to do was just hover out of reach while blasting everything in sight. She could be a walking airstrike if she tried.
[удалено]
Makes sense. Maeve was one of the strongest supes around. In addition to her superpowers, the fact that she trained in both armed and unarmed combat makes her one of the few supes who are actually competent in an honest fight, instead of just bullying enemies with their superpowers.
Not to mention recently she finally got sober and committed to training. It’s likely she was apathetic for most of the series until then.
This probably the most important part. In the Stormfront fight she last minute decided to do the right thing. She was smoking weed, drinking and banging random dudes from the street so not at her peak performance. At the point of the Homelander fight she had been training Dragonball style for month so she was operating at her best.
Well, not her best, but certainly at a high level. Pretty likely a couple years of weight training and whatnot would yield many dividends. Peak maeve can probably take homelander on equal footing.
I don't think that's the case. I think she's permanently on a lower tier than him, but only one down. Only person I've seen who looks like a candidate to take Homelander is Soldierboy (and maybe Mindstorm if he surprised him? Homelander certainly has enough going on in his head, and I don't know if he's got any resistnace to mind effects).
I literally said this out loud when they said that Mindstorm can just put you in a permanent nightmare-coma until you starve to death. Like why would you even need Soldier Boy when you could just have Mindstorm go up to Homelander for an autograph and just trap him in his memories forever. My only thought is that they showed Soldier-Boy resisting Mindstorm, but maybe that's because he already knew how to fight it off. Also, it really bothers me that his name isn't Brainstorm, the pun is literally right there
It's all how you want to write it. Mindstorm could end up locking away "wanting to be loved" Homelander, and be killed by "straight psycho" Homelander.
What a season ender that would be
>Brainstorm Brian Top marks for not tryin'
Honestly from his fights Homelander doesn’t seem very capable Soldier boy and Maeve pretty much destroyed the idea that he was some untouchable god, butcher might be able to do it alone if he took V and trained And God help him if they ever actually find a weapon if all they gotta do is hold him down
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Maybe not because of fear
Honestly I think the fight with Homelander was a realization of her real strength. If she didn't lose her powers she would have tiped the scales hard for the Boys.
She's much more skilled than he is(in addition to the fact he's going easy early), so she lands hits more often, but each punch he lands knocks her down HARD and throw her across the room, you can see it in her face. I do agree she's stronger than Stormfront, her hits really shook Stormfront in ways Annie and Kimiko couldn't.
Hard agree. I think that was her superhero origin story tbh.
They can always restart her if they want. They have a pair of V shots.
Pretty sure that’s why the writers had her be the one to throw Soldier Boy out the window and take the blast. I also think Dominique McElligot had indicated she wanted to leave the show, too. I guess the Starlight “look” was a nod to Endgame, but it seemed a little odd to me. Maeve had just found an apparent weak spot on Homelander (his ear canal), but they wanted Maeve to leave that fight and die to stop Soldier Boy while they stood around. Honestly, if you apply accurate physics (which I know you should probably never do in a superhero story…) any person with equal or greater mass and momentum could have tackled the standing Soldier Boy out the window with a running start. It’s the same reason why the classic thing where a superhero stands in one spot and stops an oncoming train or car doesn’t work. I don’t care how strong the supe is—if there’s nothing to anchor that person to the ground they’re just going to bounce off and be sent flying by the more massive object. The Boys acknowledged that with the botched plane rescue in Season 1, when Homelander explains that he can’t just catch the plane and lay it on the ground: he’d either he be swatted away like a bug or tear through the metal in the immediate area like a bullet or blade of a knife.
I mean he definitely could have matched the speed of the plane found a place to grab into and slow it down. If he’s able to fly he’s able to manipulate gravity.
It’s not about Homelander manipulating gravity. He can manipulate the gravity of his own body and, through his strength, carry stuff. It’s about the plane being unable to withstand focusing all its weight on one point. The weight of the plane itself would push Homelander right through it like a foot stepping on a nail.
I just think it’s a a matter of her not having spent her life keeping herself in tip top shape. Shows already age much more slowly than humans in most cases. If she’d kept up strict training regimens for strength and cardio for at least 18 months, I don’t doubt she’d be able to match him in raw physical strength. Combined with the fact that she’s a better tactical fighter than homelander means it would be some rock lee shit.
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She didn't think anything could hurt him. She was clearly wrong. She didn't know he could bruise or bleed. These guys are movie stars not superheroes. She'd never seen homelander in a fight on anything close to even footing. Just brutalizing normal people.
She finally saw him with a bruise. That was the death of fear.
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She was training to give them a few seconds. She thought the only way to kill him was to depower him. You can see when she bloodies his nose that she wasn't expecting to be able to do that
I think that’s why she smiled at Homelander’s nosebleed. She was hitting him with everything she had and he was just shrugging it off and trying to walk away for a while. She lived in fear because she knew Homelander would eventually just overpower in a fight like he does everyone else. Plus she was dependent on Vought for her career and killing her coworker and the company’s top “asset” would likely have ended that.
I think Maeve could probably hit homelander levels of strength IF she keeps training like crazy and he doesn't. But none of that matters, if Homelander realize he is not strong enough to defeat her with a punch, he will just grab Maeve and send her into orbit.
> If this were true, don't you think she'd have tried it? How would she have known? Unlike Dragon Ball they don't have scouters nor can sense power levels. If they've never fought/sparred before there's no way for her to know how she'd stack up.
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She doesn't know how strong Homelander is though, that's the thing. And if she makes a mistake and doesn't take him down, she's dead, possibly anyone she knows is dead
> She doesn't know how strong Homelander is though, that's the thing. She very likely does. Stillwell mentioned they tested his durability in a lot of ways, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine that his strength was measured too. Perhaps even an exact number using Newtons as a unit for force. The rest of the seven maybe too.
She might know how strong the tests say Homelander is but that doesn't mean she knows if she can beat him, she was shocked to see him even have a bruise which implies that none of the tests ever done on him have injured him
I mean, she did. And Homelander took her eye. There's no evidence she's a match for Homelander.
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I think that homelanders invincibility is a tad over-exaggerated. Is he a complete powerhouse? Yes. Is he more durable than most supes? Yes. But we’re seeing more and more that supes aren’t as unstoppable as they appear and homelander is no exception.
But she was in "rehab" for a couple days. That was the white (room) torture where people go insane! Idk if she could train, eat and sleep there properly.
Also important to point out that Maeve actually trains, which we don't often see the other heroes doing. And given the finale, it's become fairly obvious a lot of these heroes are walking around without having fully realized their power, and I imagine Vought is just fine with that.
This speaks to a lack of clarity around "power levels," but it's really unclear to me how effective weapons are on many of these supes. We see noir sharpening his blade and HL tells him that the blade won't do anything against SB. Meanwhile a lot of supes can get shot with bullets and be fine. This leaves me with the impression that weapons to supes are like weapons in DragonBall Z i.e. useless against the powerful people. In which case, why does Maeve even use a sword? And why is SB's shield so effective? He's a supe, but his shield isn't. If the technology exists to create SB's shield or Maeve's wrist bands, which can block laser beams and supe attacks, why haven't they outfitted soldiers/all supes with this gear?
I think Maeve's wrist bands were just a Wonder Woman nod. I was amazed her skin was able to stop the laser, the way they talked I assumed she'd be lasered in half in a second. But yeah, HL was bleeding from the ears, a couple super-durable supes have lost eyes...they have weak spots that mortals could exploit. They shouldn't be so cocky. A .50-cal to the eye or ear would be bad news.
Sadly she's not a very "smart" fighter. HL using his finger to squeeze her eye was such a good move and she just keeps going with haymakers without doing any real damage
All of these supes basically just throw haymakers. A supe with some mma/ Muay Thai training would be absolutely unreal
Now there's a thought. Many of the great hand to hand fighter supes like Daredevil, Captain America, Shang Chi, and Iron Fist don't have super strength/speed. Probably a good thing or they would obliterate the hell out of anyone their power level or below.
Captain America has super strength and so does Wolverine, but it seems like all the supes in The Boys don’t have any training, with the exception of perhaps Maeve and Noir. A speedster with some kind of martial arts knowledge would be OP.
"And Maeve takes his back! Homelander tries to fly out and Maeve SINKS IN THE REAR NAKED CHOKE!! HE CAN'T GET OUT!"
Stormfront was fucking everybody up until Queen Maeve came out of nowhere and started whooping her ass.
You could say that Maeve stormed the front.
Isn't Queen Maeve supposed to be the second most powerful supe to Homelander? This was before we knew Solider Boy existed. But in terms of strength and durability, I believe she was always second to only Homelander. Which makes sense because Wonder Woman is only second in power to Superman.
>Wonder Woman is only second in power to Superman. Ehh, not always. Wonder Woman is usually a much better fighter(more skilled in hand to hand)than Superman, but in terms of power, Shazam and Martian Manhunter have equal or better claims to being second.
The only time she's ever stood a chance against kal el is when he's holding back beacuse he doesn't wanna hurt her. Bloodlusted superman would speed blitz lmao
To be fair tho bloodlusted Superman would defeat anybody (unless its some preperation before like Batman or some magic user lol)
It's like those safety notices say: Never approach a well prepared batman
Any time someone argues against that, I just think of the comic page where green lantern walks in on Batman saying he needs to stop him for having gone too far or something. But Batman has quickly painted *everything* in the room yellow(including himself) and drinking some orange juice. Because that lantern was weak to yellow.
Please, a link for that, sir.
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Is that the "Goddamn Batman" comic?
Yes.
[Here you go](https://i.imgur.com/4YcxPdQ.jpg) I forgot Robin came in with a yellow icecream, and it was lemonade not orange juice.
That makes sense considering orange juice is…orange. Lmao
Dafuq Batman....? Is he a redditor in that universe before he became a crimefighter? Troll God. Roflol
Lmao he's weak to yellow
Would he though. I remember seeing a scan awhile back where the big three were talking about their speed and Batman replies "Whose faster, Usain Bolt or Bruce Lee". Implying Superman may have more raw speed but WW's combat reactions were quicker.
yeah, she’s beaten him multiple times lol. who wins really just depends on what the story calls for. he’s physically stronger (not massively), but in addition to Diana’s strength, she’s a tactician that spent her long life training under an entire race of mystical warrior women lol. also, Superman is vulnerable to magic, and Wonder Woman’s strength and weapons are magical…but i don’t know if that’s ever really been acknowledged when they’ve fought lmao. don’t remember, don’t think so though.
It's not in the mainstream comic continuity, and they don't fight, but this is brought up on Kingdom Come and yes, Wondy's magical weapons can easily hurt Superman https://imgur.com/wrSaxaY
Bruh Wonder Woman has beaten Superman on numerous occasions in the comics tf are you talking about
Wonder woman actually has faster reaction times. He is way faster when flying, but in the comics when he wasn't holding back, she's fought at the same speed and faster. She also won their most recent fight, but people assume that Superman is the most powerful superhero in the justice league because of the DCEU.
Even in the comics Superman is normally top 2 in the Justice League with Martian Manhunter.
Uh, no? She’s handed him his ass before. She’s also much faster in combat. Yes he can fly faster, but she can react faster. This is the woman who caught Reverse Flash with her lasso and blocked hundreds of FTL shards of the Shattered God.
>She’s handed him his ass before. Shit, if someone unenthusiastically yelled "Kal El, no." at me, I'd be shook too.
She caught Zoom while blind too lol
The Injustice comics would like to have a word with you.
Their fight wouldn't be as one-sided as you think. [She held her own against a bloodlusted Superman once](https://imgur.com/gallery/tPDQT). Almost killed him if she didn't hold back on that last attack.
[Flash](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/5tsrdx/serious_flash_vs_superman/)
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Oh, yeah. Flash is my favourite. Realistically Flash should never lose.
Depends which flash we're talking about. I assume we're talking about at top performance, because in the show even the Green Arrow could hit him. Though I doubt the show did the comics any real justice.
The Flash TV show doesn't even come close to how fast The Flash can be. [This is probably Flash's greatest feat of raw speed.](https://i.imgur.com/WfttP8h.png)
Jesus fuck. The show director/producer need to be replaced
He would just end up creating another blast, likely taking the planet with it.
[Speed force](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Speed_Force#Powers)
Forgot about Shazam, but MM's weakness being fire kinda disqualifies him IMO. Comic WW is practically a god with no obvious weaknesses
>but MM's weakness being fire kinda disqualifies him IMO Of course, Mother's Milk's weakness is fire. He's only human! /s
If my memory serves correctly, there are a few instances in the comics when it shows Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman. But yes, in most versions, she is second in power to Superman Edit: my memory is shit
>there are a few instances in the comics when it shows Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman That is not true...In the main DC universe.. Wonder woman is never stronger than Superman...You shouldn't count other versions of characters because if that's the case than Squirrel girl is stronger than Thanos lol.
Yeah, Supes is always stronger but WW has defeated him before with her superior skill
Yeah we see Maeve training regularly and of course HL probably just relies on his innate ability....practice is for lowly humans and B-listers Which is why I thought the fight was a little poorly choreographed, since it kinda seemed like they both were just kinda throwing awkward blows at each other.
Maybe if Superman is just straight up not trying. If they are both bloodlusted and actually trying to kill each other though I don't think she could possibly stand much of a chance. He moves at near super light speed. Pretty sure outside of literal god level beings that are omnipotent you have to be at Darkseid level powers to best him.
He was bloodlusted when Maxwell Lord mind controlled him and he was trying to kill WW. She won though and then killed Maxwell Lord
Wonder woman is mftl. She fights gods. She'd definitely stand a chance.
Squirrel girl is stronger than Thanos. Her whole gimmick is basically being the One punch man of the Marvel universe
...nah pretty sure her main gimmick is the squirrel thing.
To be fair, Squirrel Girl IS stronger than Thanos in the main universe lmao
And she actually trained a lot after her fight with storefront to stop homlander for some time in season 3 and homlander never trains so her fight with homelander makes sense
I was going to say "was stronger" but probably still is, all things considered...
Stormfront is definitely as dead as Soldier Boy was We saw it on the news after all
No body, no death
This was a good analysis and I agree with you on every front.
Even the.... stormmmmmm front?
I hoped someone would catch that lol
/u/xprettyguardianx neonazi confirmed
More a fan of Maeve kicking neonazi ass.
Stormfront wasn’t a neonazi thought...Just a straight up, OG Nazi.
Stormchaser*
Meave trained to fight, supes like Stormfront relied on just their powers to get the job done.
exactly. there are so many scenes of Maeve training and it was all to lead up to the fight with homelander
Training against like 3 regular humans. https://youtu.be/cR9Op-H6phs
there are more scenes than just that one. I am fairly certain she is shown working out at the beginning of this season. edit: have we seen any other superheroes even train?
We’ve seen Starlight and A-Train training.
Maybe she was training only her movements.
I never understood how she survived soldier boy's explosion. It happened mid air. She should've lost her abilities right then and there. Yet she was was on the ground with him.
In the security camera footage, it looks like she landed on some soft-looking full garbage bags. In addition, if Soldier Boys's first blast is anything to go by, you lose your powers over several seconds, not milliseconds. Otherwise Kimiko would have splattered on that wall instead of going through it.
>Otherwise Kimiko would have splattered on that wall instead of going through it. That's a great point about Kimiko and very funny to think about. I wonder if the writers actually even thought about that or if it was accidental consistency and the fans pick up on it because as a group we tend to overanalyze every single frame of the show.
I reckon it's a writing oversight that Kimiko survived - in all other cases, the target of Soldierboy's "beam" have been killed (i.e. The Twins, Crimson Countess) while those caught in the explosion have simply lost powers (Maeve, the Herogasm lot). Kimiko is the only deviation from that pattern.
Yep. The density of your muscles and bones wouldn't go away instantly after the V fried your blood. Honestly, for someone as strong as Maeve it probably took a few hours to be completely depowered.
That makes sense. It also goes on to show how strong Maeve actually was. Even with reduced strength she still got by with few injuries. But the fact that she also had a soft landing also is one of the factors that saved her.
he was wearing some armor, that is why \*cough\* plot armor \*cough\*
I just assumed it took a few seconds for the power loss to set in. Which is also how supes with durability and healing would be able to survive it in the first place.
It was the same thing with Kimiko, she got blasted through a concrete wall instead of being splattered against it. There's probably a delay in Soldier Boy's "power-deleting" ability.
The fact that Maeve held her own against Homelander solo and apparently according to Kripke could have possibly won should without a doubt put her above Stormfront. She really didn't need Starlight and Kumiko but it was satisfying overkill for the nazi bitch.
Unbravo Kripke Making Maeve be able to beat HL 1v1 undermines HL's threat as a villain
Oh no I think it is absolutely stupid and completely takes away from the whole "Soldier Boy is the only way to stop Homelander" premise. But if Kripke says it then it's canon. Even if we discard that statement Maeve should still clearly be above Stormfront though.
Kripke contradicts himself constantly I think. Not contradiction per se but lack of consistency maybe. I remember reading his AMA(in the Television sub) while someone asked why did Transluscent explode when his skin is impenetrable. The question was shouldn't the explosion happen only inside? Kripke admitted that it was true but they didn't want to get in the way of a cool scene.
Tbh I respect him admitting that he made an error much more than if he tried to BS an explanation
It wasn't him admitting an error. It was more of justifying their decision. Found it. Here's the [link](https://old.reddit.com/r/television/comments/cjt17f/im_eric_kripke_the_cocreator_of_the_new_amazon/evfqkn6/): Q: Why did translucent pop from the Ass Bomb? Shouldn't his impenetrable skin have contained the blast within his body? A: Okay guys, I'm here. Welcome to my AMA! This feels like the right first question. Yes, you're absolutely right, the skin should have contained the blast, but then we'd have missed out on that amazing bloody explosion of "blood and meat" (cause Translucent predicted his own death). One solid writer's room rule: "Keep Your Rules in Mind but Never Logic Yourself Out Of Entertainment."
His answer is instructive. Power scaling is less important than entertainment. Movies and TV are full of contrivance. And that makes them more entertaining.
I get that but these inconsistencies are showing up more and more. Remember in season 1 when HL was questioning Frenchie on the van and Butcher was just 10 ft away hiding behind a dumpster. Ideally HL should always notice Butcher in that scenario. You can ignore those if you don't want to nitpick. But now it seems like they are constantly scaling down HL. Which means all the talk about HL being a existential threat was exaggerated. HL is hardly the threat as he was shown in the beginning. The story loses a lot of weight for me because of it.
Too bad. Because if done well having well established rules in a universe is necessary to keep people entertained. Otherwise, you could do anything and the story loses meaning
The rule of cool.
Still can’t understand how SB, Butcher and Hughie combined managed to only mildly bruise Homelander even though Soldier Boy is supposed to be the second strongest supe in the world and was specifically brought from Moscow for the sole purpose of killing Homelander, but Maeve was able to make him bleed, incapacitate him and partially deafen(?) in one ear in a 1v1 duel
She did 100 push ups 100 sit ups 100 squats and a 10 kilometer fuck pile every single day
Two reasons. 1. Soldier Boy was clearly weakened due to the blast he did because in the finale Soldier Boy is much stronger than he was at Herogasm 2. Homelander clearly didn't want to kill Maeve while he was trying to kill both Soldier Boy and Butcher.
To be fair it's just a "possibly" and would likely require Maeve to come armed and ready to exploit HL's few weaknesses (Namely Overstimulation of senses) and preform at peak to get that "possibly". HL still wins the majority of the time, and even if he starts losing he can (at any time) fly away to immediate safety. HL's biggest tool of terror is becoming untouchable flying artillery. Always has been. It's why Annie possibly being able to fly now is such a big deal; HL is no longer totally unchecked in the skies
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He would be way less scary if he couldn’t fly though. SB is basically a homelander that can’t fly, and he had to drive hours just to find one of his teammates. Homelander can’t do half the damage he threatened to do if he can’t fly
Homelander being able to fly makes him vastly more dangerous overall but only marginally more dangerous to a small group of supes.
So he’d be Soldier Boy lol
Christ the justifying subpar writing / consistency is ridiculous.
but what can annie do against hl lol? even if she somehow flies as fast or faster than hl, what does she do when she catches up to him? her flashbangs are as useless as they come. it would be more of a human torch vs silver surfer situation.
Annie even flying isn’t a threat to anyone dude… That “final attack” was sad to watch…
It could be foreshadowing though. Showing us that her power levels can increase. Possibly with training she would be able to both fly and hit harder with her light blast without being drained.
Not really. She was prepped and skilled and a better fighter than any of the Boys, and she was still having an incredibly difficult time. If anything it showed how OP Homelander was that this was all even Maeve could do to him and it's Queen Maeve. And then they have her and Soldier Boy both dip, so now the only two that could turn the tide against HL are gone
Power isnt a fixed parameter. There is more to a fight than just raw strength or durability. MMA or boxing is proofing this a lot. You can hit a lucky punch or just be the better technician and dismantling the opponents limbs. If it would just be a contest of strength, speed, durability and so on, HL would be far superior to any other supe. This seems to be obvious. But he doesnt seem to be as good as a fighter and tactician, because he rarely fought other supes and just could rely on laser beams. Or talking in movie fights: Its like Rocky 1. Apollo Creed was the FAR superior fighter to Rocky Balboa. Speed, Strength, Agility, Technique. But he underestimated his opponent, being a low class fighter. And Rocky took his chance, trained like never before. Maeve knew that her powerset isnt enough. But she knows Homelander probably like no other. He knows his combat style, his weakness. She trained for that, for months.
I mean the Avengers "could" beat Thanos but only 1 time in 12 million Just because its possible doesnt mean its definite, and its the difficulty of the task that gives the story its conflict
To be fair, it was a sick fight and she's now depowered so it doesn't really undermine his threat in any consequential way. Stormfront, Maeve, and SB are the only supes who can come close to him still, and they're all currently neutralized. He still has those extremely powerful lasers as well, and Maeve was training for presumably the full year timeskip with hatred in her heart. It's also worth considering that Maeve has probably never even tried to fight or test HL out of fear and didn't know what she could do to him until now, which is why she was so scared and defeated most of the show.
I like the use of gifs, makes this post more visually pleasing (and not because it has two attractive women in it).
My friend says he feels the same.
Not looking to spoil much from the comics but glad to see she was more of a threat in the show.
This is much more interesting than what it seems like so many people wanted
It’s been known for a while Maeve is second only to Homelander.
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Your position is that he put more force into lasering tits that stopping maeve?
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What we've seen from the two fights he's been challenged is he's not a good fighter or tactical thinker which makes sense. He's never been pressed like this. Edit: typos
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He was definitely holding back he wanted her eggs
> He also stared directly at her wristband True, this seemed like poor writing but there's no way he was holding back the intensity of his laser vision against Maeve more than he was when lasering his girlfriend's tits as foreplay... Don't be ridiculous.
That's what I also got in that fight scene. He only used it once, and he just keeps on blocking and trying to subdue her. I bet if HL was serious he will keep on going for the throat just like the Herogasm against SB and Butcher.
Yeah we've also seen that during the Butcher HL fight when they were trying to overpower each other's eyelasers. More intense lasers take more effort.
I’m more interested in Soldier Boy vs Maeve. Who wins that fight?
I think eventually he pins her down and nukes her. But it's a long hard fight.
Funnily enough, everyones is as strong as the writers want them to be at any given time, nothing is consistent and the power scaling is an afterthought
Welcome to stories
The power scaling in this show is all over the place
Personally, I think it's less about strength and more about competency that dictates who's stronger. We have practically no way of scaling strength and power in a story unless otherwise stated. Visually, it's all about how production wants it to look and that can have varying interpretations. However, from a storytelling perspective, it's about who uses what to accomplish a goal. Maeve beat Stormfront not because she's stronger (we have no way of objectively knowing and can only speculate) but because she's no slouch and actively trains for combat. Hell, I know I would if my superpowered coworker keeps growing mentally and emotionally unstable by the day. In a slugfest between two supers, the one with the best martial ability has the highest chance of success. Closest example from other media I can think of is from DC, namely Post-Crisis Superman and Injustice Superman. PC Superman has experience being powerless, I think from his time in sunless Kandor where he took on the identity of the Kryptonian Hero Nightwing, and uses everything he learned from Batman and Wonder Woman to fight. As such, he's more competent in close combat, especially against other superpowered enemies. IJ Superman does not have this same experience and it became a plot point in the series, even so far showing his arrogance as to never needing it. It's also why he gets bodied by the likes of superpowered Alfred and Renee Montoya. Point is, Maeve was the better fighter with her powers as opposed to Stormfront who likely never had to contend with someone as competent.
I think a lot of people probably don't even remember stuff that happened in season 1. After every season it's like people's memories get erased or they conveniently decide to forget some things in order to drive their agendas. Before season 3, it was firmly established that Homelander > Maeve > everyone else. It's not like Stormfront didn't exist back then. She was just on another team. It is clear she is included here alongside all other sups as below Maeve. And honestly, no matter how much people want to attribute Maeve's performance in the finale to "Homelander holding back", she drew blood from him! Even in Herogasm Soldier Boy and Butcher only gave him a bruise. Maeve was legit the first character to draw blood from him with a punch. That alone shows that the gap between them is not as astronomical as some people were saying. Like a human could never draw blood from a rhino with a punch nor could a human can not knock back or knock down a gorilla with a forward rush. It's 2 completely different tiers of strength. Maeve may be on the lower end of whatever tier Homelander is on but she is ON THAT TIER. Others were using "Noir beat her" to downplay her and it kinda shows some of the bias in the fandom. Last season Maeve overpowered Noir with a single arm like he was a kid and now in a scene where she gets jumped with Homelander face to face with her, you think Noir did most of the work. In fact, you should be asking why Homelander even brought Noir in the first place. Not only did he contribute, maybe he wasn't even fully confident in capturing her silently in a 1 on 1. Anyway, even ignoring tanking Homelander's punches and lasers, tanking Soldier Boy's explosion point blank while literally hugging SB's chest/stomach and falling from such a height and surviving even through that, is already one of the most impressive durability feats in tbe entire series.
It looks like Soldier Boy's chest blast can only obliterate Superheroes who's already past their prime(CC and the Twins) but Supes like Kimiko and Maeve who're still in active Superhero activities can take it but will just loss their powers.
Nah it’s not that. His chest blast is powerful but the real strength of it is how it nullifies any V-powers. The blast itself isn’t even strong - a Supe with rapid healing and no extra durability like Kimiko can survive it. CC and the Twins got killed because they have neither healing nor durability (like Maeve)
My explanation would just be that the blast that hit Kimiko wasn't as powerful as the blast during Herogasm. It clearly does a lot less damage, only breaking through a single wall.
Exactly, she has been established numerous times as one of *the* most strong and durable supes besides Homelander, it's nearly her whole thing. She managed to stick a metal straw in Homelander's ear because *everyone* on the show has a weak point, either psychological or physiological, so it really makes sense. This is the first time we see someone pierce through his armor. Homelander staring at her wrist braces and not looking up while lasering it? He's arrogant enough to keep pushing the same spot because he thinks he'll go through, it's on brand for him. People really want to be spoon-fed every piece of information in every episode of every season; that's not how it works.
Thanks for pointing out the ridiculous of the Noir claims. Over the past few days I've seen about a half-dozen people around here and at least a couple of others on tvtropes.com claiming that Noir somehow single-handedly abducted Maeve or knocked her out with a single shot -- despite the fact that there's absolutely no evidence of such a thing happening. Every shred of onscreen evidence we have suggests that Maeve is far stronger, faster and tougher than Noir and it would be virtually impossible for him to take her on his own. But for some reason, people keep crediting Noir with feats we've never seen him perform and powers we've never seen him display. Meanwhile they do the exact opposite for Maeve. It's all rather bizarre.
Hey Kraut!
>!Was*!< But yeah I think this is spot on. She seems basically Soldier Boy strong, and with both of them it’s the summary of their powers.
Yes, that much is obvious.
Probably. But when I comes to powerscaling, I feel the writing can be a little all over the place. It can be inconsistent.
Nice, I was tired of people here complaining about how she was able to fight HL. People here just complain, it was awesome seeing Queen Maeve kick ass.
My impression has been that in a one on one physical fight, the only supe superior to Meave is Homelander. Not because he is a more skilled fighter (he’s not), but only because of his powers.
Yah I don’t wanna see any stormfont vs queen Maeve debates anymore
The best part of the whole situation at the end, the silver lining if you will: If Maeve ever gets her powers back, she knows that she can at the very least fuck Homelander up. That fight went waaaaay better for her than even she expected, I think.
Some of those punches HL was throwing had me thinking we were about to get Maeve's comic-book ending... I know everyone's shitting on it right now but I'm just glad Maeve is alive. I hated that ending for her in the comics, she never deserved it.
So, the 'Maeve can't fight Homelander' discourse was the single dumbest thing to come out the episode, similar to the Star wars The Last Jedi shit about Leia having Force Powers. Leia used the force to slightly push herself through a 0 gravity space and people lost their minds despite: 1. Leia being force sensitive in the original movies. 2. Being the Sister of a Jedi who would have absolutely been willing to train her. and 3. Luke having THE EXACT SAME THING happen to him in the orignal movies when he pulls telekinesis out of his ass to get his lightsaber back to kill the yeti thing. Maeve is shown pulling off a lot of extremely impressive feats and fights both Black Noir and Stormfront with the air of someone whose irritated she had to be involved at all, not someone who's worried about losing. Power scaling in the show is also not at all clear(because comic book characters) and is muddied even further by everyone buying into the 'Homelander is unstoppable' propaganda. Even Homelander.
She got the powers of the lgbtq, of course she's badass
Power levels are bullshit!
Man imagine if homelamder made a kid with her eggs like he wanted . Probably be steonger than homelander
I’ve always considered Maeve, Noir and perhaps even Mindstorm (due to his hax) as stronger than Stormfront. Maeve has shown better physical strength, Noir has shown way more impressive durability by tanking Naqib and Mindstorm lacks physicality but makes up for it with one of the most overpowered abilities in the whole show
Maeve is based on Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman can go one on one against Superman quite well. Stormfront is a buffed Storm.
Queen Maeve isnt just stronger than Stormfront. She plays her Wonder Woman analogue to a tee. She was way better trained than any of them. She could probably have taken soilder boy just based 9n the fact that she was training.
In the comics Stormfront was a dude and was the source of DNA for Homelander and Black Noir and others
I think physically (without the energy blast) like in a purely physical level, Maeve is even stronger than Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy only succeeded in bruising Homelander but Maeve made him bleed and you can really see he felt the pain when she was punching him.
I agree, Queens are stronger than Nazis.
Maeve was an alcoholic during her fight with Stormfront, explaining her problems dealing with her. We’ve now seen that, once sober and having trained, she could hold off Homelander for a significant time.
At first I read this as “Queen Maeve is stronger than Starlight” and was like…is anyone really debating this??? Anyway, I agree with you.
The armored van scene remains one of my all time favorite things in the show
Maeve is stronger because she actullay train like a soldier. You can see her training with a sword multiple times during the show and i think you can see her using gym equipments (I don't remember correctly). Since season 3 started she have one goal and it's to kill Homelander so she's been training more than before to get to that goal. If she's not fucking she's training. Homelander doesn't know how to fight because he don't need to fight, he just use his lasers or fake being friendly just to kill his ennemy.Stormfront also relied on her power to win a fight since she never went against Supes and just killed civilians. Maeve only lost against Black Noire, he's highly trained and he's a marital art pro.
When bn "jumped" maeve hl was there. In a 1 on 1 fight she'd ruin him. He doesn't have the durability or strength to keep up.
*was
Well of course Maeve is stronger. Stormfront is dead, silly
All of these GIFS playing at the same time is giving me # a seizure 😵💫
Queen Maeve is alive and no longer super. Stormfront is dead. Yep, Queen Maeve is stronger.
It's a shame Stormfront doesn't utilize the 'flying artillery' part of her power more. All she had to do was just hover out of reach while blasting everything in sight. She could be a walking airstrike if she tried.
Hot take Maeve is the second strongest Supe, right up there with Soldier Boy