So, Who Wins in the Fight Between Superman and Homelander?
It’s one of the oldest arguments in superhero fandom: who would win in a fight? Power-scaling and favoritism and just pure logic have fueled the debate few years, and there have even been quite a few officially-licensed multiversal crossovers over the years setting out to answer the question.
The latest to join that foray is DC K.O: Boss Battle, a new one-shot set in the middle of DC’s no-holds-barred battle royale event, DC K.O. The issue, which is available wherever comics are sold this week, was first teased at last year’s New York Comic Con, with promo art confirming cameos from characters from wildly different publishers and franchises like Mortal Kombat, Annabelle, and Red Sonja. But the biggest inclusion was undoubtedly Homelander, the “evil Superman” of The Boys franchise who has become a household name in recent years. Boss Battle has teased that Superman would finally, canonically face off against his darker counterpart… and now, we know who won the battle.
**Spoilers for DC K.O.: Boss Battle #1 from Jeremy Adams, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ronan Cliquet, Kieran McKeown, Pablo M. Collar, Hi-Fi, and Tom Napolitano below!**
The issue builds in a canonical reason for these multiversal fights: the remaining champions of the DCU (Superman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, and Joker) need to generate enough energy to defeat the Absolute Universe’s trinity, who appear to have been brainwashed into being Darkseid’s minions. A few previously-fallen combatants are brought in, like Black Lightning, Star Sapphire, and Plastic Man, and they are each thrown into a different pocket of reality to fight a specific challenger.
As the battles begin, Wonder Woman fights Red Sonja, Star Sapphire fights Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Lex Luthor ends up against Samantha Strong from Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, and Superman ends up face-to-face with Homelander. The pair briefly fight, as the barriers of reality are broken down and all of the combatants end up in the same space… but things end, rather unceremoniously, before an actual “victor” is declared.
Wait, What?!
In order to not permanently wreck reality, the multiversal combatants are sent back to their homes… and Homelander is even disappointed that he can’t continue to punch the blue Boy Scout. So, the winner is… neither of them, at least definitively.
Admittedly, that answer is more than a little underwhelming: both because of how persistent the argument of who is “stronger” of the two has become, and because of the political context that a character like Homelander has taken on in recent years. The stakes of DC K.O. have given us “winners” of previous fights, either in best two out of three match-ups or in an all-out battle royale, while still existing in these heightened circumstances.
Honestly, it would have been fun to see Superman canonically beating the snot out of Homelander for another few panels… but maybe that will just have to be saved for the next big cross-company crossover.
DC K.O.: Boss Battle #1 is now available wherever comics are sold.
(featured image: DC)
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