In compiling this list, we focus on characters whose abilities can be directly harnessed in combat situations. Characters like A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), who has significant powers but is hampered by physical limitations such as heart issues, might not make the cut. Similarly, although characters like Kenji Miyashiro (Abraham Lim) and Kimiko Miyashiro (Karen Fukuhara) are powerful, they remain on the “bubbling under” list. Even Starlight (Erin Moriarty), with her potentially destructive abilities, is excluded due to her inconsistent control over them.

We are also including a few characters from “Gen V,” as the two series are closely linked and often share characters. With these criteria in mind, let’s delve into the top 15 most powerful characters in “The Boys” TV universe.

One could argue that Cipher, also known as Thomas Godolkin (portrayed by Hamish Linklater and Ethan Slater), deserves a spot for his control-themed abilities. However, Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) might be even more formidable. Fans speculate that this “Gen V” character could potentially challenge Homelander (Antony Starr) himself, thanks to her abilities to control people, manipulate their emotions and memories, and even possess them entirely.

Some might argue that the puppeteer-themed Cipher, aka Thomas Godolkin (Hamish Linklater and Ethan Slater) would be the best fit on this list when it comes to control-themed powers. However, Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) may well be the more powerful example. In fact, fans have theorized that this “Gen V” character’s superpower could stop Homelander (Antony Starr) himself, thanks to her ability to control people, manipulate their emotions and memories, and even outright possess them.

Cate’s mind control powers can be erratic and require physical touch, but her telepathic persuasion makes her a massive threat. As the “Gen V” Season 1 episode “Jumanji” shows, she can even trap people inside her dangerous mindscape during times of extreme distress.

Though the extent of her conscious control over her abilities is up for debate, all of this still combines to make Cate a frightening figure with potential to spare. This is fitting, since her power set and general role on the show make her an expy of two dangerous Marvel characters — Jean Grey of the X-Men and the mind-controlling Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Wanda “Scarlet Witch” Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen).

Jordan Li (Derek Luh and London Thor) has two distinct superpower sets, and they’re both formidable. Jordan can change their gender at will, with both forms featuring their own abilities. The male Jordan is a classic powerhouse who’s extremely durable against physical harm. Meanwhile, the female Jordan is fast and agile, and can release powerful energy bolts from their hands.

This combination of powers, and Jordan’s ability to alternate power sets rapidly, makes them a versatile and dangerous opponent to just about any supe whose primary attacks are physical — including Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who finds out during their brief Season 1 battle that Jordan is far from a pushover. 

If Jordan has a weakness, it’s that they can be outmaneuvered by other supes with more esoteric power sets. “Gen V” Season 2, episode 4 — titled “Bags” — shows that Jordan can be surprised by both Cipher’s puppetry and Marie Moreau’s (Jaz Sinclair) biokinesis.

“Gen V” powerhouse Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) goes from secret test subject to becoming a big deal in Season 4 of “The Boys.” This is no surprise, because he really is a very powerful guy. He’s physically stronger than his brother, Golden Boy, whose abilities Sam’s blood was used to augment. On top of that, Sam can shrug off an absurd amount of damage, from gunfire to attacks from other supes. He can leap huge distances, which he uses to travel from place to place fast. Combined with his schizophrenia, this power set makes Sam “The Boys” franchise’s closest equivalent to Marvel’s resident dual-personality powerhouse character, the Hulk. 

Sam flexes his powers in the ending of “The Boys” Season 4 by defeating Kimiko with barely any effort. This and his numerous other feats should technically put him a few places higher on this list. However, Sam’s mental health issues have a history of challenging his ability to function, which has caused him to voluntarily withdraw from actively participating in the events. 

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is technically the sacrificial lion of the “Gen V” Season 1 premiere, but he’s also a throughline that influences the entire season. Golden Boy is strong and tough, but his true powers come from his thermonuclear abilities. He can create and control intensely hot flames and even uses this ability to fly. He’s also immune to his own firepower, which means he can spew flames with abandon. 

With that kind of power set, Golden Boy should be far higher on the list. However, “Gen V” Season 1 reveals that his powers have been greatly augmented by his brother, Sam, whose baseline physical abilities surpass his (though Sam lacks Golden Boy’s flames). While this isn’t technically cheating — everyone’s powers come from doping in one way or another, after all — it’s enough to call into question just how powerful Golden Boy is in his own right. 

Mindstorm (Ryan Blakely) is a former member of Soldier Boy’s (Jensen Ackles) Payback, and the boisterous Captain America expy is genuinely unnerved by him. There’s a reason for that.

As a powerful telepath whose abilities are somewhat leaky, Mindstorm can and does read the mind of just about everyone within miles. He’s also able to control other people to do his bidding, as well as shape their perception of reality as he wishes. If that wasn’t creepy enough, Mindstorm isn’t the kind of guy you would want to look in the eye, even normally. 

Unlike Cate Dunlap, Mindstorm doesn’t explicitly need to touch people to use his worst attack abilities. Instead, he just needs to lock his gaze with the victim. Once that has been done, Mindstorm is able to do with the person’s mind as he pleases — and as Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) finds out the hard way, this can involve being trapped in your absolute worst memory while your body slowly wastes away.

In “The Boys” comics, the three core members of the Seven parody DC’s Justice League centerpieces: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. “The Boys” version consists of Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), and Homelander. The latter is easily the strongest of the three, but the power dynamics between Maeve and Noir are up for debate. Due to the peculiar circumstances concerning Black Noir — we’ll get to those in a sec — we’ll rank Maeve as the weakest of the trio, if only by a little. 

Maeve’s strength, speed, durability, stamina, and agility are all well above your average supe, and she’s also a legitimately good hand-to-hand fighter who’s more than capable of outmaneuvering others. Maeve gets a fair few opportunities to prove her worth on the show, and she tends to make the most of them. However, after Soldier Boy’s radiation explosion depowers her in the ending of “The Boys” Season 3, Maeve is taken out of the superpower equation. 

Black Noir (played by Nathan Mitchell in both of his incarnations) is a special case. In the comics, he’s infamously a deranged Homelander clone who’s secretly responsible for a good chunk of everything bad that happens in the series. The show version is similar in that he’s a silent, ninja-like figure who’s stronger than the average supe. He’s agile, fast, durable, and borderline impervious to pain. However, he’s actually a guy called Earving — a former Payback member who was rendered mute after Soldier Boy gave him severe brain damage. He’s also experiencing strange cartoon hallucinations, and his dangerous allergy to tree nuts can also be exploited by those who know of it.

After Homelander kills Noir in Season 3, another supe takes over. Black Noir’s return in “The Boys” Season 4 is a far cry from the original: Black Noir II treats the role as an acting gig, doesn’t command nearly the same respect his predecessor does, and is unnervingly talkative behind the scenes. His true powers haven’t been tested, and it’s unclear whether he’s quite as strong and stealthy as the original. Still, he’s able to fly (unlike the original) and is bulletproof, so we’re definitely dealing with a powerhouse. Like his predecessor, he also has a surprising condition: Black Noir II is narcoleptic.

As the seemingly benevolent politician who turns out to be the show’s head-exploding mystery supe, Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) is a tough customer through and through. After all, she’s one of the handful of characters on the show who combine personal political power with particularly deadly supe abilities. 

Neuman’s explosive abilities is actually a comparatively mild (but still deadly) form of the blood-bending powers of “Gen V” protagonist Marie Moreau. She can induce nosebleeds and manipulate a person’s blood to an extent, as well as explode the blood in people’s heads with such precision that she can kill multiple people at once this way. 

What’s more, Neuman has the kind of increased physical power most advanced supes possess, and she’s so durable that she can easily shrug off things like bullets and acid. She even has a healing factor that enables her to rapidly recover from whatever damage actually gets through. As Billy Butcher aptly demonstrates in Season 4, the only way to defeat her is to apply truly catastrophic damage while restraining her from using her own powers.  

Cindy (Ess Hödlmoser) starts out as a particularly dangerous patient at Sage Grove Center, as well as a fairly obvious expy of “Stranger Things” character Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). She’s an incredibly powerful telekinetic whose control isn’t particularly refined, but who can lift and crush things with ease — from people to sturdy metal doors.

Apart from her fearsome telekinesis, Cindy is also resilient to physical damage. Though the nature of her powers doesn’t exactly require her to get physical herself, there’s also a decent likelihood that she has some degree of super strength, like most supes.

Cindy’s comparative imperviousness to harm and her highly destructive powers are more than enough to land her on this list. While powerful, she does have a couple of limitations that keep her away from the highest ranks. The powerful Stormfront (Aya Cash) manages to briefly incapacitate her with her electric powers, implying that Cindy can be defeated or at least restrained with sufficient force. Her telekinesis also seems to be somewhat tied to her hand movements, which creates an obvious weak spot.

Stormfront is a vile Nazi. Unfortunately, she’s also one of the most powerful characters in “The Boys” franchise. She’s able to borderline tank Homelander’s astonishingly destructive heat vision, and can fight other powerful supes with ease. She’s the beneficiary of Vought’s first — and arguably most powerful — superpower serum known as V-One, which has granted her an indefinite lifespan and a healing factor. This has kept her in her physical prime for around a century. Still, all of this pales in comparison to her electrokinesis, which give her precise control over electric plasma. She can use it to shoot, explode, or toss other objects around.  

The untold truth of Stormfront reveals a powerful supe and a cunning manipulator who has been moving and shaking with Vought from the very beginning. Mighty as she is, though, Stormfront can and has been overwhelmed. The combined forces of Starlight, Kimiko, and Queen Maeve are able to deal her a massive beating in “The Boys” Season 2 finale, “What I Know.” In the same episode, Stormfront also finds out the hard way that Ryan Butcher (Cameron Crovetti) may well pack more punch than his dad, Homelander. Ryan’s heat vision wreaks havoc on Stormfront’s body, which renders her bedridden and signals her slow exit from the show. No great loss.

Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) isn’t really a supe — in fact, he frankly loathes them. However, the Temp V serum he takes in “The Boys” Season 3 grants him fleeting superpowers that make him a force to be reckoned with. Under the influence of this “V24,” Butcher’s powers roughly correspond to those of Homelander, except he can’t fly, is physically slightly weaker, and finds the use of heat vision more physically straining than Homelander does.  

As it happens, V24 also gives Butcher a very finite life span, courtesy of a brain tumor. He eventually ends up in a situation where his tumor seems to be its own, sentient thing that manifests as Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). A side effect of this new development is Butcher’s terrifying new ability to summon dark, tentacle-like tendrils out of his body. These are more than strong enough to utterly mutilate even powerful supes, and both Victoria Neuman and Ezekiel (Shaun Benson) have fallen victim to such attacks ahead of “The Boys” Season 5.

Ryan Butcher is Homelander’s son with Becca Butcher (Shantel VanSanten), and the show has spent some time coding him as an up-and-comer who may surpass his father. He can fly, and also features super-strength. His heat vision is so strong that it utterly wrecks Stormfront and can knock Soldier Boy around. His durability is roughly on par with his father, and he has a laundry list of secondary powers, such as X-ray vision, and a sense of smell that’s so acute that he notices a change in his stepfather’s (Billy Butcher) blood.

There’s every reason to believe that, a few years down the line, Ryan will top this list. However, his powers are still developing, which means that a handful of older supes may retain an edge over him. Still, more than perhaps anyone else on this list, Ryan is in flux, and his potential is through the roof.

Soldier Boy is a problem, any which way you look at him. A World War II-era relic with an attitude to match, he’s a machismo-fueled jerk who treated his Payback team so badly that they happily double-crossed him.

Jensen Ackles’ approach to playing Soldier Boy in “The Boys” was to embrace him as a bigoted, old-fashioned jerk, which makes for a memorably awful character. Power wise, however, there’s little denying that Soldier Boy is a beast. As Homelander’s genetic father, he’s a powerful individual whose strength is second only to Homelander himself … but whose battlefield-tested combat abilities far surpass his son. He can also take an enormous amount of punishment, and few poisons can do much to him. 

That’s just the baseline Soldier Boy, too. After the Russians experimented on him for a few decades, Soldier Boy has expanded his power set with explosive radioactivity powers. Even when unfocused, these powers can be deadly … but when he can get a grip on them, he can cause a blast that’s strong enough to kill or depower even the strongest supers. 

Before “Gen V” Season 2, Marie Moreau didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to top three placements on lists like this. Yet, as it turns out, “controlling blood” can be a devastating thing when you actually get a grip on everything this entails.

Being able to manipulate blood, whether your own or someone else’s, can be a devastating power when used with sufficient control. Thanks to Cipher’s training and her own discoveries, Marie has that control. She can heal people and read their veins to get their vital statistics. She can use blood as a telekinetic weapon, and levitate people by grabbing the fluid coursing through their veins. She can stop people’s hearts or explode their heads, Victoria Neuman-style.

Basically, anything that can be done with blood is Marie’s domain, and she’s grown imaginative with her powers. As a survivor of Project Odessa, she’s innately far more powerful than most other supes, and has the potential to be the strongest one ever created. However, her sole confrontation with Homelander in the “Gen V” Season 1 finale was a swift curb-stomp, and her current power level remains untested against the absolute top tier. This keeps Marie at second place … for now.  

As the show’s resident Superman expy and main villain, Homelander is the be-all and end-all of “The Boys” and its superpowered line-up. He’s supposed to be the seemingly unconquerable mountain that looms large over everything else — and boy, does the show deliver on this front. 

Homelander’s super strength, speed, durability, and that terrifying heat vision make an intense combination, and his supplementary super-senses add to the inherent horror he offers. However, in his particular case, being powerful isn’t all about having lots of different superpowers … though they definitely help. 

As the most powerful and visible supe, Homelander is the de facto leader of the superpowered community. He’s charismatic and well-liked enough to become the show’s resident “evil populist politician” expy that the show keeps using to dunk on Donald Trump. Being the most powerful man in the U.S. and the most powerful superhero on Earth is a killer combo, and Homelander’s volatile personality means that he can always be trusted to use his considerable powers in the worst way possible.