Hughie's Powers in The Boys Comics (2024)

Warning! Contains spoilers for The Boys show and comic book series!Amazon Prime series The Boys Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) has a major difference from the comics when it comes to his superpowers. Hughie in The Boys on Amazon is armed only with his wits until season 3 when he takes Temp-V for the first time. This gives him teleportation powers, as well as generally increased strength and durability to the point he can take a punch from the likes of Homelander without being eviscerated. As a member of The Boys' eponymous team, Wee Hughie keeps twisted heroes in check. In the TV series, he does this only using his smarts and the engineering skills he acquired from working in an electronics store. In his first mission with The Boys, he figures out the invisible Supe Translucent's weakness to electricity and successfully blocks the signal of the tracking chip that would alert other Supes to his location. He is collaborative and able to think on his feet in the life-threatening situations The Boys often find themselves in, but Hughie is very much still an average person. This changes in the season 3 episode, "Glorious Five Year Plan," when Hughie and Butcher inject Temp-V to briefly gain superpowers.

In the comics, Hughie has superpowers of his own from his earliest days with Butcher, and they don't involve teleportation. In Garth Ennis' The Boys graphic novels, Hughie and The Boys have an entirely different strategy. Instead of relying only on weapons and carefully thought-out strategies, The Boys enhance themselves to be able to take on Supes in hand-to-hand combat. Billy Butcher, the team's founder, injects each member with Compound V, the drug responsible for the creation of the Supes, making the point that without it, they'd get killed almost instantly against powerhouses like Homelander. Compound V gives The Boys superhuman abilities to give them a fighting chance even against the Seven. Just as in the show, Hughie joins the team after his girlfriend Robin was mistakenly killed by A-Train, a member of the Seven with super-speed. Unlike the show, Butcher, M.M., and the rest have already been injected with permanent Compound V by then, although Hughie is unaware of The Boys' use of it until Butcher sticks the injector in his neck.

Related: How The Boys Changed Robin's Death From The Comics

On his first mission with The Boys in the comics, Hughie is tasked with monitoring the depraved secret activities of the Teenage Kix, a young group of superheroes, and is accompanied by Billy Butcher. While he snaps incriminating photos of the Kix, Butcher surprises Hughie with a syringe full of Compound V to his neck. He is angered by the nonconsensual injection, but Butcher explains that its effects — though permanent — will be necessary for his work. He soon starts to feel V's impact, as it grants him enhanced strength and durability. This is very different from the show, wherein Hughie's powers are temporary, include teleportation, and come to him when he's already several dead Supes deep into his career with The Boys. Not only that, Hughie's Temp-V use in the show is deceptively empowering, euphoric, and addictive for the show's Hughie, and it has a much greater weight on his character development than simply a narrative means to explain why he can take a hit from a Supe and get up after. Here's everything you need to know about Hughie's powers in The Boys comics.

Hughie's Comic Powers Explained

Hughie, The Boys' protagonist, initially struggles with his new abilities. On top of having superpowers forced upon him, he finds them hard to control. When the Teenage Kix find out about The Boys' blackmail, they confront Butcher and company in the street. In the ensuing fight, Hughie punches Kix member Blarney co*ck directly through his chest, accidentally killing him. He is horrified by what he's done, but Hughie becomes hardened throughout the series and participates in many more brawls. Thanks to his enhanced durability, he usually walks out with just a few scratches. The enhanced strength and durability is coincidentally the powerset all of The Boys seem to possess, including Butcher (who has no laser eyes in the comics).

Despite his powers, Hughie's greatest asset is still his mind. His sharp wits and analytical thinking allow him to solve problems his teammates are unable to. He assists The Boys with his detective skills, and played a critical role in finding out that Swingwing, a parody of Nightwing, was behind a hom*ophobic murder. Hughie is also the moral core of The Boys, bringing a sense of compassion and teamwork that allows the team to be more efficient.

Although the Amazon version of TheBoys didn't initially give Hughie or any of his teammates superpowers, the series still captured the characters' spirit. Hughie is one of the most grounded, "normal" members of The Boys and provides an excellent counterpoint to the more unhinged personalities on the show. In fact, Hughie and The Boys may have been better off without Compound V so far, as it ensured that they wouldn't sink to the Supes' level of depravity (although they still match Butcher's rage, which is, at times, arguably worse). This all changes in The Boys season 3, however, when Temp-V grants Hughie and Butcher powers of their own.

Related: The Boys: What Hughie's Season 3 Story With Neuman Means For Butcher

Hughie's Powers In The Show Vs. The Comics: Differences Explained

The two most obvious differences in Hughie's powers (besides how and when he got them in The Boys timeline) are that his powers in the show are temporary, and in the comics, he can't teleport. Hughie doesn't take a dose of full Compound-V in the show. The blue Perma-V is highly unstable, and adults don't survive the process. This is also why Vought experiments on children so much, which is a key thematic point in The Boys on Amazon. However, in season 3, Starlight discovers Vought has been working on Temp-V — a green, untested, highly unstable variant of Compound-V that grants powers on a temporary basis. As well as giving Butcher yellow laser eyes, Temp-V (or V-24) grants Hughie his teleportation alongside the increased strength/durability of the comics. However, the latter doesn't apply to the same degree, instead boosting Hughie's physicality to the point he won't immediately die if confronting the likes of Soldier Boy or Homelander without gaining super strength. While the chest punch moment from the comics does still happen, the heavy hitting in The Boys on Amazon is left to Butcher even after the pair receive powers.

Temp-V has a significant downside. Regular use of the drug is fatal, as Vought hasn't perfected their insta-Supe formula by the time Butcher and Hughie come to use it. While Butcher knows that Temp-V is fatal to him, he chooses not to divulge this information to Hughie. He's conflicted about this, but not enough to put his own ends above protecting his colleague-cum-protege (until the last moment, during which he has a change of heart and knocks him out cold in a bathroom just before the assault on Vought Tower in the season 3 finale). Hughie's powers are handled with much more complexity in the show than in The Boys comics. The key differences aren't so much what Hughie can do once he gets his Compound V abilities but what they mean for his character development.

Hughie knows Temp-V will kill him if he doesn't give it up, but he's addicted to its empowerment. Temp-V gives Hughie in the show an opportunity to make sure a tragedy like that which befell his girlfriend Robin never happens again. Just as in the comics, it's his chance to level the playing field, although it comes much later in the fight. Comic Hughie never faced Supes one-on-one without powers of his own. TV show Hughie has a much greater understanding of the stakes and how much the Temp-V has changed his prospects. Whether he's able to give that up is a major question to be answered in The Boys season 4.