Why The Boys Fans Are So Confused About Queen Maeve

Spoilers ahead for The Boys season 2 finale

Poor, poor Queen Maeve. The Wonder Woman-esque character played by Dominique McElligott on The Boys is one of the most tortured characters on the series, and that's really saying something. She's not a complete psychopath like Homelander (Antony Starr), she doesn't resort to drugs like A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), and she's been in the superhero business for too long to be as naïve and idealistic as Starlight (Erin Moriarty). Throughout seasons 1 and 2, she's a husk of a hero, just kind of floating along knowing she's powerless to stop Homelander's more psychotic tendencies. We see her mourning her lost love and her lost youth. She's a perfect portrait of middle-aged superhero ennui. 

While it's unclear what, exactly, Queen Maeve will do in season 3, it's likely she'll be taking a much more active role. Perhaps we'll see her steer The Seven in bold new directions. After the season 2 finale, she's finally taking steps to stand up to the more amoral operators over at Vought — a group that includes Stormfront (Aya Cash) and Homelander. However, if you paid attention to those last few scenes of season 2, something was a bit ... off about Queen Maeve's powers. As a result, the fans have a few questions.

The season 2 finale sees The Boys and Stormfront duke it out in the middle of a field. Meanwhile, Homelander gets very, very close to making mincemeat out of Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) in the middle of the woods after Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) makes Stormfront (Aya Cash) crispier than Raising Cane's fried chicken. Queen Maeve first shows up to the fight out of nowhere, and once she's done, she winds up in the middle of the forest out of nowhere, ready to blackmail Homelander. This speedy arrival begs the question: What exactly are Queen Maeve's powers?

A recent Reddit thread attempted to get to the bottom of this. One user, Redditor u/Sypike, brought up the fact that, "She's Wonder Woman's analogue, so I would assume that she has similar powers. In season one she basically says she can't fly (the whole plane fiasco) and Homelander flys [sic] her around." From what we've seen of her so far, we know she has all the typical superpowers: super strength, super durability, super angst — but u/Sypike brings up a good point that the show has established she can't fly. 

One possibility is that she has super speed. She may not be as fast as A-Train, but she could feasibly get around quickly enough that she could run from Vought Tower to the Stormfront fight, and then run around the woods looking for Homelander as depicted on screen. Another option brought up by Redditor u/Cjpappaslap: "Invisible jet?" Maybe in season 3, we'll realize Queen Maeve has had a plane all along — right in front of us.

We'll just have to wait until season 3 of The Boys gets released – hopefully sometime in 2021. With her at odds with both Homelander and Black Noir, a DC Comics Trinity-analogous showdown could very well be in the cards.