Why Victoria Neuman Might Have The Best Powers On The Boys

Contains spoilers for The Boys season 2

From the increasingly unhinged antics of Homelander (Antony Starr) to the one surprising weakness of mighty Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), Amazon Prime's The Boys is always ready to offer an alternative take on archetypal superpowers and their wielders. A significant portion of the show's major characters have superpowers, and it's made very clear that some powers are very much superior to others. Moreover, the really useful ones might not always be the ones you think. For instance, who could have thought that the invisibility-powered Translucent (Alex Hassell) would be such a hard nut to crack, or that the nigh-omnipotent Homelander could be manipulated so easily?

Apart from knocking many classic superhero tropes off their pedestal, this irreverent approach gives some of the stranger powers a chance to shine. One of biggest twists of The Boys season 2 is that Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), the Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez-esque young congresswoman on a quest to put a leash on Vought's Compound V antics, is actually the mysterious entity that has been exploding important people's heads. The Boys season 3 will probably tell us what her mysterious agenda is, but one thing is already certain: Victoria Neuman just might have the best powers on The Boys.

Sure, Homelander can fly. He's strong, tough, and his heat vision means he rarely even needs to touch the people he wants to take down. Even so, his identity and power set are widely known, so it's not like he can be particularly subtle about it. In The Boys comic series, his distinctive look and power set is even used to frame him for a number of awful crimes. 

Victoria Neuman, on the other hand, may well have the most useful powers on the show (per Screen Rant). You never see her coming. She doesn't have a superhero costume, and if the season finale is anything to go by, the only way to tell she's using her incredibly deadly powers is a brief moment when her eyes flash white. What's more, by killing Shockwave (Mishka Thébaud) she proved that she's fully capable of exploding Supe heads as well as regular human ones — and there's a chance we haven't even seen the full extent of her powers yet. 

Lots of powerful Supes seem like they could kill with a look. However, apart from Homelander, Victoria Neuman's the only one who makes that sentiment more than a metaphor. Her ability to wreak havoc in a far more stealthy, yet equally messy manner means that her terrifying power set just might be the best one we've seen so far.