William J. Butcher is a fictional character and one of the two main protagonists of the comic book series The Boys, created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. He is the leader of The Boys, a group of CIA-sponsored black ops agents who observe, record and sometimes eliminate superheroes artificially created by the mega-conglomerate Vought. He is the sworn archenemy of the Homelander, whom he blames for the rape and death of his wife Becky, while also developing an obsessive and intense hatred for all superhuman beings, which consequently deconstructs him into becoming villainous after originally starting as anti-heroic. Butcher also appears as one of the two protagonists, alongside Hughie, in the Amazon Prime Video streaming television adaptation of The Boys. Although the show heavily deviates from the original comic, Butcher's portrayal is similar as he adopts an anti-hero position before he embarks on a darker path towards the end of his arc - which concludes with his death at the hands of Hughie.