The boys' ending proves homelander shouldn't have been their main target (& it's not black nor grey either).
Hughie acknowledges Butcher and his crew should have been looking elsewhere, even if they spend most of The Boys' plot trying to murder Homelander. The Boys' central idea is to bring down the Seven, the crooked superheroes. Butcher and his crew destroy Homelander almost entirely, however Hughie notes in the last issue they had the incorrect target all along. This is not because he now knows Black Noir's actual name or the terrible secret of the G-Men; rather, this is because the Supes were only ever a sign of a far worse issue.
Hughie Notes The Boys' Real Enemy
Hughie understands the real adversary they should have been concentrating on the whole time The Boys #72 by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It seems as though the issue of fascistic Supes has been resolved following Homelander's flawless death under Black Noir's hands. The main enemy is at last gone, hence his intended coup fails. But Hughie realizes the real source of the Boys' problems as he assumes leadership of them.
Vought Is The Real Boy Villain.
The Vought corporation was the actual villain of The Boys, not Homelander. Hughie says, seeing Vought executive James Stillwell, "we should have gone straight at the corporation in the first place, instead o' wastin' our time on the in tights." The great tragedy in The Boys' ending is Butcher's single-minded revenge; he never gave a damn about saving the planet or even stopping Vought. Nothing has really changed even if Homelander and Black Noir kills two terrible enemies.
Homelander was undoubtedly an urgent threat to the planet, but his depravity is nowhere compared to Vought's. Vought covered up their misdeeds under the pretense of profit, almost every Supe built. Simultaneously, their business operations cause suffering and sorrow on a ( actually industrial scale) hurting vast numbers of people. Vought decimated the entire family of Mother's Milk solely by her employment for them, while conducting the Seven mandated experiments on hundreds of individuals. If Vought lacks Supes, it will merely exploit people using "something else," as Stillwell notes when Hughie asks what he will sell now.
Though he was only one of hundreds of creatures Vought developed and guarded to make money, homelander was still a monster. Vought might not want another Homelander with Black Noir dead and public opinion moving against Supes, but it will turn to myriad other kinds of exploitation, cruelty and silencing. The Boys defeat the major enemy, much as the superheroes the show hates, but the status quo stands.
Vought Is Almost Perfect
The Boys was a real critique of the superhero archetype and the Comics business in the original comics, but it also aimed at organized religion, politics and corporate misconduct, so critiquing a system where terrible exploitation is hidden by the smallest of veneers. Of all, emphasizing the real world means the series cannot finish with a perfect world - or even one that much better off than where the plot began. The Boys lets its titular squad beat the one menace exclusive to their fictitious world in its sarcastic, caustic perspective, but that's all. Hughie's biggest triumph is likely not trying to replicate Homelander all over again as at the end of The Boys the Vought corporation changes its name and continues on conducting business.
Eric Kripke developed a superhero/dark comedic satire sitcom based on the same-named comic book franchise. Set in a "what-if" universe honoring superheroes as gods and celebrities with few consequences for their deeds. One group of vigilantes, commanded by a vengeance-obsessed guy called Billy Butcher, will counter these super-charged "heroes" to reveal them for what they are, though.
