One thing we do know for sure is that season four will involve yet another ploy to kill Homelander, who’s basically Superman if he was an evil little shit.

Butcher and The Boys (and now Annie) have been attempting to end The Seven leader’s reign of terror ever since the show’s debut, and although it looked like they had him for a moment, he unfortunately lives on.

However, Kripke has stated that The Boys won’t end until the blue-eyed Supe is put in the ground for good.

“There’s no way the series ends without Homelander dying,” he told Metacritic. “I’m just not comfortable with keeping that guy alive in the universe. We have to do something!”

We know Homelander has to die, and quite frankly, we’re not sure how many more seasons this formula of plotting and failing to kill him can go on for.

So the question is, who’s gonna be the one to finally off Homelander?

Here’s who we think are the potential candidates.

Victoria Neuman

Victoria Neuman might have teamed up with Homelander in The Boys season three, but now that he’s successfully helped her secure her place as Robert Singer’s vice-presidential candidate, we’re not sure how long this alliance will last.

The secret head-popping Supe is willing to kill anyone who stands in the way of her political campaign to the top — and with Homelander being, well, Homelander, he’s always going to pose a major threat.

Neuman’s head-popping powers are certainly deadly, but she managed to get her hands on something even more lethal during the show’s college-based spin-off series, Gen V.

In Gen V, it’s revealed that Dean Shetty’s hatred for Supes traces back to the Transoceanic Flight 37 in The Boys season one, where Homelander botched the mission to save the plane, killing Shetty’s husband and daughter in the process.

Black Noir (2.0)

We know, we know: Homelander killed black Noir. It was a shocking turn of events, given the silent enigma remained loyal to his leader no matter (and we mean no matter) what.

Episode seven’s Looney-Tunes sketch solved that mystery by revealing The Seven’s previous leader, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), was an even bigger dick than Homelander and Noir helped detain him, Captain America-style.

But when Noir admitted to knowing Soldier Boy was Homelander’s biological father all along, the latter gruesomely ripped out his insides and left him to die while his cartoon buddies comforted him.

This isn’t the end of Black Noir, though. Not entirely.

“It’s definitely not the last we’ve seen of Black Noir as a hero,” Kripke told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s just that the guy who was inside [the Noir suit] in season three, he’s gone. But we have Nathan [Mitchell] playing a really interesting and hilarious character who wears the suit next season.”

As fans of the comics will know, the show’s Black Noir isn’t the same as the one in the comics. Comic Noir is actually revealed to be a Homelander clone, created by Vought as a backup plan in case their star Supe were to go rogue.

The silent killer eventually murders Homelander, and he’s able to do so because he possesses the same lethal abilities as him.

Of course, Kripke has stated that Mitchell will play Noir 2.0, ruling out the Homelander-clone aspect. But who’s to say Vought didn’t just clone Homelander’s powers and not the entire person?

As we know by now, Vought likes to keep a good face, and putting someone else in the Noir suit will be their way of hiding his death from the public.

But Homelander killed him before Soldier Boy showed up, so surely it would have been easier for them to say that Noir died sacrificing himself with Queen Maeve?

Ryan

In season one, viewers found out that Homelander had raped Butcher’s wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), years before, causing her to disappear while pregnant.

Ryan, the result of that pregnancy, was revealed to be a natural-born Supe rather than having been injected with Compound V like the others.

Cameron Crovetti’s character possesses almost all the same lethal abilities as his dad, including heat vision and, more recently, flying. And this is why he’s the ideal opponent.

As previously mentioned, comic book Noir was able to kill Homelander because he was a clone and they shared the same powers. Ryan may not be a clone, but he and Homelander share the same DNA and similar abilities. Plus, he’s proven himself to be pretty deadly, even when that’s not been his intention.

The extent of his powers was first revealed in the season two finale when he barbecued Stormfront (Aya Cash) after she threatened to kill his mother, though Becca was also caught in the crossfire.

Kripke has also explained that when in a fit of rage, Ryan is even more powerful than his father.

“The strength of Ryan’s lasers — which were surprisingly powerful — are way more powerful than even Homelander’s when Ryan gets angry enough,” he told TV Guide.