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| “ | Just so you know. We can clean up our own shit. | „ |
| ~ James Stillwell to the Boys after slaughtering the G-Men. |
| “ | Think about it. This is par for the course with you. When have you ever done anything remotely interesting or original? What have you thought of to do that the lowest speck of this pointless species couldn't, were they to be granted your level of power? And what next, destroy another airliner? Dismember more families, that kind of thing? A spoiled child's personal Auschwitz. It's so petty it's actually quite embarrassing. | „ |
| ~ James Stillwell berates Homelander over everything he's done. |
| “ | Bad product. | „ |
| ~ James Stillwell's last words before descending into insanity. |
James Stillwell is the overarching antagonist of the controversial comic book series The Boys and one of the two overaching antagonists (alongside Black Noir) in its sequel-spin-off The Boys: Dear Becky. He was a high-ranking executive within Vought-American who took charge of Supes on all advices.
Despite being the president of Vought-American and not the CEO, James was ultimately the one who controlled the company from the shadows while staying out of the public eye.
Biography[]
The mysterious man who attended to The Seven's meetings and is described to be more professional and pragmatic than them for his coldblooded plans to save Vought-American's image. Prior to the series he and Vought-American created a clone of Homelander to act as a contingency plan in case Homelander ever went rogue. He also oversaw the companies plan to ultimately take over the White House. The first major event he is shown to be involved in is the G-teams massacre, which he has executed in order to prevent news of Godolkin's activities from getting out to the public. He then arranges for Pre-Wiz, the children Godolkin was training and sexually abusing, to be kidnapped, locked into a large crate and finally dropped from an aircraft over the sea.
Following the death of Vought CEO Mr. Edgar due to a heart attack, it appears as though James will take the position. He instead allows another generic executive to become CEO, acting as a puppet in order to maintain his independence and influence affairs behind the scenes, indicating that he has been the true head of Vought for years. James then takes on Jessica Bradley as a protégé and confidant. The two of them also enter a romantic and sexual relationship with one another, and while having dinner together it James appears to have an unguarded moment when he states that he feels he can relax around her.
Later, when Homelander is attempting a coup against the United States government, James orders The Boys to be killed, however he soon realizes that Homelander had tricked them into conflict, and goes as far as to offer medical aid to the Frenchman, who had been injured during the fight. James offers to make a deal with Butcher for The Boys to take a backseat to Vought, but Butcher refuses and leaks information about Vought online. After watching the events of Butcher's informational leak onto the internet, James is confronted by Homelander, who wishes to kill him. James shows no fear and simply states he was never impressed by Homelander, and regards Homelander's actions and use of his abilities to be unoriginal and unimpressive. When Homelander begins cursing angrily at him, James expresses a wish to commit suicide to spare himself from having to hear any more of Homelander's histrionics. Homelander, frustrated on being unable to break James emotional barrier, changes his mind about wishing to kill him, and tells James to keep watching what he is going to do and then angrily leaves. After he leaves, James completely dismisses the entire conversation with Homelander by saying that he would have watched what Homelander was going to do, if he believed that Homelander had something worth looking at.
James believes the company can survive the superhuman attack on Washington led by Homelander as even though Vought had plotted to attack the White House, Homelander's choice to do so was completely separate from them, meaning the company was genuinely uninvolved. The leaks by Butcher proved that Vought had grown superheroes as weapons, but despite this being disturbing, it was not illegal, so James was not worried about it. Most of the other revelations about Vought could be shrugged off; he then cites WikiLeaks, saying the general public reaction to such things would be exactly the way he expected, and that the company would ultimately survive. However, he knows they could not survive the revelation that they had tried to kill the President, and so James uses Jessica Bradley as a scapegoat; his plan all along was to blame everything on her, showing their entire relationship was simply a farce to save Vought's reputation.
Following the deaths of the other members of The Boys, Hughie meets with James and reveals the existence of the V-bombs created by Butcher that could destroy every person who had Compound V in their blood, and threatens to use them if Vought approaches any country in the world about potentially weaponizing superheroes. James simply tells Hughie he has not won, and that the corporation will remain the way that it is. James is then shown to be the head of a superhero company even after the massive scandal with Vought, although it is unclear whether or not the company he is now in charge of is still Vought-American or a new superhero company altogether.
James final scene has him being introduced to a new team of Superhero's called True, and immediately calls out how one member of the team has an erection, one is clearly withdrawing from being on drugs, and one of them is very obviously The Deep in disguise. His business associates point out how these issues have existed in every superhero team and that James can't expect problems like those to ever go away. James then walks away to a nearby window and grows a sad face. He comes to a realization that both Superheroes and Compound V by extension are in fact, bad product, and begins to suffer a nervous breakdown.
Twelve years later, when Wee Hughie suspects James as the individual who sent him Butcher's diary, he finds James as a bearded hermit who wanders around a pineapple plantation while muttering about good and bad products and quoting Milton Friedman repeatedly.
Personality[]
| “ | I'm an expression of the corporation. I'm the voice that says--You're right, sue us. That never gets upset. | „ |
| ~ Stillwell to Hughie. |
James Stillwell is an example of a high-functioning sociopath, a man who is a complete embodiment of the Vought-American corporation. Throughout the series he never showed any direct emotion or reaction to what was happening, even if the situation was highly dangerous or disastrous to Vought's reputation. James was only interested in furthering Vought's bottom line: making money. This caused him to have no reason to order the deaths of anyone unless they posed a threat to Vought or he had a pragmatic reason to want them out of the way.
He showed a great disliking towards Homelander as he has had many conflicts with him and is disgusted and annoyed with his egotistical behavior, not to mention correctly seeing him as a potential threat to Vought's interests should he ever get out of control. An example of their antagonistic relationship is when the superhero sent him a whore to distract him while the Supes Awards was carried on during "Herogasm". Once Homelander left Vought, James was simply done with him and even upon Homelander threatening to kill him, James did not give him any sort of reaction and instead coldly informed Homelander of his inability to ever do anything remotely interesting despite being granted god-like abilities.
The most telling aspect of James personality was his complete absence of fear and coldness towards everyone and everything around him, as seen when he showed no concern during the Seven's meetings, nor during his interaction with the Russian mob boss Nina. Even when Homelander threatened to murder James, his heart rate did not increase by a single digit, and when Homelander started giving a melodramatic speech that James found annoying, he stated that he would rather just kill himself than keep listening to Homelander any further, showing that James had zero fear of dying.
James was a master manipulator as well, as at first his relationship with Jessica Bradley appeared to be the one outlet of his humanity, it was revealed he had only cultivated a relationship with her so that he could use her as a scapegoat for when Homelander ultimately went rogue and sank the reputation of Vought, proving that James truly had no care for anyone else.
In the end James has a nervous breakdown due to realizing that Superheroes are a bad product, but due to his manipulation and successful evasion of consequences for Vought's actions he is the only villain of the series who comes out on top and does not suffer any repercussions.
Powers and Abilities[]
| “ | Still sixty over eighty, you're about to be ripped limb from limb, and you're completely calm. I think I've finally met a superhuman... | „ |
| ~ Homelander after threatening to kill Stillwell. |
James Stillwell possesses no superhuman abilities or powers yet his cold and calculating demeanor and personality cast him as being exceptionally fearless even in the presence of powered men and women who can rip steel in half and throw cars like toys. This cold demeanor causes all superheroes including Homelander to fear him, with Jack from Jupiter even stating that Stillwell gives him nightmares. This allows James to direct the Seven around with confidence, something no other individual was capable of doing. His position at Vought also gave him complete control over the company, as despite being the president and not the CEO, he was controlling the company from the shadows and therefore has access to all of its resources.
Quotes[]
| “ | I would have watched what you were going to do next, if you actually had something worth looking at. | „ |
| ~ Stillwell completely dismissing Homelander. |
| “ | I feel I can relax around you. | „ |
| ~ Stillwell grooming Jessica Bradley to be his scapegoat. |
| “ | The world works the way I always suspected. | „ |
| ~ Stillwell discussing the information leaked by Butcher. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- James Stillwell has two adaptations in the Amazon TV-Series based on The Boys comic:
- Madelyn Stillwell, the president of Vought and the second in command to the CEO Stan Edgar. Aside from the name and position, these two character differ almost completely, as Madelyn not only showed genuine love and affection for her son Teddy, but also came to fear Homelander, two things that James could never do.
- Stan Edgar, instead of dying of a heart attack, the TV-Series version of Edgar serves as the overarching villain and is shown to have the same personality as James, with both being completely cold and calculating business men who control the company and ruthlessly remove anyone who gets in the way of Vought. While Stan Edgar in the show does show moments of genuine joy and annoyance unlike James, he never once shows fear of Homelander and uses the line "bad product" in the third season, which was James final line in the comics.
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 Villains
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Vought-American The Seven Payback G-Men Teenage Kix Children of Stormfront Other See Also | ||