Even after his atrocious performance in S5 I've noticed that a lot of people still like to say that he is City level by using statements as their primary form of scaling. Now u can obviously do this, I'm not stopping you. However, I personally don't believe this and this post may serve as something to convince you and as a post I can always come back to to address ur arguments.

'Statements'

1. One of the statements used quite often to wank Homelander is Stillwell's statement of him being able to tank all man made weapons. I could not find the clip of it so Instead I decided to use the Episode's transcript. The two characters talking are Butcher and Stillwell.

^(All these years...)

^(I've been searching for that c**t's weakness.)

^(He doesn't have any weakness.)

^(No? There isn't a weapon on Earth that they haven't thrown at him.)

^(They've all failed.)

Diving into this, her statement is proven false several times over to the point that it is impossible to deny. In s2 he is affected by Supe Dogwhistles, he is incapacitated by Malchemical's breath and he is badly burnt by enriched uranium and ionizing radiation. Stillwell's claims are already rendered mute here as feats trump statements especially when those feats contradict the statement.

People who use this arg also forget that in that scene it's very likely Stillwell was bluffing. She was trying to scare Butcher who had broken into her home. It makes no sense for them to test every man made weapon against Homelander as for that to happen they would need to hand him over to the Russian's to test Russian exclusive weaponry such as the TSAR bomb on him. Why would they go around nuking their most prized asset.

Even then, the statement doesn’t even say “he survived all of them.” It says “none of them have worked.” That does not, in any legitimate metric, mean he can take a nuclear bomb by association. “Failed on him” could mean literally anything, and doesn’t necessarily mean tanking it. He could have avoided it or smth.

Stan Edgar's Statement's Comparing Homelander to a Nuclear Bomb.

It comes from this clip. Stan says 'anyone' with the power of a neutron bomb. It could simply mean a guy with a David Crocket or smth, not necessarily Homelander. It wasn't specifically designed for Homelander it was designed for an apoclypse, as per Edgar, likely made during the cold war and renovated as the times went on. Of course it's designed to survive nuclear explosions. It doesn't mean Homelander is as powerful as a nuke and I will get into this later on.

But But Why Would they Lie....

Characters in the Boys especially supes such as Homelander are notorious Liars. In s1 he states only supes can fight supes a rhetoric he uses to try and rail road supes into the military. However, it's been blatantly contradicted multiple times. We know supes were involved in ww2 and the Russo Ukranian war yet they did not make a major difference. You'd have to get pretty high up the supe ladder until u get supes that are completely immune to ballistic projectiles. Sheline can be stabbed. Stormfront can be stabbed. Starlight is hurt by high calibre rifles. Marie can be stabbed. One of the supe terrorists he was referring to such as Kimiko can be hurt by firearms.

Anti-statements

Statements that hurt the whole he could tank nukes bs. Maeve a character that can give Homelander a run for his money broke her hand when catching a bus. Butcher stated that supes relative to Homelander such as Bombsight hits like a sledgehammer, if we were to liberally accept this like we do with the nuclear weapons statements they would be sub sledgehammer level. Homelander stated it would take him half a minute to break thru a vault door.

Anti feats

Stuff visually shown that suggests he is no where near nuke level. Ryan can make him bleed. Maeve can draw blood from him. SB can bruise him, these guys aren't hitting with pressure exceeding nuclear blasts guys (especially the same person that broker her arm by catching a bus) Maeve could not break out the prison she was in. Which was a metal vault. I could say more but I think u get the point.

Interesting because on other subreddits, i've seen a lot of people affirm this belief. Obviously I disagree. Am I a good person if I choose red?