| “ | Compassionate control.
―Edison Cardosa's description of the less lethal form of the virus.[src]
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” |
The Supe Virus, also referred to as The Virus, is a synthetic pathogen designed to selectively target Supes.
The bioweapon was originally created by Dr. Edison Cardosa under the supervision of Indira Shetty and with the sponsorship of Vought. It was later experimented on by Dr. Sameer Shah and then Frenchie. The sole remaining sample of the virus is currently in Billy Butcher's possession.
Characteristics[]
The creation of the virus was funded by Vought, who wanted a reliable way to control supes. It was carefully perfected by Dr. Edison Cardosa under the oversight of Dean Indira Shetty through supe prisoners at The Woods facility. The virus binds to the Compound V in the bloodstream, and thus is unable to infect normal humans. Due to this property, it is able to affect animals mutated by Compound V as well.
Small amounts of the virus cause flu-like symptoms including mild breathing difficulties and an inability to utilize powers (effectively "depowering" supes), while larger amounts of the virus result in much more lethal symptoms such as excessive development of blisters, vomiting, haemorrhaging, and fatigue. When injected, the symptoms of the virus manifest very rapidly. Though powerful, the virus in its current iteration is apparently unable to kill Homelander, suggesting that supes with strong enough cellular durability are resistant to it.
According to Dr. Cardosa, the virus can be properly preserved in a cold environment, though it is also able to survive for a few days at ambient temperature outside a host. It is originally only transmissible through blood, but it is later made transmissible through all bodily fluids at the request of Shetty. Cardosa theorized that making it air transmissible - as Shetty had later insisted - could inadvertently kill every supe in the world. This is later confirmed by Sameer, a former Vought R&D scientist, who states that increasing the biotoxicity of the virus enough to kill Homelander would cause it to mutate and become airborne, enough to cause a global supe genocide.
History[]
Background[]
The unnamed Supe-killing virus was created in its earliest form by Doctor Edison Cardosa, a gifted researcher who worked in The Woods, a secret underground research facility hidden beneath Godolkin University. The Woods were used to perform illegal experiments on Supes, specifically mentally ill and unstable students from Godolkin itself. Cardosa was operating under orders from the dean of the university, Indira Shetty, who secretly held fierce prejudice against Supes due to the death of her family at Homelander's hands.
Gen V[]
Dr Cardosa meets with Dean Shetty in the Woods to discuss Sam Riordan's breakout, during which he mentions that he is close to perfecting the virus as a means to control the Supes. Cardosa requests Marie Moreau as a test subject due to her rare blood manipulation powers, but he is refused due to Marie's benefactor ("Welcome to the Monster Club").
Cardosa later infects an electrokinetic Supe named Betsy with the virus, making her powers almost completely useless just two days later. He presents Betsy to Shetty, also telling her the virus is harmless to normal humans due to it attaching to the Compound V in a Supe's bloodstream. Cardosa is ready to send a report to Vought, but Shetty instead orders him to increase the virus' lethality, wanting to see how sick they can make Betsy. Cardosa obliges and increases its strength, causing Betsy's health to rapidly decline and ultimately kill her, scarring her body with blisters. Shetty inspects her corpse and is happy with the results, while Cardosa is distraught over causing a death. Shetty then asks him if he can make the virus contagious ("Jumanji").
Andy, another Supe prisoner in the Woods, is also infected with the virus. Rich and two unnamed Supes are thrown into the same cell as Andy, in an effort to test how contagious the virus can be. Cardosa and Shetty watch them, with the doctor explaining the virus can only spread through direct contact bodily fluids, but Shetty cuts him off and questions if they can make it airborne. Cardosa firmly objects the idea, explaining that if an airborne infection were to reach the worldwide Supe population, it could spread like wildfire, which only sparks Shetty's interest further. The two argue over Cardosa's intention to inform Vought, but Shetty orders him to finish his 'brainchild'. Shetty meets with Grace Mallory in an attempt to form an alliance to eliminate all Supes only for the latter to reject it. After Shetty leaves, Grace warns Butcher about the virus. Shetty is later killed by Cate Dunlap, causing Cardosa to abandon his efforts of making the virus even more contagious. He meets with Victoria Neuman, intending to betray Vought and hand over the virus to her, in exchange for him and his family's safe relocation. He questions if they share the same goal of 'compassionate control', which Victoria confirms. Cardosa gives her the virus, revealing it to be the only sample in existence, and he is the only one with the knowledge to replicate it. However, Cardosa is betrayed by Neuman, who hands him a blank contact card, and then uses her powers to kill him via head explosion. Neuman then leaves with the virus ("Sick").
The Boys[]
Some time after Cate's uprising and the abandonment of the Woods, Billy Butcher learns about the virus' existence.
The sample Victoria took from Cardosa is given to her partner Dr Sameer Shah, a Vought R&D researcher, who organises a research operation based at Stan Edgar's old farm. At the farm, Sameer and his staff experiment with Compound V and V24 on various animals, in order to then test the effectiveness of the virus on them. However, the highly aggressive V'd up animals' broke containment and slaughtered all of the scientists save for Sameer, while all samples of the virus except for one were destroyed.
Billy meets with Victoria at Vought Video, where he reveals his knowledge of the virus to her, and how it is not strong enough to kill Homelander yet ("Department of Dirty Tricks").
Billy reveals the virus' existence to the Boys, where they plan to track down Victoria in order to find the sample Cardosa gave her. After releasing Stan Edgar from prison, he takes them to his farm where he presumes Victoria is hiding, and they discover the aftermath of the research operation. After meeting up with Victoria, they team up to find the virus, but encounter the V'd up farm animals, where they are eventually cornered by a group of murderous, flying sheep. They find Sameer in a barn, where he reveals the final sample of the virus, causing an argument between the group members that want to use it to escape, and the others who want to preserve it. The group eventually agrees to inject the sample into a corpse to use as bait for the sheep, infecting and killing them. The plan works, but Sameer goes missing in the chaos. Billy later reveals to Joe Kessler that he kidnapped Sameer, in order to force him to make more of the virus ("Beware the Jabberwock, My Son").
Billy and Kessler continue pressing the imprisoned Sameer to make more of the virus, but he refuses. After Billy demands he increase the virus' strength, Sameer reveals the truth of the virus: if engineered to be strong enough to kill Homelander, it risks becoming highly unstable and airborne. If such a thing happened, the virus is almost guaranteed to wipe out the Supe population on Earth. Billy, who is terminally ill from using V24, is pushed by Kessler (revealed to be a hallucination caused by his brain cancer) to increase the virus' lethality anyway, reminding him of his hatred of Supes. With the reveal that Kessler is actually the manifestation of Billy's own dark conscience, it is highly likely he will go forward with the plan ("Dirty Business").
Frenchie is sent by Billy to assist Sameer with creating the virus, providing him with the necessary equipment. After receiving assurance that the virus will only be used on Homelander and not Victoria, Sameer eventually manages to recreate a single sample of it. Unexpectedly, Sameer escapes his restraints and injects the sample into Kimiko's shin, which rapidly begins to spread up her entire leg. With only seconds to spare, Frenchie is forced to amputate her leg above the knee but manages to stop the virus' spread to the rest of her body. Kimiko's amputated leg is later presented to Billy, but the team still doubts if it is strong enough to kill Homelander ("The Insider").
Frenchie later extracts the virus from Kimiko's amputated limb and works relentlessly to create a working sample. He eventually succeeds and loads the sample into a specialised rifle to use against Victoria if she attempts to betray the Boys. However, a Compound V-empowered Billy suddenly arrives and brutally kills Victoria with his newfound powers, before forcibly stealing the last remaining sample of the virus. He was last seen escaping into the countryside with the virus, intending to enact his Supe genocide ("Season Four Finale").
Killed Victims[]
Trivia[]
- The virus does not exist in the comics. Instead, Billy plans to use a defective strain of Compound V to kill all supes.
- Exactly how the virus functions is unclear. Dr. Cardosa states that it attaches to the Compound V in the blood, but this is problematic since Compound V is a synthetic, inorganic substance and as such cannot support the replication of a pathogen like a living cell can.
- Frenchie suggests using a glycerol gradient to extract the virus from the remains of the sheep, which is successful. This is a well known technique in microbiology; tubes of water can be layered with different amounts of glycerol and spun at high speeds in order to separate objects by density. Such a technique implies that the virus is relatively dense at the molecular level, fragile, and has a lipid-based membrane.