Hughie Campbell Takes on Spider-Man Persona in ‘The Boys’ Episode 6… According to Kripke’s Nod

The Boys remains one of the world’s most popular superhero series, with its fourth season airing since June 13, 2024. Despite its Certified Fresh status and strong performance, the season has faced criticism from fans displeased with its political context.

The latest episode was marked by several controversial moments, notably Tek Knight’s sexual abuse of the superhero Laddio, which we’ve covered previously. However, this scene also reveals a broader context: Hughie’s transformation into the superhero Webweaver.

Eric Kripke confirms that Webweaver is The Boys‘ version of Spider-Man, and the series makes efforts to establish this connection, as Kripke himself confirmed. In a recent interview with Variety, Kripke discussed key scenes from Episode 6 of the fourth season and shared background details about this specific storyline.

Kripke spoke with Variety, addressing various aspects of the show and recent developments from Episode 6, such as Hughie’s character progression and the connection between Webweaver and Spider-Man in the series. Here’s what he confirmed:

Was the safe word always going to be “Zendaya” — with the hint that Tek Knight says it’s what Webweaver “loves the most” — as a nod to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man? Or did you work through any other potential safe word ideas?

No, it was Anslem Richardson, who is the brilliant writer of the episode — he just put that in the first draft. I don’t think we ever discussed it, and he just threw in that his safe word was “Zendaya,” and I just laughed my ass off about that.

It’s the thing Spider-Man loves most!

Yeah! It’s the thing Spider-Man loves most.

After going through all that, Hughie finally breaks down into tears with Annie at the end of the episode once they’re back at headquarters. Will we see more fallout from that in the final episodes? Because he’s been through a lot already with his dad’s death, and then that sex-dungeon trauma happened.

His story in this particular episode is the kind of denial and compartmentalization a lot of us have when we’re dealing with the death of a loved one. And if you look throughout the episode, he’s always just saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m totally fine. I’m fine.” Which is what a lot of people do before you finally can sort of open the door to the pain you’re feeling.

And I think that’s part of healing. So I think he’s going to go on and really try to absorb and learn what his dad and his mother taught him about forgiveness, and really try to take that into the season. Because he really does have the most mature and human arc out of all the characters this season.

Source: Variety

This scene encompassed several significant elements. Firstly, it nodded to Spider-Man, drawing a playful reference to the real-life relationship between Tom Holland, MCU’s Spider-Man, and Zendaya, as confirmed by Kripke in the interview.

Additionally, it marked a crucial moment in Hughie’s character development, enabling him to evolve and confront the series’ unfolding tragedies, including recent events that we won’t reveal here.

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