With Amazon's The Boys adaptation heading into its final season, a lot of fans are curious and eager to see the endings of the cast of characters. While it's clear that a lot of characters won't get their comics-accurate ending, Amazon seems to have a major choice ahead about how to handle Hughie's multiple possible endings from the original comics.

The Boys is a pretty bloody comic created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and not every character has a happy ending. In fact, the vast majority don't. The most surprising part about the comic's ending was that Hughie, often called Wee Hughie, the least likely person to survive the dangerous business that the Boys are in, is the last person left standing.

The original comic ends with Hughie's character fully maturing and taking on a role very similar to Butcher, but the sequel series, The Boys: Dear Becky by Ennis and Russ Braun, provides Hughie with a completely different ending, and now Amazon has to pick which one it wants for the TV adaptation.

Hughie Changed a Lot Over the Course of the Comic, Resulting in Two Majorly Different Endings

Could Amazon Pull the Same Trick Off? Doubtful

When Hughie first appeared in the comics, he was just another random victim of the Supes. Hughie's girlfriend got completely obliterated by A-Train, who ran straight through her. Infuriated at the death of the woman he planned to marry, Hughie tried to sue the company to get some kind of revenge. When this didn't turn out how he expected, Hughie was approached by a mysterious man named Butcher. Butcher brought Hughie into a team known as the Boys, who were specifically trained to bring down corrupt Supes, but Hughie seemed woefully unprepared.

One of the most bizarre things about the team was the question of why exactly Hughie was there. Mother's Milk had combat training and intelligence gathering. The Female was an unbelievably vicious fighter who was more than happy to kill anyone Butcher pointed her at. Likewise, Frenchy also had a remarkable capacity for violence. Butcher himself had previous military training and was a genius at manipulating people and gathering information. Meanwhile, Hughie was just some guy who looked like Simon Pegg. There wasn't much he was capable of doing, yet Butcher insisted he stay in the team.

Hughie Eventually Found His Role in The Boys

And It Made Him Humanity's Biggest Protector Against Supes

Hughie's surprising purpose for the Boys was finally revealed by Butcher towards the end of the story. Hughie had always reminded Butcher of his younger brother, and Butcher intended to keep Hughie around as his own conscious. If it ever seemed like Butcher was going too far, he depended on Hughie's humanity to try and reel him back. This role was so important that Butcher saw Hughie as a failsafe against Butcher's worst impulses. When Butcher put in motion his plan to kill all Supes on the planet, he was depending on Hughie to stop him.

Shockingly, Hughie really did end up stopping Butcher's genocidal plans. While it was mostly due to Butcher trying to save Hughie, as opposed to any brave or brilliant plans on Hughie's part, the fact remains that Hughie prevented the death of potentially billions of people. After the death of Butcher, there was no one left to stand up against Vaught except for Hughie. From here, Hughie took on the role of Butcher, seemingly the last person with the means and the will to stop Vaught if they ever went too far with Supes again. It seemed like Hughie's character had come full circle.

It was a great character evolution for Hughie, and it seemed like Ennis had Hughie posed to be the next Butcher.

Hughie went from a weak character who could barely throw a punch to someone who was willing to threaten the face of the most dangerous company on Earth, and had both the means and will to carry that threat out. It was a great character evolution for Hughie, and it seemed like Ennis had Hughie posed to be the next Butcher: someone who would lead the next group of the Boys if necessary, and hopefully do it a bit more ethically. But that didn't end up being the ending that Hughie stuck with.

Hughie's Life Took a Very Unexpected Turn in The Boys' Epilogue Story

Amazon Has Two Choices

Hughie was given another ending in the pages of Dear Becky. This comic takes place a few years after the ending of the initial story. While some fans would have expected to see Hughie still clad in that iconic black trenchcoat and barking orders at a new rag-tag group of heroes, that's not what happened. When Dear Becky picks up, Hughie is back in Scotland with his girlfriend Annie, whom he still hasn't married. Hughie seems completely aimless in life and seems to have lost all the edge that he ended the original comic with.

Dear Becky reveals that Vought mostly stopped being a threat after Hughie's final confrontation with them. By and large, Supes are no longer a major presence in the world, at least not to the degree when Butcher was fighting against them. Instead of being a spymaster who is constantly plotting against the most powerful organization on Earth, Hughie is just some guy from Scotland who has commitment issues and can't stop thinking about the man who changed his life and killed all of his friends.

Dear Becky follows Hughie as he unravels the final mystery left to him by Butcher. At the end of it all, Hughie swears to never talk about Butcher again and finally marries Annie, seemingly setting himself up for a good, but normal and perfectly average life. This is a far cry from the setup he had at the end of the first comic, and in fact it's nearly the completely polar opposite direction. The divergent paths put Amazon in a bit of a bind, as the producers will have to figure out which direction to take Hughie's character as the show comes to a close.

Will Hughie Return to a Normal Life or Become the Next Butcher?

Amazon Can't Have It Both Ways Like the Comic

The TV show adaption of The Boys has taken many liberties and made many changes to the source material, but the characters still need to have endings. While it's unlikely that the Boys will meet the same fate as they did in the comics, Hughie is the ultimate question mark. Amazon will need to decide if he will grow into Butcher's successor, who can always keep an eye on Vought and other Supes, or if Hughie's true, ive nature will ultimately prevail, leading him to retire to live a quiet life with the love of his life.

Adapting has a lot of benefits to it. It's a lot easier to map out a story when there's already a blueprint to follow. The problem is that sometimes the blueprint simply cannot be adapted as it is. Amazon isn't going to be able to return, several years after the final episode, to put out one more episode updating everyone on how Hughie is doing. The show needs to make a choice about which ending it's going to go with, and honestly, that's just another reason why fans need to tune in to this final season of The Boys and see just what becomes of Wee Hughie.

The Boys: Dear Becky is available now from Dynamite Entertainment, and The Boys TV show is currently streaming on Amazon!