The Boys' Version of Iron Man Subtly Foreshadowed Its Final Twist
Warning! Potential spoilers for The Boys below
In The Boys universe, their version of Iron Man ended up proving Billy Butcher's thesis about the nature of superpowers. In the series, Tek Knight is one of the few powerless heroes, and unlike his fellow supposed do-gooders, he is one of the few characters not corrupted by incredible powers. While the hero is still deeply flawed, Tek Knight showed that not everyone became a hero for their own personal gain.
The world of The Boys is chock-full of egotistical, power-hungry superheroes that often put their own needs in front of the needs of those who require their help the most. Famously, the comic's main antagonist, Homelander, refused to save passengers on a plane destined to crash because they saw him enraged, and it would have hurt his image to keep them alive. Meanwhile, the rest of The Seven is filled with depraved Supes, who have committed some horrible acts in secret while giving the world a false image of how they are real heroes with their best interests in mind. One hero broke that mold, as Tek Knight, the team's Iron Man parody, didn't have powers and became one of the few altruistic characters in the series.
In The Boys by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Tony Avina, and Simon Bowland, readers learn about Tek Knight, a powerless hero on the Payback team who struggles mightily with sex addiction. Tek Knight can't stop trying to have sex with everything he encounters, which is later revealed to be the result of a brain tumor. Tek Knight still tries to do the right thing in most situations despite his problems. Unfortunately, the Iron Man/Batman hybrid's tumor causes him to have sexual compulsions with his sidekick, Laddio, leading him to dismiss him. As his tumor gets worse, Tek Knight dies trying to save a mother and child from being crushed to death - while in his mind, he was saving the universe by having sex with a meteorite.
Tek Knight isn't really a good person as his sex addiction drives him to want to have sex with literally everything. But, compared to his fellow Supes, he is one of the closest things to a real hero in the entire The Boys series. He puts others first and dies doing something actually heroic and not entirely self-interested.
Tek Knight proves Billy Butcher's thesis that all superpowered Supes are harmful - including children - as their Compound V-created powers are too much for anyone to handle. Butcher would die himself after losing control and trying to kill Supes en masse. Perhaps, if all heroes were powerless - and just rich - like Tek Knight, the world would be a much better place, not just in the eyes of Butcher. The Boys' version of Iron Man was short-lived, but he proved that genuine heroes - even depraved ones - were possible even without powers.