Karl Urban’s First Comic Book Role In This Movie 80% On Rotten Tomatoes Was The Total Opposite Of The Boys’ Billy Butcher

The Boys sees Karl Urban play Billy Butcher, a character who is vastly different from the actor’s first comic book movie character from an 80%-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes. The Boys‘ Supe killer Billy Butcher is the show’s main character, and perhaps the character Karl Urban has become most famous for. This is evident in anticipation for The Boys season 5’s story with audiences around the world waiting with bated breath to see how Billy Butcher’s story ends.

Despite appearing in massive franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, Urban is synonymous with Billy Butcher. Even Karl Urban’s best movies cannot rank above the now-iconic status The Boys possesses as one of the biggest cultural footnotes of modern superhero TV. The Boys holds the advantage of being a superhero TV show not based on Marvel or DC, allowing Urban and the story to shine above the crowd. However, The Boys is not the first comic book project in which Urban has appeared, with his first providing the polar opposite character to Billy Butcher.

Karl Urban’s Judge Dredd Was The Opposite Of Billy Butcher In Every Way

Billy & Dredd Could Not Be More Different

Custom Image by Milica Djordjevic

The movie in question is 2012’s Dredd. Dredd was not the most popular movie upon its release, yet has since developed somewhat of a cult following. Calls for a sequel have been prevalent since the film’s release due to the film’s overall tone and story, but also due to Urban’s performance as Judge Dredd. Dredd is part of a group of characters called Judges, law enforcement officers from a wartorn future who serve as judge, jury, and executioner in the metropolis of Mega-City One. As such, Dredd is a character who sticks to the rules.

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Dredd follows the code of the Judges completely and rarely ever wavers, maintaining the status quo established by his superiors. In essence, this character is the complete opposite of The Boys’ Billy Butcher. Billy is a wildcard, someone who will stop at nothing to further his goal of killing Supes, even if it means going against the American people, the CIA, with whom he had previous alliances, and even the titular group of the show he supposedly leads. This makes him unpredictable, erratic, and beholden to no code, starkly differentiating him from Dredd.

How Karl Urban’s Judge Dredd Movie Compares To The Boys

The Differences & Similarities Of Urban’s Two Projects Explained

Karl Urban's characters, Billy Butcher from The Boys and Judge Dredd from 2012's Dredd
Custom Image by Debanjana Chowdhury  

Although Dredd and Billy Butcher are two entirely different characters, Dredd and The Boys have some similarities. For one, they are both incredibly violent and depict their comic book source material as such, showcasing the true gore and destruction wrought by superpowered beings or vigilantes. This links to another similarity they share: neither is based on Marvel nor DC, the two pillars of comic books. This allows for these specific tones to be conveyed by Dredd and The Boys, standing in contrast to the most popular comic book movies and shows.

Via the violence and gore highlighted by both, Dredd and The Boys have similarly dark elements. However, one difference between the two is that the latter involves a lot of irreverent humor that is derived from the show’s over-the-top situations. Dredd has some jokes but is much more self-serious than The Boys. Another difference is that The Boys focuses on a world filled with people with outright superpowers, whereas Dredd and the other Judges are simply well-trained enforcement officers.

Judge Dredd & Billy Butcher Are Not Karl Urban’s Only Comic Book Roles

Beyond Dredd and The Boys, Karl Urban has appeared in a few other comic book roles. The most prominent came in 2017 when Urban appeared in Thor: Ragnarok. Urban played the role of Skurge, a warrior of the Einherjar, the Asgardian army, who was tasked with protecting the Bifrost after the banishment of Heimdall. Skurge was eventually demoted and became a janitor, before being hired by the evil goddess Hela as her personal executioner. In this way, Urban’s Skurge was loosely based on the Marvel Comics character, Executioner, also named Skurge.

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Another comic book role for Urban came in the movie Red, though with a significant difference. Red was based on the comic book series of the same name, but differed vastly from the source material and included several new characters. Karl Urban’s William Cooper was one such character. William was a CIA agent tasked with killing Bruce Willis’ Frank and served as the presence of the organization that is often found in the comic books. Evidently, Urban is no stranger to comic book movie roles, but his characters in Dredd and The Boys are perhaps the most famous and, as explored, the most different.