u/ConditionUnlucky3125

It seems fairly logical to assume that Soldier Boy is substantially weakened by his radiation blast. I know a lotta people speculated this all the way back in the Herogasm fight when SB and Homelander fought, but episode 6 basically confirms that a full-power SB is able to harm HL and make him bleed with a SINGLE PUNCH. Keep in mind dozens of bloodlusted punches from both SB and Temp V Butcher, who's around the same level (though slightly weaker), only left a bruise on HL. Yet a casual, "I'm a Dad who's pissed at his son" punch visibly hurt HL, with the former reeling back in pain, giving him a nosebleed in the process. This definitely cements a 100% healthy SB as the #2 in the verse for those saying he couldn't make HL bleed in their fight like Ryan or Maeve imo, but what do y'all think?

Edit: The second image was supposed to be a GIF, but I'll link the timestamp to the punch here. Apologies for the inconvenience

I've seen some people argue that an EOS Emperor Nolan (by the time he fights Thragg for the second time in a 1v1 to clarify) has grown stronger after the 5-year timeskip by a noticeable margin. Logic being that he performs roughly the same, if not a little bit better, against a stronger, post-battle beast Thragg (breaks his nose and can somewhat trade blows a little better than when he could only cut it and was getting clowned on the whole time). Not to say that he does drastically better, as Thragg still low-diffed him, but I can kinda see what they're getting at. Especially when Thragg himself praises Nolan's strength right after and states he would be the "most fit" ruler in his absence, with Thragg, of course, referring to strength as being the only defining feature of a ruler. But what do y'all think?