>>109435471The thing about Homelander was his as an abusive prick and narcissistic asshole, but people have a hard time realizing he wasn't an actual psychopath. There was some amount of humanity in there, which is why he went insane when all the shit began piling up and he had to reconcile the fact that he thought he wasn't that bad but there was all this evidence that he was.
Even super assholes, that aren't completely fucked in the head here to be clear, have some basic amount of humanity in them. They may cross lines, but only by convincing themselves that it wasn't actually crossing the line. Like he does here with how he justifies making Starlight give him a blowjob. Sure, it's not catch them in an alleyway, tying up your daughter kind of rape, but you'd be hard pressed to argue throwing your professional weight around to convince a girl you have on your super secret HQ brought there under the impression she's being offered a legit job opportunity doesn't cross lines. Yes, I wouldn't throw this around as a hardline principle, but it's these sorts of grey areas that are the reason we have courts, to sort out the legal implications of things.
Point being, Homelander is able to convince himself coercing people into sex is one thing, but has also been led to believe he's done a lot worse. He still has a moral code, if flexible, that he believes he can live by. So this nags at his conscience and he spends pretty much the whole comic trying to reconcile it. Ultimately he decides the only way to reconcile this is to just embrace the belief that he is that bad and begin talking himself around to things that justify it, as seen here
>>109433787. His entire coup attempt is just him trying to play the part he believes he's already been playing, in order to keep himself from going mad over the idea that he's actually a super evil person. Remember, it wasn't just rape, there were images of him eating fucking babies.
