Basketball great Shaq joined the New York Comic Con panel for The Boys to ask a question of the cast, and pitched his own original character to play in season 3. The hit Amazon Prime show held the panel on Thursday afternoon, just a few hours ahead of the debut of the season 2 finale. The panel covered everything from Homelander's milk fetish to the infamous Love Sausage scene, as well as the revelation that showrunner Eric Kripke is already working on the season 3 scripts.
The Boys has been one of the biggest ever hits for Amazon Prime, reaching the kind of viewing numbers that are usually reserved for streaming rival Netflix. Based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the show stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Laz Alonso, Tomer Kapon and Karen Fukuhara as a group of vigilantes fighting to expose the corrupt and evil activities of the corporate superhero group The Seven. The "supes" as they're referred to in the show, consist of a number of familiar archetypes, such as Superman-type hero Homelander (Antony Starr), The Flash-style A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) and others. The twist is that each of the superheroes has a number of personality faults, and is essentially pure evil.
As part of the NYCC panel on The Boys, basketball legend Shaq made a surprise appearance (at the 10:50 mark in the video below), much to the shock of the assembled cast, with Quaid in particular freaking out that he was appearing. Shaq was there to ask who commits the most pranks on set (the answer was Urban), but also took the opportunity to show off a phone filter that turned him into a demon, surrounded by fire, with lightning hands and eyes that light up. He repeatedly asks to join The Seven, pitching his own character called Black Demon. Quaid then responds by asking Kripke to make sure Shaq appears in season 3.
It's a fun interlude in a raucous panel, and proves that Quaid, who is set to star in Scream 5 this winter, is clearly a fan of the Lakers, not a surprise given that the actor grew up in LA as the child of hollywood stars Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. Shaq's pitch to appear in season 3 isn't so far-fetched either, given that The Boys loves to play in the realm of celebrity, and so one could easily see him appearing in a cameo in the show as himself, with a secret superhero alter-ego. Hopefully the idea is taken on by Kripke and the rest of the team and is made a reality.
Besides a potential cameo by Shaq, little is known about season 3, but Friday's season 2 finale will surely set up some questions going into the next batch of episodes. The Homelander and Stormfront relationship is likely to play a larger role in the upcoming season, if both characters survive the finale, while there's also potential for The Deep and A-Train to return to The Seven in some capacity. Hopefully The Boys can roll cameras sooner rather than later, and provide answers.
Source: NYCC