Season 3 of superhero satire The Boys will see Supernatural star Jensen Ackles join the cast as the patriotic Captain America parody Soldier Boy, but what is the new villain’s history with season 2 villain Stormfront? Now reaching its third season, the R-rated superhero satire The Boys has won both a massive fanbase and critical acclaim for its gory, darkly funny depiction of the worst people alive being granted superpowers.
Bleak and brutal but often uproariously funny, The Boys may parody the likes of Justice League and The Avengers, but it is a far cry from family-friendly superhero spoofs like Thunder Force. Instead, The Boys uses its titular group of vigilante superhero hunters and their enemies, a set of amoral superheroes called the Seven, to satirize everything from political corruption to the modern media landscape.
Season 2 of The Boys saw the arrival of Aya Cash’s hilarious Stormfront, an initially likable new superhero whose frank and funny public image masked racist, fascist origins. Although Stormfront posited herself as a charmingly unpretentious and audacious new sort of superhero, the character was eventually revealed to be an unrepentant Nazi who gained her powers thanks to the early genetic experimentation of the Vought corporation. The company’s attempts to create superhuman also brought about a major character from the source comics who is soon to be introduced in season 3, the Captain America parody Soldier Boy.
Played by Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles, Soldier Boy is a fellow early superhero who gained his powers through the same initial WWII-era genetic experiments with Compound V that created Storefront. At this time Stormfront was still known as Liberty, and series showrunner Eric Kripke disclosed that Soldier Boy was familiar with Stormfront during this era (and may well still be). Per Kripke, “Yes, he knew her when she was Liberty… because Soldier Boy has been a mainstay of Vought for decades.” There is endless storytelling potential in this hint, as Soldier Boy’s connections to Stormfront mean the character could be a positive public face for her to further her Nazi agenda as she recuperates from the brutal beatdown she received at the close of season 2.
Season 2 of The Boys ended with Stormfront’s Nazi views being exposed and the character very much worse for wear after being defeated by both Ryan and members of the Seven. However, her existing connection with Soldier Boy proves that her influence may not be spent yet. While the Captain America parody is a sycophant and a coward in the source comics, the brief clip of him rolling his eyes at Homelander in season 3’s first teaser proves Ackles will play a more cynical iteration of the character, and thus one who may be in league with Stormfront despite his patriotic public image. As proven by the real-life Operation Paperclip, numerous prominent former Nazis found homes in American institutions, and Storefront using Soldier Boy as an acceptable public outlet for her extremist views could be a pointed satire of this phenomenon. The Boys has never shied away from taking sharp jabs at socio-political issues, and the news that Stormfront and Soldier Boy have history could be used to continue this trend as Jensen Ackles’ character replaces Aya Cash’s as the new public face of charming homegrown fascism.