Within the established universe of The Boys, it is laid out quite clearly where superheroes came from and who created them–but Kimiko’s origin totally changes that history in one huge way.

Kimiko (or ‘the Female’ as she is only known in the comics) is a member of the Boys alongside Butcher, Frenchie, M.M., and Hughie, though unlike her fellow supe-watchdogs, the Female is a supe herself. Kimiko’s powers include super strength, agility, and a healing factor, plus she has no moral hang-ups when it comes to killing certain people–making her even more dangerous. While the Female as a character is interesting and her escapades alongside the rest of the team are incredibly entertaining, the most fascinating part about her has to be her origin as it is unlike any other superpowered person in the series–something that has major implications that stretch far beyond her own character.

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In The Boys #38 by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, readers are given the origin story of the Female as told to Hughie by Frenchie, the one person on the Boys who knows Kimiko better than anyone. As revealed in this issue, the Female’s mother worked as a secretary at a major Japanese company that was essentially the equivalent of Vought-American. At that point in time, Vought had already perfected Compound V (the substance that turns people into supes) and now this Tokyo-based corporation wanted to do the same. One day, when Kimiko was little more than a toddler, her mom took her to work with her and Kimiko wandered into a room in the building where scientists were working on their own version of Compound V. The scientists kept the residuals of the substance in a bucket, and when they turned their backs, they found that Kimiko had crawled into that bucket and started eating the Compound V-alike substance until there was nothing left–an event that granted her life-long superpowers and utterly killed this company’s progress in developing their own Compound V.

Kimiko Changed the History of The Boys By Becoming a Supe

Kimiko's origin in The Boys.

The biggest takeaway from Kimiko’s origin story isn’t the fact that she became a supe, but how she became a supe. Unlike literally every other supe in The Boys, Kimiko didn’t get her powers from Vought, but instead from another company that almost developed their own Compound V. If the Female didn’t ingest all the Compound V-alike then this other corporation would have assuredly created its own superhero team akin to the Seven–meaning it may have created its very own Homelander. This would obviously create conflict as another country outside the United States creating superheroes (even if that country is an ally) would warrant an immediate response–which actually leads into the overarching goal of Vought-American throughout the comic series: Military Defense Contracts.

If there was another country creating supes, the United States government assuredly wouldn’t hesitate bringing in Vought-American’s superheroes into the military for the sake of national security–making Vought’s goal of getting superheroes into Defense a guarantee, rather than something that is thwarted. However, by Kimiko eating the Compound V-alike and becoming a supe, she unwittingly keeps any of that from happening and single-handedly alters the landscape of the entire world–proving that Kimiko’s origin changed The Boys’ history in a huge way.

More: The Boys: The Seven Are All Siblings (But They Don't Know It)