Soldier Boy is the name of three superhero characters in the American comic book series Herogasm and The Boys, created by Garth Ennis and John McCrea. The first character introduced (but the third Soldier Boy in the timeline, with his two predecessors having died) is the elected leader of the Vought-American-sponsored superhero team Payback. He is depicted as one of the only "Supes" (i.e. "superpowered" or "superhuman" individuals, often acting as "superheroes") with selfless, benevolent motivations, who detests the use of profanity. However, Soldier Boy annually has sex with Homelander alone at the "Herogasm" orgy, under the mistaken hope that the "test" of doing so will convince Homelander to let him join his own superhero team, The Seven. After his most recent dalliance with Homelander, Soldier Boy is captured by CIA black ops agent Billy Butcher and brutally tortured and murdered by him for information on Homelander's recent activities. The original Soldier Boy is later revealed to have been mercy killed by Mallory during his first mission at the Battle of the Bulge, after his "Avenging Squad" inadvertently caused Mallory's men to be massacred, and been replaced by the second for the remainder of the war.
In the Amazon Prime Video television adaptation, Soldier Boy (Ben) is introduced in the third season, portrayed by Jensen Ackles. A composite character of the comic book characters, this Soldier Boy is depicted as the first American non-aging Supe, created by Frederick Vought during World War II. He is responsible for Mother's Milk's grandfather's death. A vulgar, arrogant, chauvinistic "bonafide war hero", while working with the CIA during the Cold War as the leader of Payback, Soldier Boy was betrayed to the Soviet Union and experimented on for forty years. He is inadvertently freed by the Boys in the present-day while they were seeking the "superweapon" B.C.L. RED to use to kill Homelander, which in actuality is Soldier Boy himself, who, due to experimentation, can now emit an energy beam from his chest (Big Chest-Laser) which negates the superpowers of any other Supes with whom it comes in contact. It is later revealed that Vought used Soldier Boy's sperm to create Homelander without his knowledge (he was told to provide a sample for research purposes), thus making them father and son. Ackles returned in the 2023 spin-off series Gen V, portraying a Supe's imaginary friend Soldier Boyfriend, modelled after Soldier Boy.
Contents
Appearances
Comic book series
Soldier Boy is introduced in Herogasm in 2009, created by Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and Keith Burns. The character is a legacy hero and the third version of Soldier Boy. He is the "elected" leader of the Vought-American-sponsored superhero team Payback. At the titular annual orgy of Supes, he has had sex with Homelander alone every year out of the belief that he will let him join his own superhero team the Seven (a promise which Homelander has no intention of fulfilling). As Homelander is inspired to begin planning a "Supe revolution" against Vought and their puppet rulers in the White House shortly after having sex with him for the most recent time, Soldier Boy remains obliviously standing by Homelander's side as he prepares to announce his plans only for him to be interrupted by the Guy from Vought.
In The Boys arc "The Self-Preservation Society", Soldier Boy participates in Payback's ambush on the Boys, along with the rest of his team. Initially he manages to pin Billy Butcher, the Homelander's archenemy, CIA black ops agent and leader of the Boys, against a wall with his shield. However, being inexperienced in real combat, he loses the initiative and eventually the battle, having his nose bitten off by Butcher before being beaten unconscious. Later, Butcher brutally beats and tortures him for information on the Homelander and his activities over the next few days, mocking him for having claimed to be the same Soldier Boy who fought in World War II, kept alive by being frozen in suspended animation, an identity he was forced to assume and impersonate by Vought. In the "What I Know" arc, Butcher is revealed to have killed Soldier Boy, with a public funeral being held for him and members of the Seven (including the Homelander) serving as his pallbearers.
In The Boys arc "Barbary Coast", in precedence of telling "Wee Hughie" Campbell about the true sadistic nature of Billy Butcher, Lieutenant Colonel Greg D. Mallory tells him about his own history with Supes, beginning with his captaincy during World War II, when his company was made by government and Vought officials to supervise the "Avenging Squad", a team of the first American-made Supes, led by the first Soldier Boy, during the Battle of the Bulge. While eager to serve, Soldier Boy had little military experience, and ordered the flying members of the team to inspect the area for a Nazi presence, oblivious to the fact that doing so would expose their position. Realizing what Soldier Boy had done, Mallory only had time to give his men a brief warning before the enemy (a nearby Waffen-SS platoon) attacked, massacring both his and Soldier Boy's men. After coming across a mortally wounded Soldier Boy, near-vertically bisected by a blast, in the aftermath, Mallory had then dropped a grenade by his feet before walking away, mercy killing him.
Television series
In the third season of the television series adaptation, Jensen Ackles portrays a composite character based on the various comic book characters known as Soldier Boy. Prior to Ackles' casting, Eric Kripke intended to "cast an older actor, because we were going for like a grizzled John Wayne sort of vibe", before instead offering Ackles the role. Kripke and Ackles had previously worked together on the first five seasons of The CW's Supernatural. Ackles was also "in contention for a brief time" (although did not audition) for the role of Steve Rogers / Captain America in the 2011 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Captain America: The First Avenger (prior to Chris Evans's casting); Ackles characterized them as "Captain America on his ass, [and] as if [he] gave up super-heroism and was just your drunk and inappropriate uncle". Soldier Boy is a parody of Captain America. On the character's relationship with Homelander in the third season of the television series adaptation, Ackles stated:
"Homelander is the new iteration of Soldier Boy. He's the new kid on the block in Soldier Boy's eyes. Going back to that toxic masculinity: very true to form, one of the first things that ever comes out of Soldier Boy's mouth after he looks at a big poster of Homelander is 'What the fuck?' It's just looking at the world around him, knowing he doesn't fit in and [that] things are different. And there it is, personified in this statuesque red, white and blue superhero. He's not thrilled about that. The relationship is immediately contentious. They have their words."
Soldier Boy's appearance was designed by Laura Jean "LJ" Shannon and Greg Hopwood. His emerald-colored costume and golden shield resemble Soldier Boy I's costume design. Addressing Soldier Boy III's sexual relationship with Homelander in the Herogasm comic series, Kripke confirmed that it would not be adapted to the television series adaptation. The character was straightwashed for the adaptation.
Soldier Boy was created by Nazi defector Frederick Vought during World War II in 1944, via injections of Compound V into a normal soldier. He was named Ben at birth. After being mentioned by Stan Edgar in the 2020 second season as an early test subject for Compound V, represented via a statue, Soldier Boy is revealed by Marvin T. "MM" Milk in the third season as responsible for killing his grandfather whilst thwarting a carjacking, motivating his father's decision to "work himself to death" as a lawyer attempting to bring down Vought and causing MM's post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and hatred of superheroes. Soldier Boy was said to have been killed while preventing a nuclear meltdown during the Cold War. Believing this story to be false and upon learning of the location of a Russian superweapon known as B.C.L. RED said to have actually killed Soldier Boy, Queen Maeve sends Billy Butcher to verify whether it did or not and then retrieve it, both hoping to potentially use the weapon to kill Homelander, the unstable leader of the Seven, due to Vought having equated him and Soldier Boy on a similar to equal power level.
Video game
In 2026, Ackles reprised his role as Soldier Boy from the television series in the video game The Boys: Trigger Warning.
Powers and abilities
In the comics, Soldier Boy III has superhuman strength and speed. He also has relative expertise in hand-to-hand combat. Soldier Boy I has superhuman strength, enhanced reflexes and a healing factor, while lacking immortality and immunity to harm.
In the television series, the character has superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, endurance, near-invulnerability, a regenerative healing factor, and expertise in hand-to-hand combat. Soldier Boy also possesses the ability to produce radiation that can be released from his chest in beams of energy or explosive burst, that can also fry the Compound V out of a Supe's system, kill people and destroy buildings, courtesy of Soviet-era experimentation. He is biologically immortal due to having V-1, the first version of Compound V. Soldier Boy's signature weapon is his shield.
Reception
Ackles' cover of Blondie's "Rapture" received additional praise from the band itself, with original singer Debbie Harry describing the rendition as "epic". Screen Rant ranked Soldier Boy III among the best characters in the comics in 2024.
