As The Boys prepare for the end with a fifth and final season, it’s just the beginning for Soldier Boy, whose origin story is yet to come.
Jensen Ackles, who originated the role of the cryogenically frozen early Supe in Season 3 of the Prime Video series, will reprise the character in Vought Rising, recently teasing that he is “the top dog” in the prequel series.
“Listen, it’s going to feel familiar, as far as the format of it all, because I think that’s taking what really works with The Boys and trying to do something a little bit different with it, certainly as a period piece in the 1950s,” he explained to Collider. “But I’ll speak personally. The Soldier Boy aspect of it is I’m used to playing and we’re used to seeing Soldier Boy in modern times, but he is a, I like to say, analog man in a digital world, so he’s a fish out of water with what we know of him now.”
Ackles continued, “Now we’re getting to see him be relevant, getting to see him in his actual environment where he feels like this is where he belongs. He’s the top dog. But you also get to see the experience as to why he ended up the way he did. We get to kind of peel back the layers of what truly happened in that time.”
The actor also noted that “the intent is to do multiple seasons,” adding, “When they pitched it, they were like, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing this prequel thing, going back to the 1950s with Soldier Boy.’ I don’t think I let them finish the sentence before I was like, ‘Yes!’ But I know that the intent is to have it be a multi-season show.”
Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy in ‘The Boys (Jasper Savage/Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection)
In the fifth and final season of The Boys, premiering April 8 on Prime Video, the world completely subject to Homelander’s (Antony Starr) erratic, egomaniacal whims. With Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) are imprisoned in a ‘Freedom Camp’, Annie (Erin Moriarty) struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher (Karl Urban) reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it.
Paul Grellong serves as showrunner on Vought Rising, with Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal executive producing The Boys: Mexico, from Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. Prime’s college spin-off Gen V recently concluded its second season, which sets up The Boys finale. The animated The Boys Presents: Diabolical is not likely to get a second season.