The Boys has already had its way with the Justice League with The Seven– Homelander (Superman), Black Noir (Batman), Queen Maeve (Wonder Woman), A-Train (The Flash), and The Deep (Aquaman)*. Now it’s The Avengers’ turn.
The Boys comic book is a parody of both Marvel and DC Comics and their overused conventions. That will continue in Season 3 with the introduction of Payback, the comics’ lampoon version of The Avengers.
One member of Payback has already played a major role– Stormfront, the Nazi version of Thor. Another character, Eagle the Archer (Hawkeye) played a part in The Deep’s subplot. The third season will add additional members of Payback. It’s already been widely discussed that Jensen Ackles is playing Soldier Boy, the pastiche of Captain America. Now Amazon Prime Video has released a photo of Laurie Holden as the Crimson Countess.
This is The Boys‘ take on Scarlet Witch, a character that has gained new heights of popularity thanks to another streaming hit, Disney+’s WandaVision.
Laurie Holden is perhaps best known for playing Andrea, a very divisive character from AMC’s The Walking Dead. She has also had roles on The Magnificent Seven, The X-Files, The Shield, Major Crimes, The Americans, and Proven Innocent, and she appeared in the first Fantastic Four movie and Dumb and Dumber To.
As shown in Season 2, Stormfront has been around since World War II, and in the comics, there has been a Soldier Boy (not always the same person) since around the same time period. It sounds as though The Boys will be further exploring the history of Supes in this world, which date back to far further than the present day of The Seven.
Show creator Eric Kripke said:
“One of the things I love most about the world in [The Boys] comic books isn’t just how fleshed out it is, but the history of it. It goes back 60, 70 years and it’s just as fleshed out as it is today. One of the reasons that we’re getting into Soldier Boy [in season 3] and that team, Payback, is we’re interested in exploring a little bit of how we got here. Through the history of the supes, we can tell a little bit about the history of America and how we ended up in the current fraught position that we’re in.”
The rest of the live-action Payback don’t appear to be based on the comic book characters but include Nick Wechsler as Blue Hawk, Miles Gaston Villanueva as Supersonic (Quicksilver?), Sean Patrick Flannery as Gunpowder, and Kristin Booth and Jack Doolan as Tessa and Tommy, the TNT Twins.
Flannery’s Gunpowder was unveiled courtesy of the web tie-in series VNN:
So is he… like The Punisher? Is he even a Supe? And The Punisher isn’t an Avenger… We’ll have to see how the show handles him.
The comics also included Swatto (The Wasp/Ant-Man/Yellowjacket/whatever) and Mind-Droid (The Vision). No word that either will appear on the TV version.
The Boys Season 3 has wrapped filming and should arrive sometime in 2022.
*Yes, there are SEVEN members of The Seven, but the TV series either altered or omitted some or replaced them. Lamp Lighter was the comics’ version of Green Lantern but was given different powers and a smaller role. There is no Jack From Jupiter (Martian Manhunter). Starlight could be seen as the Firestorm of the group. Or not. Translucent doesn’t correspond to a member of the Justice League. Well, maybe the Martian Manhunter, but that’s a stretch.
