Why Comics Fans Will Be Shocked By Soldier Boy In The Boys Season 3

In his interview with Variety, Kripke acknowledged that the Soldier Boy of the comics is "bumbling and subservient to Homelander," but he wanted to go in a different direction. "I think anyone expecting Jensen to show up and be a good guy, they will be disappointed ... " he said. "As we're writing him in this, we're getting to really talk about the history of Vought because he's like John Wayne: He's one of these guys that's been around for decades of Vought history. And he was Homelander before Homelander, so he's from a different era, but he's got the ego and the ambition — it just comes across in a different way because he's from a different time."

Kripke's word choice provides a major tip-off about why this Soldier Boy sounds so unlike the version from the comics. Given that the showrunner is emphasizing that the character is from another era, it would track that Ackles is playing the original Soldier Boy. In the comics, Soldier Boy is a legacy character for Vought, and the name is passed from one hero to the next.

As a result, the character who is easily pushed around by Homelander within the pages of the comics is not the OG supe, but the show's version of Soldier Boy is the same Nazi killing machine that paved the way for Vought to become the most powerful company in the world.