Homelander’s origin story in The Boys has just been changed by a wild reveal in Gen V, but this alteration doesn’t actually make much sense. Antony Starr has portrayed Homelander, the most powerful “Supe” and the leader of Vought International’s superhero team, the Seven, during each season of The Boys, and he even made an appearance in the finale of Gen V season 1. We thought we knew all there was to know about Homelander’s tragic and twisted backstory, but Gen V season 2 has just changed the game significantly.
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Gen V season 2 revealed that Thomas Godolkin, the founder of Godolkin University, had been working on a project titled “Odessa,” which involved giving Compound V to foetus’ in the blastocyst stage – still embryonic. Godolkin hoped to create the world’s most powerful Supes, but only two embryos survived these experiments, and they developed into Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and – you guessed it – Homelander. This changes what we know of Homelander’s backstory in The Boys, and, considering his family heritage, doesn’t actually make sense for the series or the character.
Why Gen V’s Project Odessa Doesn’t Make Sense For Homelander’s Origins
Making Homelander a successful subject of Project Odessa suggests that Vought weren’t confident he would have superpowers to begin with. This clearly isn’t the case, however. The Boys season 3 revealed that Homelander is actually the biological son of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), America’s first superhero, who gained enhanced strength and combat skills after being given Compound V as an adult. What we know of The Boys’ universe is that, on most occasions, superpowers are hereditary, and Vought chose Soldier Boy as Homelander’s father to ensure his powers would be passed on, so introducing Odessa confuses his backstory.
From what we’ve previously seen, Supes’ powers are often hereditary in The Boys. Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) gained similar abilities to his father, Homelander, Andre Anderson (the late Chance Perdomo) gained metal manipulation powers from his father, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), and Maverick (Nicholas Hamilton) gained his invisibility from his father, Translucent (Alex Hassell). Vought surely would have assumed that Soldier Boy’s powers would have been passed down to his son, so it makes little sense that they would also inject the embryo with Compound V during the blastocyst stage.
Homelander’s childhood in the Vought lab was explored in gory detail in The Boys season 4, proving that he had little chance of growing up into a bona fide superhero. Now that he’s been revealed to be a subject of Project Odessa, however, his connections to Marie Moreau are even more evident, and an epic battle between the two most powerful Supes on Earth might have been set up for Gen V or The Boys. It would be good to see Homelander’s backstory explained more clearly, but it’s unlikely we’ll actually get an explanation for where Homelander came from.
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