Amazon Fleshes Out ‘The Boys’ Cast

Five members of The Seven have joined the cast of The Boys, populating the world of the series with most of its cynical, damaged superheroes.

The series, which will air on Amazon, is based on the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson; it takes place in a world where superheroes have become corrupt and self-serving, and the titular Boys see themselves as serving humanity by keeping the super-powered maniacs in check.

Deadline reports that Antony Starr will join the series as Homelander, leader of The Seven; Dominique McElligott plays Queen Maeve; Jesse T. Usher will play A-Train, a speedster; Chace Crawford will play The Deep, the team’s Aquaman proxy; Nathan Mitchell plays Black Noir, a masked superhero with fighting and Set martial arts skills.

Mitchell has had minor roles on iZombie, Arrow, and Supernatural — but given his role as Black Noir, perhaps the most significant recent role he has played was as The Black Gentleman Ninja in Psych: The Movie. The ninja, whose full name is never given as he enthusiastically accepts “Black Gentleman Ninja,” is one of the two sidekicks to “The Thin White Duke,” a villain played by Shazam! star Zachary Levi.

The Seven are a thinly-veiled Justice League stand-in, something made even more evident in the early days of The Boys when the comic came from WildStorm. Later, Ennis and Robertson would take control of the property and bring it to Dynamite Entertainment after DC/WildStorm cancelled the book.

Wee Hughie, the series’ point of view character, was designed with Simon Pegg in mind, and while Pegg loved the series and expressed interest in playing the role years ago, he has been silent on it since The Boys actually got picked up and even if interested might now be too old for the role, if producers hope to keep the early-’20s vibe that Hughie had in the early comics.

Supernatural executive producer Eric Kripke is developing the series at Amazon; the pilot will be directed by Preacher‘s Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Like Ennis’s Preacher and Robertson’s Happy!, The Boys was a cult-hit comic that some fans assumed would never make the jump to live action because in spite of seemingly-continuous interest from Hollywood, the subject matter seemed too dark, violent, and bizarre for a network to spend big money on.

Amazon, of course, has picked it up on the heels of renewing The Tick for a second season as well as the success of similar TV projects, including Happy! and Preacher.