Amazon Prime has released the first official look at former Supernatural star Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy in The Boys. Ackles will make his debut as Soldier Boy in The Boys‘ third season. Laura Jean “L.J.” Shannon and concept artist Greg Hopwood developed Soldier Boy’s live-action look. Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson created Soldier Boy in The Boys comics, casting him as the leader of Payback, another superhero team second in popularity only to The Seven. Jensen previously shared photos from The Boys‘ set as he prepared to begin filming, but this marks the first time that fans have seen the actor in his superhero garb. Take a look below.
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“Our goal was to highlight a bygone era of overt masculinity and grit. With that pedigree we dove headfirst into baking in an all-American quality grounded in a military soldier’s practicality with a heavy dose of old school cowboy swagger,” says Shannon. “We knew that the actor had to have Steve McQueen looks and chops with a John Wayne attitude — luckily Jensen Ackles embodies all of that.”
Soldier Boy is a superhero created by Compound V in the 1940s. He’s said to have fought in World War II, killing more than his fair share of Nazi soldiers. Afterward, he became one of the world’s first superhero celebrities. To put it in Marvel-DC analog terms, if Homelander is a twisted version of Superman, then Soldier Boy is a dark Captain America.
Speaking to Variety previously about Ackles’ arrival in The Boys, series creator Eric Kripke (who, as the creator of Supernatural, worked with Ackles on that show’s first five seasons) said, “I think anyone expecting Jensen to show up and be a good guy, they will be disappointed. I’ll say that! In the comics he’s mostly just kind of bumbling and subservient to Homelander, I would say. 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.”
What do you think of Ackles’ look at Soldier Boy in The Boys Season Three? Let us know in the comments. The Boys Season Three is currently in production.
