This 7/7, we salute the greatest Super team ever assembled. Even with heroic sacrifices and unfortunate betrayals, The Seven has NEVER been stronger. Sole captain Homelander continues his search for new heroes to replenish the team’s ranks as we speak! pic.twitter.com/VSfFjXpBbB

— Vought International (@VoughtIntl) July 7, 2023

Starlight actor Erin Moriarty teased that The Boys season 4 will explore various character developments. Based on the comic book created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Prime Video's television adaptation recently wrapped filming on season 4 in April 2023. Picking up after the season 3 finale, season 4 will see Vought’s flagship superhero team introduce several new faces following Maeve's staged death and Starlight’s defection from The Seven. Meanwhile, Black Noir actor Nathan Mitchell is also set to play a new version of his character after Homelander brutally killed the original masked Supe for withholding information about his father.

Speaking with Collider, Moriarty revealed that The Boys season 4 would continue to provide background information about the show’s unique roster of characters. By giving a deeper understanding as to how certain characters’ personalities came to be, the Starlight actor suggests viewers will reconsider the reasoning behind certain villainous actions. Check out her comments below:

"Every season, we go a little bit deeper with each character. The characters… that you thought would be villains, you start to learn a little bit more about them that perhaps makes you feel, not that they’re good guys, but that there are always gonna be details that you can never anticipate, that prevent you from putting that character in a box."

How The Boys’ Moral Ambiguity Has Helped Redefine The Superhero Genre

While The Boys season 4 will likely feature some seriously gross moments, the comic adaptation shouldn’t front load these the way the show did in season 3's infamous opening scene. The Boys has always been a gross show. An adaptation of Garth Ennis’s comic book series of the same name, The Boys satirizes superhero tropes with a healthy helping of disgusting humor. The goriest deaths in the series are usually played for dark laughs, whether it is Kimiko beating multiple men to death with dildos or Homelander blowing a civilian’s head to shreds in public before a baying crowd. However, this isn’t always a good thing.

One thing that makes The Boys better than its comic inspiration is the fact that the series is not as gratuitous as its source material. The Boys tended to go too far from time to time in its original comic incarnation, and some of the comic’s grossest shocks wouldn’t have translated to television. Anyone who has read the deeply upsetting scene where Butcher (the ostensible hero of the series) beats a super-powered baby to death will know that The Boys comic sometimes leaned into shock value for its own sake. To its credit, The Boys television show indulges this creative impulse less often. However, it is still an issue for the show.

The Boys Season 3’s Opening Set The Bar Too High For Graphic Scenes

While relatively quick, Termite’s accidental killing is still extremely cringe-worthy. It is a gory moment on par with Glenn’s death in The Walking Dead or The Mountain Vs The Viper sequence from Game of Thrones, and will likely go down in infamy as a similarly shocking moment in television history. However, the fact that season 3 featured this as its opening scene left The Boys with nowhere to go later in the outing. While The Boys season 3, episode 6, “Herogasm.” was a fun outing, the episode was nowhere near as shocking as viewers anticipated. The season wouldn’t have felt so tame if the opening scene of The Boys season 3 hadn’t set such a high bar.

The Boys Season 4 Shouldn’t Try To Match S3's Horrifying Opening

The Boys season 3 continued the series’ established ability to shock audiences with both its unflinching depictions of brutal violence and its twists, but it revealed its ending turn a bit too early. A vital part of the pleasure associated with this cynical look at the superhero phenomenon has always been the revelation of some key piece of information, a big twist that changes everything viewers thought they knew about the series. In fact, it’s the anticipation of just what revelation will emerge that remains crucial to the appeal of The Boys.

The Boys is the kind of series that likes to keep something back, often waiting until the finale to unleash a shocking moment, increasing the stakes of the action and the next season. Such twists often involve a brutal death that shakes up existing power relations within the series, like Homelander’s lasering of Madelyn Stillwell in The Boys season 1. Each twist also increases the stakes, leading the viewer to wonder just how much further the series and its characters-both Supes and Boys alike-can take their ever-escalating conflict. That said, season 3 gave away its twist far too early.

The Boys S3 Trailer Gave Away Homelander's Final Twist

The trailer for The Boys season 3 contains two key pieces of information that reveal the final twist of the season. In showing Homelander grinning in front of an adoring crowd with the line, “I showed people the real me... I mean they f**king love me,” the trailer makes it clear that the villainous Supes' true nature would eventually become public knowledge. Rather than causing his fans to turn against him, however, the trailer reveals The Boys season 3's dark ending for Homelander, i.e. that his brutal murder of a protester merely increases his popularity.

Obviously, there were numerous clues in The Boys seasons 2 and 3 that this moment has been coming. The actions of the various Supes, particularly Homelander, have become increasingly unhinged and publicly visible, leading to a bit of a crisis for Vought. It is, after all, the company responsible for them, and the public associates with some measure of accountability. In revealing so much of this particular plot point, the trailer robs the revelation of its true emotional impact, to the detriment of both the finale and The Boys season 3 as a whole, since neither has the element of surprise of their predecessors.

How Homelander's True Nature Sets Up The Boys Season 4

The ending of The Boys season 3 finally sees Homelander revealed as the homicidal monster he has been from the very beginning. As a result, the public now realizes that he is capable of destroying anyone who stands in his path, not just “bad guys.” Season 4 will no doubt explore the fallout from Homelander’s killing of a civilian because even though the gathered crowds celebrate this violent act, it’s already been established that many others aren’t so willing to go along with whatever depraved and murderous acts Supes like Homelander may commit.

In some ways, the revelation of the truth about Homelander’s true nature will seemingly make Billy Butcher’s efforts to bring him down easier to accomplish. Season 3 sets up the heightened stakes of their ongoing conflict, particularly since Billy has his own attachment to Homelander’s son, Ryan. Given that neither one of these men knows how to admit defeat, it’s highly likely that The Boys season 4 will show them competing for Ryan’s allegiance, with each trying to sway the public to their way of thinking. The stakes couldn’t be higher for each of them, and their actions will reflect this dynamic.

Few moments were more violent and darker in The Boys television series than when Victoria Neuman used her powers to violently explode people's heads during a congressional hearing exposing Vought-American, but in the comics, Billy Butcher's version of the scene was even deadlier. In The Boys #14, Butcher activates a frequency that kills hundreds of Supes at once in his biggest massacre of the series.

Billy Butcher's kill count in The Boys comic book is incredibly high, as he kills many Supes throughout the series. From Butcher making his name literal while killing Soldier Boy to finishing off Black Noir with a crowbar, the leader of The Boys got great satisfaction in taking Supes off the board in his effort to get revenge for the loss of his wife. However, one of Butcher's deadliest moments was changed in a significant way during The Boys television series, as Victoria Neuman using her powers to explode heads during a congressional hearing actually happened much differently in the comics.

In The Boys #14 by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Peter Snejbjerg, Simon Bowland, and Tony Avina from Dynamite Comics, the Supe-hunting team goes to Russia, where they learn that the Little Nina, who recently appeared in The Boys TV series, has been hiding 150 Supes for Vought-American. Billy Butcher confronts the Supes in a warehouse, showing little fear against the superpowered army. After calling them an expletive, Butcher pulls out a switch, and when he presses it, it explodes the heads of all the Supes in the room with a special frequency, in one of his most violent moments in the series.

Butcher's deadliest Supe moment would get adapted in The Boys television series but under much different circumstances. In the TV show, it's Victoria Neuman who ends up exploding the heads of anyone who stands in her way, with her attack on Congress being one of the darkest moments of the live-action series. Instead of channeling a frequency, Neuman's powers are responsible for the massacre at Congress.

The change in The Boys TV series added an extra layer of intrigue to the original mystery of the exploding heads at Congress and set up Victoria Neuman as a deadly secret Supe who would cause major problems going forwards. However, in the comics, Billy Butcher's attack killing 150 Supes at once by popping their heads like balloons remains one of his deadliest single actions, as it's his biggest single takedown of Supes in The Boys. The two scenes might have played out quite differently, but the explosive moment was much darker in the comics.

Compound V from the popular Prime Video series The Boys is finally available to purchase - as an energy drink! The dark TV show, based on comics created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, acts as an antithesis of the glorification of superheroes saturating media nowadays with the success of the MCU and certain DC films. In The Boys, super-powered individuals are not the heroes of the story, but often dangerous antagonists that must be taken down. The Karl Urban and Jack Quaid-led series tackles corporate corruption, the privatization of military assets, and the individual thirst for power. The Boys recently wrapped up its third season.

In The Boys, a major plot point deals with the revelation that heroes are created, not born, with the help of a substance called Compound V. Shown as a blue serum, Compound V can also be taken by those already imbued with powers as a heavy-duty stimulant. In season 3, some members of Supe-fighting team the Boys start taking a version of Compound V, Temp V, which offers powerless individuals a temporary dose of superpowers. That serum is coded as green and quickly revealed to be fatal. Now, fans of The Boys can get in on the action by taking Compound V in the form of a new energy drink created by GFuel, a company that creates energy drinks primarily for ESports and gaming.

Sony posted the news via Twitter, along with an image of the new GFuel flavor as both an energy drink and powder. The images feature Homelander and Starlight prominently as the poster children for the real-life Compound V. See the post below:

Now it’s your turn to try “Compound V.”@GFuelEnergy's latest is available now. Courtesy of our friends over at @VoughtIntl. @SPTV | @TheBoysTV pic.twitter.com/FtYIieo1y6

— Sony (@Sony) August 29, 2022

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Boys season 4!!

The Boys season 4 has a big issue with the Seven that was caused by the events of season 3 - but there's already an obvious solution. Throughout the series, a consistent plot point has been the constantly shifting roster of the Seven, with the team's various supes constantly joining the team, leaving the team, or dying. The Boys season 3 left The Seven in a bad spot, with both Black Noir and Supersonic dying, and the series is running out of big-name supes to take their place. However, there is another obvious show The Boys can recruit from.

The Boys is a gritty satirical take on politics and media based on the popular superhero comic of the same name. The series follows the titular group of powerless humans as they attempt to take down The Seven, a superhero team that acts as a dark parody of the Justice League. Supes are constantly joining the Seven, as the violent and mature world of The Boys makes sure that many of the team's members aren't around for long. Thus, the membership count of the Seven is, ironically, rarely seven. While the goal of The Boys' protagonists is to wipe out the various supes created by Vought International, each season promotes new heroes to The Seven, giving the various episodes a unique feel and story.

Most of the main supes in The Boys are either on the team, have been on the team, or they're dead. The Seven is only sitting at five members at the conclusion of The Boys season 3, highlighting the show's big problem: it's running out of supes. Yes, there are technically a ton of superpowered people running around the show, but hardly any of them are powerful enough or beloved by audiences enough to join the team. With The Boys' complex story and various human characters, it's hard to spend time developing new supes that will inevitably be killed off at the end of the season. Luckily, there is another place that The Boys can get new Seven members from: Gen V.

How Gen V Can Perfectly Connect To The Boys Season 4

A The Boys spin-off titled Gen V is coming soon, and it can perfectly fix the show's issue in The Boys season 4. Gen V will follow a young group of supes attending the Vought-run Godolkin University School of Crimefighting, with the students competing in different events and challenges in order to be recruited onto The Boys' various superhero teams. The Boys season 3 already showed Homelander and Starlight's attempts to recruit young supes with the "American Hero" reality show, although its winner, Supersonic, didn't last very long on the Seven. American Hero's failure makes Vought unlikely to try it again, meaning that The Boys season 4 could have Vought pulling heroes from their school of crimefighting. Gen V fixes The Boys' supe problem, as the spin-off series will devote its entire run to developing its collegiate supes. It is already known that Gen V and The Boys will tie into each other, and Gen V setting up supes that can be put into the Seven without The Boys devoting major time to them is the perfect way to do it.

While The Boys may be running out of big-name supes, Gen V will have an all-new batch of characters that would fit in perfectly with The Boys season 4. Goldkin University's champion being included in The Boys would also give viewers a reason to watch the spin-off, since the two shows would be heavily tied together. The Boys season 4 has a big problem, and Gen V is the way to fix it.

While Homelander is set up throughout The Boys as the series' big bad, his eventual death perfectly flips this concept by robbing him of his dignity and relevance. An incredibly powerful parody of DC's Superman, Homelander is a brutal bully who ultimately decides to stage a coup on the United States, murdering the president and countless people in a short-sighted grab for power.

Ultimately, Homelander is killed by Black Noir, who is revealed to be a clone of the powerful Supe, tasked with assassinating him should he ever decide to break from the Vought-America corporation's interests. It's Black Noir who ends up being the series' biggest superhuman threat, and Homelander is killed off-panel in a way that not only acts as a thrilling twist, but perfectly undermines the way the character presents himself throughout the story.

In The Boys #65 (from Garth Ennis, Russ Brain, John McCrea, and Keith Burns), Homelander learns the truth. Not only has his 'friend' always wanted to kill him, but Black Noir actually dressed as Homelander in order to frame him for brutal crimes and force Vought to call for his execution. Homelander's own crimes only happened because he believed he'd already done such terrible things, prompting Butcher to hit him with the definitive put-down, "It means you turned into a ****** psychopath by mistake." Homelander begins the issue sitting in the Oval Office, feeling unbeatable, and ends with a profanity-laden tantrum, squaring off against an enemy who brutally destroys him. It's a genius move because it takes a character who'd love to be thought of as a supreme evil and kills him off-panel in a fight against a bigger threat, moments after definitively proving he's never understood what's actually going on behind the scenes.

For most of The Boys, Homelander is held up as an unkillable terror - someone who can't be brought down by normal means, and who plunges the country into chaos on a whim. It's exactly how he presents himself, and yet ultimately it's the lie of someone who has the maturity - as his creator described him to Newsarama - "of a fourteen year old." Homelander's coup is deeply unsuccessful, lasting less than a day and ending with him murdered by Vought's secret weapon and his superhero 'army' mowed down by the military. Homelander isn't actually an unfeeling killer, but rather someone playing the part who is constantly questioning his own actions.

Ultimately, Homelander isn't even in the top three of The Boys' villains, ranking below Black Noir, Vought executive James Stillwell, and Billy Butcher himself. While he sets himself up as a terrifying threat, his death in The Boys pulls the rug from under his and readers' feet by showing he's anything but. Often in pop culture, even the most repulsive villains are given cool or iconic deaths that only serve to validate their importance. The Boys doesn't give Homelander that kind of ending, revealing he's been playing someone else's game all along, and killing him off in a fight that only serves to establish his killer as a far more disturbing and significant villain.

Antony Starr confirms that production on The Boys season 4 has begun with a throwback image of the Seven. Concluding season 3 last month, Prime Video announced the show’s renewal within a week of its premiere. Based on a comic book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the series centers on the vigilantism of a titular group of misfits determined to expose the dark underbelly of superheroes.

Developed by Eric Kripke, The Boys season 3 saw the introduction of Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy, the world’s first superhuman and the only adversary of comparable power to Homelander (Starr). Ending with a fittingly shocking finale, it was announced earlier this month that Cameron Crovetti, the teenage star behind Homelander’s son Ryan, would become a series regular in season 4, with new heroes depicted by Valorie Curry and Susan Heyward also set to be introduced. After hinting at a battle for Ryan’s soul between Homelander and Billy Butcher, the casting announcement seemed to confirm Kripke’s story plans for season 4.

Now, Starr appears to have confirmed that production on The Boys season 4 has officially begun, sharing a throwback photo from season 1. "Season one. So long ago," he writes alongside an image of himself in full Homelander costume with the original cast of the Seven, featuring Erin Moriarty as Starlight, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, Chance Crawford as The Deep, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, and Alex Hassell as Translucent. Marking the commencement of season 4, Starr playfully adds: “Season four, now we begin ;)” Check out the post below:

Season one. So long ago. Season four, now we begin ;) pic.twitter.com/NFKfp6wYgZ

— Antony Starr (@antonystarr) August 22, 2022

Those bellends also pulled all their Starlight, Soldier Boy, and Seth Rogen content. Unsubscribe. https://t.co/gAHAvouEg4

— THE BOYS (@TheBoysTV) August 5, 2022

Black Noir can return from the dead and The Boys comic book shows how. Lamplighter's shocking status in the popular Dynamite Comics series reveals The Seven and Vought-American have a method to bring back heroes from the dead. But, unlike other ways to bring heroes back to life from Marvel Comics, such as the mutants resurrection protocol, bringing a Supe back comes with some serious complications.

One of the most shocking deaths in The Boys television series came when Homelander killed Black Noir for hiding the secret of his father, Soldier Boy, from him. Black Noir's death played out quite differently in live-action than in the comics, as unlike the story it would later inspire, the Supe wasn't a former member of Payback who suffered a grave injury impacting his mental capacity, but instead ended up being a Homelander clone killed in his final stand. While Black Noir's death seems permanent, The Boys comic book series showed a way to bring him back to life.

Darick Robertson, Matt Jacobs, Simon Bowland, and Tony Avina, The Legend shares that when The Seven re-emerged after a break following an incident that nearly destroyed their public image, the team returned with a different version of the Supe Lamplighter. Furthermore, the Legend reveals the new Lamplighter was the first ever Supe to undergo Vought-American's resurrection process, as he secretly returned from the dead but at the cost of losing almost his entire cognitive functions. If Vought-American has a similar resurrection protocol in The Boys television series, Black Noir can be brought back to life.

The caveat with the resurrection of Lamplighter is that he's barely alive, as his brain doesn't seem to work well, as he was changed into a shell of his former self. However, if The Boys television series decides to implement its own resurrection protocol, it's possible Black Noir can come back with or without the same limitations, assuming Vought-American can use Compound V to revive him. It would be a lot of fun to see them bring the Supe back in a Lazarus Pit-style way, as Black Noir could be unleashed against Homelander instead of being braindead like Lamplighter was upon his own resurrection.

Black Noir is too important of a character in the comics and television series to stay dead. So, if The Boys decide to resurrect the hero, they already have a built-in way of doing so. Although, Black Noir's potential resurrection would hopefully go quite differently than Lamplighter's, as the Supe in The Boys has already suffered enough trauma to come back even lesser than before like his fellow member of The Seven.

After we all got a load of The Boys’ explosive Season 3 run, it’s time to start gearing up for the next season of the Prime Video superhero series as new cast members are added to the bulging slate of actors. Today, the streaming platform announced that Valorie Curry and Susan Heyward are joining the cast, and that Cameron Crovetti is being upped to series regular for Season 4. The series will continue to chronicle the life of superheroes who often abuse their superpowers for personal gain, but keep a friendly facade to society.

Crovetti is known by The Boys fans as the super-powered son of Homelander (Anthony Starr), who was born under horrible circumstances. At first, it was thought that Ryan had no powers, but his abusive father managed to push him to his limit in order to reveal he could be just as powerful as the leader of The Seven. Crovetti also starred in critically acclaimed projects like HBO series Big Little Lies, and is on the upcoming remake of cult horror film Goodnight Mommy.

Curry is fresh off another series: She starred in Peacock’s The Lost Symbol, and was also in another Prime Video super-hero series: The Tick. The actor was in other high-profile shows such as The Following, House of Lies, and Veronica Mars. In the cinema, she starred opposite Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning in American Pastoral, and was also in The Blair Witch Project sequel. In The Boys, she will play the superhero "Firecracker".

Heyward is known for her role as Tamika in the final seasons of Netflix’s hit series Orange is the New Black. She was also in The Following, Vinyl, and Powers, and most recently starred in OWN’s Delilah. In cinema, she starred in the horror remake Poltergeist, as well as in The Light of the Moon and Radium Girls. She was cast in The Boys as “Sister Sage”.

Season 4 of The Boys is still in early production. However, The Boys’ universe is moving fast not only with its spin-off animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical, but also with Gen V – a spin-off young adult series that centers around super-heroes that go to a college run by Vought. The title is a play on Gen Z and Compound V, the artificial drug that gives superheroes in The Boys universe their powers, and is injected in them as babies.

Prime Video is yet to announce further details from The Boys Season 4, as well as a release date for Gen V.

Billy Butcher walks the line between antihero and villain but The Boys season 3 confirms that it is finally time to hate him. While he may be an antihero, he isn’t a sheep in wolf’s clothing, like the case with many misunderstood antihero characters. Butcher (Karl Urban) is inhumane, but he is often paired against the Supes who are committing horrendous acts. But just because Butcher’s actions aren’t as monstrous as Homelander’s, doesn’t mean he isn’t a monster who deserves to be treated as such.

Season 3 depicts Billy Butcher and Hughie taking a Temp V to get powers. While season 2 centers around Hughie's hatred for Butcher, The Boys season 3 brings the two closer together. After learning that Temp V causes deadly side effects, Butcher still recruits Hughie for his plan. When he decides to spare Hughie and go by himself, Hughie is grateful when he should've been angry at Butcher's decision to sacrifice him without his consent.

Hughie's rejection of Butcher is essential in maintaining the core themes of The Boys. This is demonstrated in the season 1 finale where Hughie decides to save A-Train instead of letting him die. While Butcher kidnaps and straps a bomb to Stillwell, he proves he will stop at nothing to kill Homelander. The Boys' core theme points out that revenge doesn’t solve anything; it will not bring back what has been lost and it just adds to the violence and destruction in a corrupt world. While Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and Kimiko may all reject Butcher’s antics, Hughie is the show’s protagonist, the audience’s vessel who reacts to Vought’s craziness as a normal person would. Hughie’s acceptance of Butcher goes against the show's theme outlined at the end of season 1. When Butcher decides to take Temp V alone, Hughie cries out that Butcher saved him. This is not only unrealistic, but it further forgives Butcher’s monstrous actions. There's no question that he's now become a villain.

Why Butcher Can't Escape Punishment In The Boys Season 4

The Boys season 3, episode 8 sets up Butcher’s dark and tragic ending and reveals that he is dying from Temp V abuse. After Starlight tells Butcher that three doses can end in death, he continues to use the experimental drug to even the playing field between himself and the Supes. Since he suffers from immense guilt over his brother Lenny's suicide and his wife Becca's death, he doesn't care what happens to him. Butcher will always seek revenge first, and he doesn't care who he hurts in the process as he already views himself as a monster. It is fitting that Butcher would hurt himself in the end, as this is not only what Butcher expects, but what the show needs.

It becomes clear in The Boys season 3 that Billy Butcher is the show's true villain. While the parallels between Homelander and Butcher are subtle in the first two seasons, the comparisons are much more apparent in season 3. Butcher may be incapable of realizing how pointless his quest for revenge is, but that doesn't mean he deserves sympathy. Butcher is not a hero because he decides to spare Hughie at the last minute; he's a monster for considering sacrificing Hughie's life. The Boys may be violent, but ultimately it shows the meaninglessness of violence and revenge while promoting a very strong undercurrent of love, forgiveness, and acceptance. However, this message will not be clear until Butcher gets his due.

One of the most shocking arcs of The Boys' might have developed a reputation for its graphic content, but the comic reveals that there's a secret meaning behind the supes' most infamous orgy.

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys is a mature deconstruction of the superhero genre that isn't afraid to showcase the lurid nature of costumed heroes. While the characters of DC and Marvel comics are as straitlaced as they come, the 'heroes' of The Boys engage in behavior that's unbefitting of noble archetypes. Few arcs in the series showcase the wanton behavior of its heroes more than The Boys' "Herogasm" storyline, which featured a giant superhero orgy that all of the comics' heroes attended. The arc was adapted briefly in the Amazon adaptation of The Boys, though the event wasn't the episode's focus and, amazingly enough, wasn't anywhere near as graphic as the comic.

But before the supes of the world could attend the event of the season, they had to prepare the Earth for the sudden departure of every major hero from the planet. In The Boys: Herogasm #1 by Garth Ennis and John McCrea, Homelander (the most lauded supe in The Boys) calls for a press conference. The hero informs the public that a hostile alien race known as the Battelite of the Marith'rai system have entered the solar system and that every supe is heading to space to stop them. Of course, this is just a cover story for the public while the heroes attend Herogasm. But, it's clear from the speech that this isn't the first time they've pulled this stunt, especially once Homelander mentions the names of other events that have served as covers for previous Herogasms.

“Civil Dispute,” “Downcount,” “Final Fracas.”—if these names sound familiar it’s because they’re all riffs on comic book events such as Civil War and Final Crisis. While The Boys has always worn its comic book influences on its sleeves, this is perhaps one of its most pointed ribs towards the comic book industry yet. The barely-changed names and the entire concept of Herogasm is meant to do one thing and one thing only: skewer the beloved tradition of comic book events.

The Boys receives a lot of attention for its dark and depraved spin on superheroes, portraying them as jackasses at best and at worst, cruel monsters. For all the depictions of violence and sexuality, The Boys is a parody of comics. While the Amazon show embraced Herogasm's shocking portrayal of superhuman debauchery, it misses one of the key aspects for what worked with the comics. Giant comic book events are one of the genre's most notable storytelling conventions. They're usually meant to be giant game-changing arcs that set up bold new directions for superheroes. But The Boys mocks the entire idea by having it just be PR so that the heroes can indulge in their most base behavior. Herogasm is just another part of The Boys' overall roasting of the comic book industry and its best joke proves it.

The actor who plays young Sierra Six in The Gray Man’s flashbacks is already playing one of the most notable child roles on TV. Netflix’s The Gray Man is adapted from the 2009 book of the same name by Mark Greaney, following Sierra Six, a CIA mercenary who uncovers dark secrets about the agency while on a mission. Starring Ryan Gosling as Six, Ana de Armas as his CIA ally Agent Miranda, Regé-Jean Page as the antagonistic Denny Carmichael, and Chris Evans as the rogue mercenary Lloyd Hansen, The Gray Man continues Netflix’s trend of placing A-list stars in big-budget action thrillers.

As The Gray Man uncovers how Ryan Gosling's character became the ruthless agent Sierra Six, the Russo brothers’ movie cuts to his past with quick flashbacks. The Gray Man reveals that Sierra Six, whose real name is Courtland Gentry, was physically and emotionally abused by his father as a child, whose “unsound” methods of making him and his brother “macho” included drowning him in bathtubs and burning him with cigarettes. The flashbacks eventually uncover that young Six landed himself in prison at 15 years old when he shot and killed his father in order to stop him from murdering his brother.

While The Gray Man’s flashbacks only make up a small portion of Court Gentry’s depicted story, young Six is portrayed by a significant up-and-coming child actor. His face is largely hidden in the flashbacks, but it’s clear that The Gray Man’s young Six is played by Cameron Crovetti, who is best known for playing Ryan Butcher on Amazon Prime’s The Boys. As the son of the villainous superhero Homelander and Billy Butcher’s wife, Ryan plays an incredibly important role in The Boys, with Cameron Crovetti having to increasingly show his acting chops as his father influences his moral decay. The Gray Man’s Cameron Crovetti also starred in HBO’s Big Little Lies as Josh Wright alongside his twin brother, where his character was once again the son of a sociopathic father.

The Gray Man Proves How Incredible Ryan’s The Boys Season 4 Story Will Be

The biggest roles of 14-year-old Cameron Crovetti have seen him portray sons who must overcome the immorality of their fathers, with his portrayal of young Six being an apt precursor to his character Ryan’s arc in The Boys season 4. Crovetti’s young Six is trained by his father to lose any sense of morality as he preaches being physically strong with no sense of emotional attachment, which are the same lessons that Homelander tries to teach Ryan in The Boys. The sinister ending of The Boys season 3 sees Ryan smiling after Homelander is greeted by a cheering crowd when sadistically murdering a critic, suggesting his moral decay is already setting in.

Crovetti’s role in The Gray Man has already proven that he can portray a young teen being abused by his father, whose “methods” end up still turning him into a killing machine. Homelander’s way of raising Ryan will seemingly produce similar results, with Ryan also perhaps being the only way to truly kill Homelander. It’s hinted that Ryan could become evil in The Boys season 4, but the more likely scenario is that Homelander’s abuse will eventually turn his son against him, seeing a transition similar to Six in The Gray Man. Like Six’s skills with a gun and his fists making him useful for the corrupt CIA, Ryan’s superpowers make him a weapon for the government and Vaught, but this likely won’t become fully realized until he kills his father. Even if the stories end up diverging, Crovetti’s The Gray Man role perfectly sets up the core conflict that Ryan will face in The Boys season 4.

Homelander stands out as one of the greatest we-love-to-hate-him villains in modern television, with The Boys holding nothing back in showing how the violent narcissist persists in being one of the greatest threats to his world. All the more terrifying is that the sociopath's fan base in the context of the show only ever seems to grow, with the recent season finale culminating in Homelander publicly executing a protestor and receiving a crowd full of cheers from his ardent followers.

What made the moment even more terrifying was the presence of Homelander's son, Ryan, newly joined at Homelander's side and built up to one day inherit all of his father's power. Homelander raising Ryan certainly seems like a terrifying prospect, but as chilling as it might be there is one possibility that stands out: What if this is actually good for the kid?

The possibility that Homelander could raise a second version of himself to plague the world even after he is gone has been a chilling prospect ever since the end of the show's first season. Kept a secret both from Homelander himself and the world at large, Ryan grew up in an isolated government home where his mother did her best to ensure Ryan would be nothing like his biological father. When Homelander first discovered Ryan's existence, the star-spangled psychopath's issues with his own sheltered upbringing motivated him to try to take charge of Ryan's childhood.

With budding powers that hinted he could one day be the equal of Homelander himself, Ryan's mother did little to nothing to teach the boy about his potential. Fearing it would lead him down the same road of megalomania, she instead tried to provide Ryan an aggressively normal upbringing in spite of his isolated surroundings. And in the second season of the series, the results already proved unhealthy for the child. Easily overwhelmed, often naive, and almost entirely incapable of controlling powers that only ever get stronger, it's well past time that Ryan gets the tutelage from Homelander that he deserves.

It's notable that within the closing moments of the finale itself, when Homelander barely had charge of Ryan for any time at all, he taught his son how to fly. Neither his mother, nor the retired government agent Mallory who took charge of him following his mother's death, seemingly made any efforts to teach the boy to control such abilities. Homelander may be right when he says he is the only person in the world who fully understands what Ryan is going through, and if he truly ever is going to stand up to his father to provide the salvation the world needs then he's going to need to know how to use those powers.

The obvious dilemma involves Ryan's moral education. Prone to murderous tantrums and revealed to be suffering narcissistic hallucinations himself, Homelander is poorly equipped to raise a true hero. Yet Ryan's sheltered upbringing certainly seemed to be doing him no good in that department either, and the boy willingly joining Homelander's side may be the only way for him to finally grow past his naïveté to learn the horrors of which the supes of The Boys are capable.

There is no telling what direction Ryan might go from here. Indeed, despite his problems, Ryan has thus far proved to be a sweet boy with a rare innocence in such a gritty and morally depraved world. The best-case scenario is that he holds onto a piece of that innocence as it guides him through Homelander's attempts at corruption.

With a firm moral center and armed with Homelander's teachings about how to use his powers to their fullest potential, it's possible that Ryan could grow into the greatest true hero in his world. There will surely be plenty of missteps and a lot of mangled corpses along the way, but there's truly no limit to how high the boy can soar.

Season 3 of The Boys is now streaming on Prime Video.