For two seasons now, The Boys has delivered some of the most fucked up superhero storytelling ever put to live-action, not to mention the partly canonical gorefest that is the Diabolical spinoff. And for the most part, Karl Urban’s Butcher and the rest of his squad have been the more morally defensible bunch, despite their own severely messed up actions themselves. But it looks like things might get a lot more hectic and destructive for Hughie, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie and Kimiko, as Amazon’s Prime Video hit appears to be bringing in a major detail from the comics that I’ve been waiting to see!
Namely, in Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys comic series, Vought’s Seven and other superheroes aren’t the only ones who are known to have Compound V running through their systems. Rather, Butcher and his fellow semi-protagonists are also known to take injections of the serum in order to give themselves the power boost and strength needed to actually go after Supes on a regular basis. Which makes absolute sense, to the point where it was almost weird that Eric Kripke’s TV series hadn’t yet introduced that plot element, though I do understand that the live-action iteration needed to build up the importance and potential of V before spreading it around willy nilly.
But that appears to be changing, at least if The Boys’ recent Twitter post is to be believed. Check it out!
Soon, it’ll be time to level the playing field. pic.twitter.com/SSbJxgGsutMarch 10, 2022
Admittedly, this poster doesn’t fully confirm that any of The Boys’ members will be injecting a bit of Compound V into their veins, but it would be hard to imply it any more plainly. A level playing field means one of two things: either everyone has powers, or no one has powers. And Butcher’s lit peepers in the poster do not indicate “perfectly normal human being with naturally glowing eyeballs.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the TV series explains the specifics behind how Compound V affects people who aren’t supes that were raised on the serum. In the comic, the impact it has is akin to drug use, in that it makes the user extremely strong and powered initially, though it wears off. That said, the way things ended for Butcher in Season 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps himself hooked up to an IV while getting revenge on Homelander and The Seven.
The Compound V usage won’t be the only highly anticipated comic book element coming to The Boys in Season 3. Of the new actors joining the show, arguably the biggest is Supernatural vet Jensen Ackles getting scruffy and joining the fun as the old school supe Soldier Boy, though I also can’t wait to see Sean Patrick Flanery bringing Gunpowder to life. On top of all that, we can look forward to seeing the Herogasm storyline making a SPLASH on our screen, and Eric Kripke has already confirmed that won’t even be the wildest thing coming to the new episodes.
Check out the first teaser for Season 3 below.
Get ready for The Boys to make its long-awaited return to Prime Video when it premieres on Friday, June 3. While waiting for the first big trailer to release, head to our 2022 TV premiere schedule to see what else is on the way.
