The Boys universe continues to expand, with the prequel series Vought Rising on the way.
In Vought Rising, Jensen Ackles returns as Soldier Boy, with the story set in the 1950s and focusing on the character’s past. During this period, Soldier Boy is portrayed as the “top dog,” a powerful figure who feels completely at home in his own world.
Jensen Ackles explained to Collider: “Listen, it’s going to feel familiar, as far as the format of it all, because I think that’s taking what really works with The Boys and trying to do something a little bit different with it, certainly as a period piece in the 1950s. But I’ll speak personally. The Soldier Boy aspect of it is I’m used to playing and we’re used to seeing Soldier Boy in modern times, but he is a, I like to say, analog man in a digital world, so he’s a fish out of water with what we know of him now.
Now we’re getting to see him be relevant, getting to see him in his actual environment where he feels like this is where he belongs. He’s the top dog. But you also get to see the experience as to why he ended up the way he did. We get to kind of peel back the layers of what truly happened in that time.”
The show will gradually peel back the layers of how he became the person we know, revealing the events that shaped him. While Vought Rising will retain a tone and format similar to The Boys, it will stand apart as a period piece. According to Ackles, they plan to do multiple seasons of the Vought Rising: “When they pitched it, they were like, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing this prequel thing, going back to the 1950s with Soldier Boy.’ I don’t think I let them finish the sentence before I was like, ‘Yes!’ But I know that the intent is to have it be a multi-season show.”
As The Boys prepares to conclude with its fifth and final season, the universe will continue to grow through spin-offs, including the college-set series Gen V and the in-development The Boys: Mexico. In the final season, the world falls under Homelander’s control, pushing the main characters into a major crisis.
