The Boys' Soldier Boy Is the Only Hero Considered Homelander's Equal

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In the world of The Boys, no hero is more powerful than Homelander, but there is one who appears to command similar levels of respect - Soldier Boy. Soon to be played in the TV adaptation by Jensen Ackles, Soldier Boy is The Boys' Captain America parody, with similar origins and a comparable level of public good will… even if it is all built on a lie.

First appearing in The Boys: Herogasm #1, there have actually been multiple versions of Soldier Boy. The first was a WWII hero and leading of 'the Avenging Squad,' killed moments after actually engaging in battle. In the modern day, the Soldier Boy readers actually meet operates under the false backstory of being the same hero, mimicking Captain America's time frozen in ice in Marvel Comics. The leader of Payback (The Boys' Avengers parody), Soldier Boy is shown to be naive and relatively unskilled, eventually defeated and tortured by Billy Butcher.

Related: The Boys Was Censored by DC (But Not For the Reason You Think)

Before that point, however, it's made clear that whatever the reality, Soldier Boy is seen in similar terms to Homelander as a truly iconic hero. Throughout the comics, Payback are presented as the world's second most famous team after the Seven, even though in reality the team's members are constantly trying to move up, acting as Homelander's lackeys and playthings to try and secure their place alongside him. While that goes double for Soldier Boy, Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and Keith Burns' The Boys: Herogasm #4 confirms that when it comes to the superhuman community's own awards, there are only two candidates for 'Greatest Hero,' with the award passed back and forth between them: Homelander and Soldier Boy.

While Soldier Boy does little to actually earn