As the second season of Amazon Prime’s The Boys is only a few hours away from release, we can hardly contain our excitement. Released a year ago, The Boys is created for television by Eric Kripke, which is originally adapted from Garth Ennis’ adult graphic novel of the same name.
Upon its release, The Boys received universal acclaim for its mature themes, graphic nature, and lots of gratuitous violence. Staying mostly faithful to its source material, The Boys pulled no punches when it came to over-the-top, stomach-turning violence which sets it apart from other superhero shows.
Also see: The Boys: Becca Butcher’s Horrific Death Which The Show Didn’t Dare To Show!
Anti-establishment at its core, The Boys feature a group of powerful superheroes who work for Vought International. A parody of DC’s Justice League, the group is known as The Seven. Led by Homelander, The Seven consists of Queen Maeve, Lamplighter, The Deep, A-Train, Black Noir, and Translucent. After Lamplighter’s retirement at the beginning of the first season, Starlight was chosen to fill his space.
Also see: Jefferey Dean Morgan To Join The Boys
Marketed as the paragon of humanity, the reality of these superheroes is far too sinister. Narcissistic to the core, these ‘heroes’ are insufferable megalomaniac who only put up a facade for the outside world. Owned by Vought International, The Seven go to extreme lengths to maintain their public image than actually saving people from evil. With the only exception of Starlight, the rest of the members have committed heinous crimes without suffering any consequences.
To bring the truth out in the open, a group of misfits with their own personal agendas team up and are known as The Boys. Led by Billy Butcher, the team consists of Frenchie, Mother’s Milk, Hughie, and Female of the Species. Their ingenious and overly violent techniques were sufficient to take down Translucent in a repulsive yet satisfying manner.
Also see: Jensen Ackles Joins The Third Season Of The Boys
After Translucent’s horrific death, The Seven had to recruit a new member to fill his position, lest attract unwanted public attention. As a result, Stormfront has been chosen to replace him in the show. However, Eric Kripke has added a little twist to the character for the show.
In the comics, Stormfront is considered to be the first superhero created in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Deemed to be too dangerous by Hitler himself, Stormfront was taken to the United States where he grew up into a popular hero.
His Nazi heritage remained throughout his adulthood, turning him into a white supremacist who believed in the superior race theory. However, Stormfront became the leader of Payback, another superhero organization that was second in popularity after The Seven.
In the show, the character of Stormfront has been changed substantially. For starters, Stormfront is a female in the show who will be making her first appearance in the second season. Played by Aya Cash, the new member of The Seven might threaten the status quo of Homelander, as suggested in the trailer.
With powers comparable to those of Homelander, the comic book version of Stormfront possesses superhuman strength, durability, flight, electrokinesis, and weather manipulation. His ability to summon powerful lightning and storms helped in marketing him as a reincarnated Viking. But in reality, he was one of the many test subjects of Compound V which granted him his superpowers.
Switching the gender of the character is a smart move as it will further exacerbate the tension between Homelander and Stormfront. Since both the characters are almost equally powered, Homelander does feel a real threat to his position.
Apart from having similar powers, Aya Cash’s Stormfront seems much more diabolical than her comic book counterpart. In the trailer, she organizes rally to gain public support against The Boys, whom she calls ‘Super Terrorists’.
As a strong female character, her existence is a real threat to Homelander. As a narcissistic megalomaniac, Homelander finding his match in a female character undermines his parochial mindset.
Though not much is known regarding Stormfront in the show, she will be introduced as a social media celebrity. As a result, she can presumably manipulate the citizens more effectively than Homelander, who has started to get more unstable with the show’s progress.
According to actor Anthony Starr who plays Homelander, Stormfront’s threat to his status quo is real which will be a major plot device for the second season. Anthony Starr had the following to say regarding Aya Cash’s Stormfront in his recent interview with comicbook.com:
“What’s really difficult is they’re very equally matched, but she has the edge because I think she’s smarter and she’s more relevant and timely and has a sensibility that Homelander doesn’t have and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.
She’s a bit of a Rubik’s Cube to show my age, she’s a bit of a Rubik’s Cube for him to fiddle around with and figure out, but inevitably he will figure her out and you know, there will be carnage.”
As the show has already taken a bold step to introduce Stormfront as a tech-savvy and diabolical social media celebrity, as opposed to the character’s brutish nature in the comics, it is yet to be seen if the character’s Nazi ideologies will be explored in the second season of The Boys.
Also see: Anthony Starr Wants To Play Wolverine
The second season of The Boys will release on 4th September 2020 on Amazon Prime Video, starring Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie, Laz Alonso as Mother’s Milk, Tomer Kapon as Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as the Female, Erin Moriarty as Annie January, Chace Crawford as the Deep, Antony Starr as Homelander, Aya Cash as Stormfront and Simon Pegg as Hughie’s dad.
