In the most true-to-form fashion possible, the brain trust behind The Boys has chosen to announce its brand-new spinoff on the same day as the biggest Marvel Studios release of the year. Indeed, Vought Rising is officially in the works over at Prime Video ⏤ never mind all that Deadpool & Wolverine stuff.
Per Deadline, the prequel will star and be executive produced by Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash, who will reprise their roles as Soldier Boy and Stormfront in a murder mystery-esque story set in the 1950s before Vought became the corporate giant that it is today. It will join The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Gen V, and the upcoming The Boys: Mexico as part of Prime Video’s ever-expanding superhero franchise, and honestly? It picked a pretty bad time to rear its V-shaped head.
Make no mistake, I hope just as much as anyone that Vought Rising establishes itself as great television, but The Boys really needs to start re-evaluating what sort of space it’s occupying in the superhero media zeitgeist. Incidentally, the current zeitgeist is one that The Boys played a significant role in establishing; namely, the idea that superheroes are best used as cynical lampoon fodder and only have merit thanks to their commercial viability.
Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe has adopted its own version of this commercialized cynicism. The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law finale committed the great sin of believing that, by making fun of its own franchise’s formulaic failings, it absolved itself of having to do better. Since then, entries like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels have shown a shameless commitment to being nothing more than products in service to a brand, and even Deadpool & Wolverine, the franchise’s supposed new darling, chose to overstuff itself with sugary gimmicks and call it a day. This is disrespectful to both the film itself and the audiences who watch it. Why settle for a disjointed mess of cameos and references when you could have a collection of cameos and references that are held together by mature storytelling? The Spider-Verse films have done, and are doing, a fantastic job of that, so why are we okay with this direly uncreative standard that the world’s biggest superhero franchise is apparently settling for?
Vought Rising, then, with its downright despicable pair of leads, could very well end up being more of this superhero-sneering trend that, frankly, just feels too easy at this point. It is, for all intents and purposes, trendy to hate and make fun of and ridicule the idea of superhero media. Unless, of course, you’re James Gunn.
While we won’t know anything for sure until next year, the approach that Gunn seems to be taking with Superman — and, indeed, his incoming DC Universe as a whole — is telegraphing some immaculate vibes; vibes that are rooted in a genuine love for superheroes and what they were designed to represent in the first place. Moreover, the DC gaffer has already expressed a commitment to storytelling, and Gunn’s history in the superhero genre, from the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy to his DC work prior to his acclimation of co-chair, suggests an honesty to this new direction that seems all but ready to win people over in a big way.
The DCU represents a way forward for superhero media that aims to nurture the audience’s relationship to this genre rather than exploit or laugh at it. And while, again, I’m crossing all my fingers for Vought Rising to be a great show, it’s also coming at what might be the tail-end of this culture of superhero pessimism. And given that Vought Rising‘s parent series was more or less the ringleader of that culture, it just might be cashing in a bit late here.
And with any luck, that will absolutely be the case.