Kripke also said that the creators are aiming for “a very gritty version” of the 50s, adding, “Most people’s feeling, or sense memory, of the 50s is from movies, which are very sanitized. Even L.A. Confidential, as much as I love it, is, visually, a pretty clean movie. We wanted dirty and grimy. There would be heroin dens, gay bars, and this underbelly of popular culture at the time.”
Ackles has also spoken about how the Soldier Boy we know today will differ from the one in Vought Rising, who still wants to be a real hero. He told EW that, “In The Boys, in modern times, [Soldier Boy is] a fish out of water. He’s an analog guy who’s trapped in a digital world. So now we see him in his element. We see what made him who he was.”
Though Kripke has declined to comment on whether the events of Vought Rising will set up the re-emergence of Soldier Boy in the present day, we would note that The Boys deliberately put the character on ice rather than killing him in the finale, leading many fans to suspect that Soldier Boy may be the future of The Boys, as well as its past.
Stan Edgar, who also brought Clara out of retirement as Stormfront in season 2, also lived to take over Vought International, so we could very well see these characters together again in the future.
Vought Rising Characters Explained: New and Old Faces
Soldier Boy will often go by his real name, Ben, in Vought Rising, and he’ll be joined by a new crew that includes Bombsight (Mason Dye), Torpedo (Will Hochman), and Private Angel (Elizabeth Posey).
We’ve already met Bombsight on The Boys and know that he’s despised Ben for a long time. It sounds like he won’t be alone in feeling that way. “Soldier Boy was the only one who bought his way into the program as a rich kid, I don’t think really understanding how dangerous it was at the time,” Kripke told EW. “So everyone hated him. Even when you meet the other heroes in Vought Rising, they’re all pretty much rolling their eyes at this rich boy.”
