Warning! Below are spoilers for the comic book and TV series The Boys.
In The Boys universe, two main versions of the Boy Soldier are well known, but the third secret hero, who also wore the mantle, is often forgotten when remembering the legacy of the shield-bearer Soup. In The Boys #54, it turns out that after the violent death of the first Soldier Boy, Vought-American wasted no time in introducing a replacement who replaced Supe, pretending to be the same hero when in fact it was a completely different person behind the mask.
In “Boys”, two main versions of the Boy Soldier are covered in a comic book from different eras. Readers are introduced for the first time to the modern version of Supe, the pathetic hero from the Reckoning Super Team, whose attempts to join the Seven leave the Boy Soldier under the physical and emotional manipulation of the Homelander. At the same time, he is also known for not being able to stop peeing in his pants. Soldier Boy was the hereditary hero of the original version, who was one of the first superheroes to fight in World War II with the Avengers Squad. Unfortunately, the arrogance and negligence of the Soldier led to the brutal death of his entire team. But after him, there really was a secret forgotten Soldier Boy between the first and last versions of Supe.
Related: The boys’ version of Spider-Man is the biggest missed opportunity
In The Boys #54 by Garth Ennis, Darik Robertson, John McCree, Keith Burns, Simon Bowland and Tony Avina, Huey talks to Greg Mallory about the formation of The Boys and their history of fighting Supes. Mallory reports that after the violent death of the Boy Soldier and the Reckoning, he discovered that Vought-American had secretly re-imagined the dead heroes, but with other people under the mask. The team, which is now called “Crimefighters Incorporated”, introduced a different version of Soldier Boy, pretending to be the original. The image shows the third boy soldier, who was forgotten by everyone.
Vought-American strictly introduced a second boy soldier pretending to be the first to promote propaganda about Soup, as he actually served as a deputy during the 1950s until his death. To the public, there was only one original Boy Soldier, but in fact he was replaced after being unintentionally killed in the war. Eventually, the entire Payback team, renamed Crimefighters Incorporated, including the forgotten soldier boy, was filled with stand-ins.
The second Soldier did his job well, as no one seemed to realize that he was actually replacing the original version of the Supe. But, nevertheless, the fact that there is a forgotten Soup that has taken the mantle shows how far the propaganda machine has gone around the heroes, when a Boy Soldier was replaced in The Boys universe, and no one even blinked an eye.
