The Boys has given us some of television’s most wonderfully disturbing images, everything from babies with laser eyes to an intimate moment between a man and an octopus. But season four may be gearing up for something uniquely disgusting, even by The Boys standards. In season three, we learned that Homelander was not simply the creation of Vought scientist Jonah Vogelbaum. Rather, he was fathered by Soldier Boy, the ultra-violent patriotic Supe who was delivered to the Russians after his team Payback turned against him in the 1980s. To hear him tell it, Soldier Boy donated genetic material to Vought, which contributed to the “test-tube baby” who became Homelander. But there’s another possibility, one that raises an important question: if Soldier Boy is Homelander’s father, then who is his mother? Given Homelander’s extreme power, his mother would have to be someone equally strong, nearly invulnerable. And if she willingly participated in the pregnancy – which seems likely, given the amount of involvement Vought had in Homelander’s upbringing, as opposed to the raising of his own son Ryan – then she must have a vested interest in creating new Supes. Only one woman we’ve seen so far fits that description. And, unfortunately, it’s one who knows Homelander quite intimately. Throughout season two, Klara Risinger – aka Liberty aka Stormfront – praised the superhuman genes she possessed and dreamed of continuing that line. And despite his interest in older women, Soldier Boy did say that Liberty was a “firecracker” back in her day. Between that descriptor and the fact that the pair founded Herogasm, it seems very likely that they would have had sex at least once. For his part, Homelander has confused mother figures and romantic partners. Throughout the first season, Homelander forged a relationship with his Vought handler Madelyn Stillwell that combined romantic lust and maternal care, making for some of the show’s earliest troubling images. There’s nothing in the show to suggest that he knew that Stormfront may be his mother, but it’s hard to believe that news would have prevented their more passionate moments. Finally, The Boys comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson give even more credence to a connection between the two. The Stormfront of the comics leads Payback and is a clone of Homelander, which changes the relationship seen in the show but emphasizes the shared genetics between them. And just in case you were worried that the show would not want to make one of Homelander’s romantic partners from the comics into a parental figure, the Herogasm comic book miniseries does include a scene in which he forces Soldier Boy to have sex with him.
