JuicyTalk
The Boys may be over, but that doesn’t mean The Boys is over. The show that started out mocking sprawling superhero universes has, ironically, become one. The Boys franchise has been rebranded the “VCU,” and we’re already two spinoff shows deep with more on the way. The Boys just dropped its series finale on Prime Video, and it was about as satisfying a conclusion to the story as we could expect, but it’s not really the end.
Amazon is going to keep milking this I.P. until it stops being profitable, just like Disney is doing with Star Wars and Warner is doing with DC and Lionsgate is doing with John Wick. Next year, The Boys universe will continue with a 1950s-set prequel series called Vought Rising, which will explore the origins of Vought, and the romance between Soldier Boy and Stormfront, through the framework of a murder mystery. At times, The Boys’ fifth and final season felt more like a precursor to Vought Rising than the epic conclusion of the story at hand. There was an absurd amount of screen time given to Soldier Boy, and barely any given to Hughie and Annie and M.M. in some episodes.
Vought Rising will be a massive shift in tone and genre for The Boys franchise. The Boys itself is a twisted parody of traditional superhero narratives, and a politically-tinged satire of modern consumerism. But Vought Rising will be more of a post-war period piece with heavier romance and whodunit elements.
It’s set in The Boys universe, but it’ll feel like something completely different. The period setting will give Vought Rising a completely different aesthetic; the love story between Soldier Boy and Stormfront will give the plot a completely different hook; and the murder investigation will bring us into a completely different genre.
The Boys Has Already Changed Genres Multiple Times
Vought Rising might be the VCU’s most radical and ambitious experiment yet, but it won’t be the first time the franchise has dabbled in other genres. The other major spinoff, Gen V, didn’t just shift to a younger main cast; it also shifted to a college campus, where it touched on a whole different TV genre: the teen drama. Gen V is a supe-infested version of a college-bound dramedy like Felicity or A Different World, contrasting the characters’ coming-of-age journey with their crimefighting crusade.
The first ever spinoff from The Boys, the animated anthology Diabolical, explored a different genre in every single episode. Each episode has a different creator’s vision of the Boys universe, a different animation style drawing from cartoon classics, and, indeed, a different genre. There’s a Looney Tunes-style silent slapstick cartoon following a baby with laser vision on a crazy adventure. There’s a Rick and Morty-style pitch-black comedy following a bunch of superpowered kids stuck at Red River. There’s an episode in the style of French comics, an episode in the style of Saturday-morning imports, an episode in the style of K-horror, and an anime-style episode. There’s even an episode written by Garth Ennis himself, the creator of The Boys, in the style of the original comics.
Suffice to say, Vought Rising isn’t The Boys franchise’s first genre-bending rodeo. Every previous spinoff in this franchise has set out to do something different with its tone and genre. It’s one of the reasons the VCU has been so successful, and had more longevity than a lot of other attempted cinematic universes (looking at you, Dark Universe — oh, what could’ve been). Not only have The Boys’ spinoffs been consistently great shows; they’ve all done very different things, so the franchise hasn’t settled into a predictable house style like the MCU.
