The arrival of Soldier Boy is good news for Jensen Ackles fans, bad news for The Boys

Now that we know more details about the addition of Jensen Ackles to Amazon’s superhero series The Boys, we can confirm that this is going to be a wild ride on a series that’s already wild. After all, the entire purpose of this character is a look back at a bygone era of heroes.

And if anyone can give us a hero with a retro vibe, it would be Ackles. Like the costume designer who created his suit for The Boys explained, “the actor had to have Steve McQueen looks and chops with a John Wayne attitude — luckily Jensen Ackles embodies all of that.” But with all of that in mind, we also have to look at the comics series that The Boys is based on, and once we do, we realize there is a lot more to Soldier Boy than a hero of yesterday.

While the purpose of Soldier Boy’s suit is to highlight what it once meant to be a superhero – the idea of grit and hardcore masculinity – beyond that, this is a chance to let the man in the suit shine as well. But who is Soldier Boy? And why is Ackles the perfect choice for the job? (As a Supernatural fan, I want him in everything, but as a fan of The Boys I can also admit this just works.)

Considering Ackles has portrayed a murderer in My Bloody Valentine 3D, a hunter and hero in Supernatural, and, of course, even given us drama and more on Days of Our Lives, we know he is as much of a chameleon as any actor out there today. So having him take on the role of a bloody superhero with a past that includes going up against German soldiers seems rather fitting.

The Boys are in for some problems with Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy joining the fray

In the original comics, the character of Soldier Boy is much more mysterious than they are making him out to be in the initial teases for this character. Much like Captain America (who the character is modeled after in some ways), Soldier Boy was injected with a serum to make him the perfect weapon against German soldiers. And as far as being a weapon goes, he was.

You would think that this would be a good thing in some ways because it meant that Solider Boy is more of a good superhero than the ones we see on the series now. But considering he could literally tear apart the soldiers he was going up against, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. And since it has been confirmed that season 3 will be darker and bloodier than the past two seasons, I bet  Ackles’ character has something to do with that.

With plans to go deeper into the history of The Seven, where they started, and Soldier Boys’ own team of superheroes (known as Payback), it makes sense that Soldier Boy, who has been called the “original superhero” would get his time to shine.

But when it comes to the Boys (and I don’t mean the series name) who want to bring justice to the Seven, the arrival of Soldier Boy is going to make things even more interesting. Will we really be seeing this bygone hero in the present taking on the other super-soldiers? Will he be more like the Boys and wanting his own brand of justice? Or maybe he really is more like the members of the Seven – out for glory and not caring who gets in the way?

There are a lot of story opportunities with the arrival of Soldier Boy and after seeing the suit that Jensen Ackles will be wearing and learning more about the character himself, it is about to get even more interesting on The Boys. Too bad we will likely have to wait a while to see how everything plays out.

In the meantime, we are going to go back to staring at the suit Ackles will be wearing. It is pretty impressive as far as a gritty supersuit goes.