Jensen Ackles will return as Soldier Boy in The Boys season 5 and a new 1950s spinoff, The Boys: Vought Rising

Right now, nerds near and far are assembled at San Diego Comic-Con, where all the biggest shows and movies in fantasy, sci-fi and superheroes are making announcements about what's to come. That includes Amazon Prime Video's subversive superhero show The Boys, which just had a bombshell of a panel where they revealed a slew of exciting updates. There may not be any new episode of The Boys this week, but Amazon wants to make sure we know there's plenty more in the hopper.

We're rounding up all the biggest takeaways about The Boys so that you can stay up-to-date. Check out highlights from the panel in our livetweet thread from Comic-Con below, or keep scrolling for the highlights. There will be some spoilers for The Boys season 4.

The Boys: Vought Rising spinoff will explore the early days of Soldier Boy

A lot of the excitement at this panel was centered around Soldier Boy, the cynical supe played by Jensen Ackles who is the show's take on Captain America. Soldier Boy was around during the early days of Vought, where he served on covert ops during the Cold War and contributed to the company's science experiments which eventually created Homelander. After he was deemed too much of a liability, he was betrayed and put into cryogenic storage. Soldier featured in The Boys season 3, where he was helping Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) try to take down Homelander (Antony Starr). It didn't pan out, and at the end Soldier Boy was put back into cryo.

Season 4 ended with Homelander discovering Soldier Boy, still frozen but alive. At Comic-Con, it was confirmed that Jensen Ackles will be a series regular for The Boys fifth and final season, which is expected to air sometime in 2026.

But that's not the only job Soldier Boy has on the docket. He'll also be starring in a new spinoff, titled The Boys: Vought Rising. It's set during the 1950s, and will explore the supe's early exploits as well as the backstory of Stormfront, the Nazi superhero played by Aya Cash in The Boys season 2.

“We are excited to bring you the next deranged series from the world of ‘The Boys," said showrunner Eric Kripke and executive producer Paul Grellong in a statement. "It’s a twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought in the 1950s, the early exploits of Soldier Boy, and the diabolical maneuvers of a supe known to fans as Stormfront, who was then going by the name Clara Vought. We cannot wait to blow your minds and trouble your souls with this salacious, grisly saga drenched in blood and Compound V."

The Boys: Vought Rising is the latest in a number of spinoffs being developed for Amazon's popular superhero franchise. In addition to Vought Rising, there's also the college-age spinoff Gen V which aired its first season last year, the animated anthology series The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and a spinoff series set in Mexico. The universe of The Boys is expanding rapidly!

Gen V season 2 showed a first-look trailer, expected to release in 2025

Speaking of spinoffs, Gen V also got some love at SDCC. The Boys college spinoff debuted its first trailer for audiences, which teased the return of characters like Emma (Lizze Broadway) and Marie (Jaz Sinclair) to Godolkin University after they were taken captive at the end of season 1. It sounds like, following Homelander's rise to power at the end of The Boys season 4, the stage is set for his superhero agenda to start consolidating power again. There's no reason for Homelander to keep supes like Emma and Marie prisoner anymore when he's got humans to round up and put in internment camps, I guess.

The trailer hasn't been released online yet, but according to Games Radar, it also introduced the new dean of the school, played by Hamish Linklater. It sounds like he's being supported by students Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Sam (Asa Germann), who we last saw helping the Seven round up members of the Boys during the season 4 finale of the mothership show. There was even a surprise cameo in the trailer: The Deep (Chance Crawford) showed up for a minute, decked out in some kind of "hooded gown." Sounds exactly as weird as you'd expect for The Deep.

We still don't have a solid release date for Gen V season 2, but it's expected to drop sometime in 2025. If Amazon is already showing off a trailer for it, that probably means things are moving right along on schedule for the production.

Between The Boys season 5, Gen V season 2, Vought Rising, and The Boys: Mexico, we're going to be feasting on quite a lot of Boys series in the coming years. We'll have our ear to the ground for more updates.

h/t Variety

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