If The Gen V Trailer Reminded You Of X-Men, That Was By Design
The universe of "The Boys" is expanding with "Gen V," a spin-off series set on a college campus full of superpowered students. The new trailer for the show reveals that this college is more like a raunchy, gory version of "The Hunger Games," with young heroes-in-training violently competing against each other for the top spot.
The show's protagonist Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), for example, is vying to be the first freshman to get that top rank, and ultimately become the first Black woman in the Seven. Her fellow students appear to be more interested in using their Suped-up skills for partying, but it seems the moral and physical tests they face in college result in more than a few bloody incidents and/or murders.
While "Gen V" is something that "The Boys" showrunner Eric Kripke cooked up with fellow executive producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Craig Rosenberg, the initial inspiration came from the comic books by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The seventh story arc, titled "We Gotta Go Now," features the G-Men, a clear parody of Marvel's X-Men and the Xavier Institute where they learn to control their powers and become superheroes.
"I would say ['Gen V' is] loosely inspired by an element of the comics, which is the G-Men. Part of the G-Men is there's sort of an educational, college experience," Kripke told TheWrap. "And we just used that as a jumping-off point, kind of similar to 'The Boys,' where we sort of take an initial notion and then we are going to run with it in our own weird direction."
A darker comic book story
The G-Men in "The Boys" comics are trained by a man named John Godolkin who ostensibly takes in suped-up orphans to protect them. The set-up is similar to Marvel's premise of Professor Xavier taking in mutant children who are shunned by society and giving them refuge and a place where they belong.
Because this is "The Boys," however, Godolkin's motivations with his students are far from pure. He does the opposite of keeping them safe; he kidnaps them, sexually abuses, and brainwashes them, all while injecting them with Compound V to give them powers. If anyone spoke out or resisted, Godolkin would kill them and potentially reanimate them later, where they would still be his loyal servants. The G-Men also have the opposite of a low profile; in the comics, Godolkin and Vought present them as poor orphan outcasts because that would make the public love them even more. The move worked, and the G-Men were Vought's most profitable superhero team, even though their traumatic upbringing caused them to get in all sorts of trouble.
Prime Video's "Gen V" clearly takes some nods from the comic — the Vought International-run school, for example, is called Godolkin University — but the premise appears to differ from there. While the trailer makes clear that there are evil people at Godolkin, the students don't seem to be kidnapped by anyone at age nine. They are all now aware, however, that their Suped-up powers came from them unwittingly being part of a Vought experiment. How that impacts the students as they fight their way to the top remains to be seen.
Extracurricular activities
While "Gen V" is a show centered around college students, the trailer also reveals that several cast members from "The Boys" will make an appearance. That suggests that, like the X-Men, some of the students might get entangled in issues that take place off-campus. At least one of the Seven, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), will guest star in the series. It also looks like Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), the congresswoman who is a secret Supe, will play a part along with Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), who has become the new Vought CEO.
How these three characters from the mothership show entangle with Godolkin's students is unknown. One thing we do know, however, is that executive producer Seth Rogen said in an interview with Empire that "Gen V" is "more shocking" than anything we've seen in "The Boys" so far. That's no small feat given the main series' many unbelievable moments, which includes everything in the episode "Herogasm," as well as that termite sex scene.
Whether the students in "Gen V" will band together into a team also remains uncertain, given that the school purposefully pits them all against each other. The trailer does suggest that at least some of the students might work together to do things that result in unchecked violence. Maybe the knowledge that they're little more than lab rats in Vought International's eyes will be enough for them to band together. Or maybe not. The answer will have to wait until "Gen V" premieres on Prime Video, on September 29, 2023.