Before it was a hit Amazon Prime Video series, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys was a scathing, unrelenting massacre of superhero tropes and the genre in general. To make the disdain for caped crusaders even more blatant, it stars several very obvious pastiches of popular superheroes, who are more often than not severely twisted imitations.
One example of the series' shameless takedown of the popular superhero genre is Soldier Boy, who is portrayed by Jensen Ackles in the live-action iteration of the series. With a powerful sense of patriotism and a decades-long legacy, Soldier Boy is blatant commentary and slap in the face to Marvel's Captain America. Here's how he was handled in the comics, and how the TV show adaptation of The Boys somewhat reversed him.
Soldier Boy Is a Homelander Suck-Up In the Comics
Soldier Boy first appeared in the outright debauchery of Garth Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns' Herogasm #1, with his own sense of innocence and heroism keeping him from engaging in the title's notorious lewdness. Ironically, he still engages in relations with Homelander, believing that to be a requirement before joining the Seven. This may reflect Ennis' own feelings of Captain America being inferior to Superman.
His general design evokes several other patriotic heroes throughout comic book history. Along with his trusted shield, he possesses superhuman strength, speed and other faculties that put him far above a normal human, though not nearly on the same level as Homelander.
His claims to have served in World War II are both true and false, with the Soldier Boy moniker being a legacy title dating back to the second World War. The original Soldier Boy led an enemy troop to the Allied Base, with his stupidity resulting in numerous deaths. While he might have been slightly smarter, the present-day Soldier Boy was secretly an immense coward.
How The Boys TV Show Changed Soldier Boy
One big difference in the TV show adaptation of The Boys is that Soldier Boy is looked up to by Homelander instead of the other way around. He's also the one and only Soldier Boy, making him a "man out of time" and further commenting on Captain America. Soldier Boy was the first and one of the strongest supes, being second only to Homelander himself.
His big, boisterous persona is actually quite repellant to women, and he generally expects to be looked up to instead of questioned. Despite this, he's ultimately a heroic figure, planning to help Billy Butcher take down Homelander once and for all. He's not quite the rube that he was in the comics, being looked up to by some and having much more of a sense of honor. This drives his resentment for being abandoned for so many years, causing him to despise the country and government he once fought for.
How Soldier Boy Subverts and Critiques Captain America
There were several aspects of Soldier Boy's character that totally lampooned Captain America, although some of them are much more subtle than others. His being a patriotic superhero with a shield for a weapon and a militaristic theme make an obvious connection. And beyond that, his first team was called the Avenging Squad, an obvious allusion to the Avengers, who eventually became the similarly titled Payback. The team included other members such as Tek Knight, Mind-Droid and Crimson Countess, who were obvious pastiches of Captain America's teammates Iron Man, The Vision and Scarlet Witch. The "Golden Age" Avenging Squad may have also homaged the Golden Age Marvel team All-Winners Squad, which also counted Captain America among its members
There being different Soldier Boys since the original also pokes fun at a lesser-known aspect of Captain America's character. Steve Rogers had once been replaced as Captain America during the 1950s when he was still stuck in a block of ice, turning the role into a legacy title. Beyond these surface-level aspects, however, Soldier Boy is a far more cynical and pathetic character than the Sentinel of Liberty, with his representation of America leaving the flag much lower than half-mast.