Soldier Boy is Homelander’s lone opponent for The Boys’ ‘Greatest Hero’ award, even if public image does not reflect reality.

In the universe of The Boys, no hero is more powerful than Homelander, but Soldier Boy appears to command comparable levels of reverence. Soldier Boy, who will soon be played by Jensen Ackles in the television adaptation, is The Boys’ Captain America spoof, with similar roots and a comparable level of popular goodwill… even if it is all based on lies.

First appearing in The Boys: Herogasm #1, there have actually been multiple versions of Soldier Boy. The first was a WWII hero and leading of ‘the Avenging Squad,’ killed moments after actually engaging in battle. In the modern day, the Soldier Boy readers actually meet operates under the false backstory of being the same hero, mimicking Captain America’s time frozen in ice in Marvel Comics. The leader of Payback (The Boys‘ Avengers parody), Soldier Boy is shown to be naive and relatively unskilled, eventually defeated and tortured by Billy Butcher.

Before that point, however, it’s made clear that whatever the reality, Soldier Boy is seen in similar terms to Homelander as a truly iconic hero. Throughout the comics, Payback are presented as the world’s second most famous team after the Seven, even though in reality the team’s members are constantly trying to move up, acting as Homelander’s lackeys and playthings to try and secure their place alongside him. While that goes double for Soldier Boy, Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and Keith Burns’ The Boys: Herogasm #4 confirms that when it comes to the superhuman community’s own awards, there are only two candidates for ‘Greatest Hero,’ with the award passed back and forth between them: Homelander and Soldier Boy.

While Soldier Boy does little to actually earn this level of respect, it makes sense that he’s so well-respected. Other heroes with powers comparable to Homelander like Stormfront and Black Noir have gritty or problematic public images which limit their symbolic value, while Soldier Boy’s stolen valor gives him one advantage in perception Homelander can’t claim, connecting him to the heroes of the past. In The Boys, heroes are judged not by their accomplishments or ideals, but by their PR value, and in that respect alone, Soldier Boy is apparently comparable to Homelander in usefulness.

One thing that’s shocking about Homelander and Soldier Boy being the hero community’s acknowledged greatest heroes is that the Seven’s leader would ever allow anyone else to claim the award. However, Soldier Boy is so thoroughly under Homelander’s thumb that it would be difficult for the latter to ever feel truly threatened, especially once their discordant power levels are taken into account. Ultimately, The Boys draws a comparison between Homelander and Soldier Boy because the heroes they’re parodying – Superman and Captain America – both operate as similar symbols of justice and virtue. Given they’re owned by separate companies, the idea that the title of ‘Greatest Hero’ is passed back and forth between them – to the point that either actually winning the award on any given year becomes meaningless – is presented as one more dig at the comics industry in a series that is dedicated to exactly that.

Ultimately, the comics make it clear that while Soldier Boys’ reputation may be comparable to Homelander’s, the reality is that he’s totally answerable to the more powerful hero. How the TV adaptation will play their ‘rivlary,’ however, is still waiting to be seen, and there remains the possibility that in the different incarnation of The Boys that’s currently playing out, Soldier Boy may actually possess the status to threaten Homelander‘s place at the top of the superhero pecking order.