The Boys' Herogasm Episode Had One Conflicting Scene That Didn't Make The Final Cut
This article contains spoilers for "The Boys" season 3.
Though the Prime Video series "The Boys" is based on a comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the show has deviated from its source material quite a bit. Showrunner Eric Kripke and his writing team have changed everything from the villainous Stormfront's gender to Hughie's (Jack Quaid) superpowers, but one storyline in season 3 got a major change that rendered a particularly infamous scene from the comics totally impossible.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kripke detailed the reasons why one particularly well-known moment from the Herogasm arc in "The Boys" comics didn't transfer over to the television series, and for pretty good reason. The scene in question involves Homelander (Antony Starr), Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), and sexual favors in a hotel room. While that sounds like the stuff of the most deranged fanfiction, the characters have a very different relationship in the comics that made it work, sort of. Sometimes direct adaptations just can't work for whatever reason, but at least fans who loved the scene will always have the comics, right?
A different kind of 'daddy'
In the "Herogasm" comic arc, Soldier Boy and the members of his superhero team, Payback, are not superheroes from Vought's past but instead are just a lesser superhero team than The Seven, who are at the top of the supe food chain. The leader of The Seven, Homelander, is the ultimate supe, and he uses that power and status to take advantage of anyone he can. In the comics, that includes the not-so-bright Soldier Boy, who Homelander propositions for sex during Herogasm. He vows to Soldier Boy that if he does a good job in the sack, he'll "promise" to put in a good word to The Seven for him. It's a wild moment that's both funny and sad, but Kripke decided to take the character of Soldier Boy in a very different direction:
"I love that scene and it's hilarious, but for a dozen reasons, all of which will be revealed when you see the season, it ultimately just didn't track. We talked about it. It conflicted with a lot of the other things we were trying to build with Soldier Boy. So, unfortunately, that one had to go."
In the show, Soldier Boy isn't a total moron like the comics, and he's also Homelander's dad. That would make the whole "manipulated into sex" thing even more awkward than it already is, and it just didn't work out. "The Boys" is a pretty twisted television show, but apparently father-son incest is just one step too far even for them.