'The Boys' Final Season Isn't Beating the 'Vought Rising' Allegations

Elon Musk’s caterwauling aside, there was plenty of fair criticism to lob at The Boys final season. One of the biggest complaints is that the series became exactly what it was parodying: A full-fledged cinematic universe.

For every dig at Marvel and DC’s labyrinthian properties, The Boys wasted no time drinking from the IP well. There was the animated series Diabolical, followed by the already canceled Gen V, and next in the pipeline is Vought Rising. The prequel series will follow Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Clara a.k.a. Lady Liberty a.k.a. Stormfront (Aya Cash) as they usher in the first wave of Supes.

Don’t get me wrong, the first teaser for Vought Rising looks pretty great. Mostly because we get to find out if Jensen Ackles’ voice alone can carry a weirdly beardless Soldier Boy, and so far, that’s a big ol’ yup. That sexy timbre does a lot of heavy lifting. A lot.

What isn’t great is that Amazon dropped the teaser barely two days after The Boys finale. Throughout the fifth and final season, you could feel the show creaking under the weight of teeing up the prequel series thanks to several dips into Soldier Boy’s past, 8,000 mentions of Clara — including suggestions she’s still alive — and a jarringly abrupt move that kept Homelander’s coke-loving daddy completely out of the finale. (Vought Rising is rumored to catch up with Soldier Boy in the not-too-distant future à la Better Call Saul.) In short, the last season spent a whole lot of precious screen time on a backdoor pilot and dropping a trailer this quickly isn’t beating that allegation.

The timing also makes it clear that Amazon is going to milk the crap out of its golden goose. The Boys final season did beaucoup numbers, so it behooves the platform to keep the gravy train going. Vought Rising is already set to release next year and will reportedly include multiple seasons. In theory, The Boys flagship series is over, but instead of telling a complete story from beginning to end, it became the one thing it hated the most:

A superhero franchise addicted to making content.