Does Soldier Boy die in The Boys? What the comics say about his fate

Soldier Boy is back, and naturally, chaos follows

Soldier Boy has returned in The Boys Season 5, and, as expected, he is still Soldier Boy. The show has not exactly handed him a personality transplant. His full fate in the final season is still unclear, but the comics already mapped out a grim outcome for the character, and it is not a neat one.

If you need a quick refresher, Soldier Boy was believed to be dead after Season 3. That changed in a crucial post-credits scene at the end of Season 4, when Homelander was taken to the facility where his biological father had been kept in stasis.

Season 5 Part 1 then brings him back into the world of the living. After a deeply awkward exchange in which Soldier Boy asks, “Did you f**k me?”, Homelander offers him a deal: help find Butcher and he gets a full public comeback.

Where the character goes from there is anyone’s guess. Soldier Boy is not known for being predictable, stable, or useful in a calm and orderly way. The comics, however, do offer a fairly definitive answer.

Does Soldier Boy die in The Boys comics?

Yes. Soldier Boy dies in The Boys comics, although the name is actually a legacy title rather than a single character.

The first version, often called Soldier Boy I, is killed by Greg Mallory after causing a trail of death during World War II. A second version, Soldier Boy II, is mentioned in passing and is also implied to have died before the main story begins.

The version most readers think of is Soldier Boy III, and his death is the one that matters most here. He appears in the Herogasm storyline, a spin-off miniseries separate from the main comic run. It centers on an annual gathering of supes, which is, yes, the same basic setup as the show’s infamous orgy episode in Season 3.

The big difference is that in the comics, Soldier Boy does not survive it. Butcher kills him.

And because Butcher is Butcher, he does not stop there. Across multiple issues, he bites off Soldier Boy’s nose, beats him, and tortures him. By the end, a newspaper shows that a funeral is being held for Soldier Boy.

The comic version is also very different in temperament from the loud, swaggering version the show gives us. He is more cowardly, less commanding, and ends up elected as leader of Payback while still angling for a place in the Seven. Ambition, as ever, does not automatically equal competence.

Is Soldier Boy Homelander’s father in the comics?

No. Soldier Boy is not Homelander’s father in the comics.

In fact, the two characters sleep together during the Herogasm storyline. That detail may make Soldier Boy’s “incest” joke in Season 5 Episode 2 feel less random than it first appears. The comics, as usual, are not shy about making things awkward in very specific ways.

In the book version, Soldier Boy is desperate to join the Seven. Homelander uses that to control him, convincing him to have sex with him at the supe orgy as a test. He makes Soldier Boy repeat this ritual every year.

After one such encounter, Homelander tells him, “Sorry, Soldier Boy, but I’m afraid you just weren’t quite good enough... Maybe next year, eh?” As Soldier Boy walks away, both characters insist that “there’s nothing gay” about what just happened.

The point is not subtle. Homelander is using sex as a power move to keep Soldier Boy compliant and chasing approval. Before the next annual test can happen, Butcher kills Soldier Boy III.

What fans think might happen to Soldier Boy in Season 5

In the TV series, Soldier Boy’s goals have mostly run on a different track from Homelander and Butcher’s. That makes his endgame hard to pin down, which is exactly the sort of thing fandom treats like a public challenge.

One common theory focuses on Soldier Boy’s radioactive blasts. In the show, he can emit high-intensity blasts that permanently strip Compound V from a supe’s system, turning them into ordinary humans.

After Season 4, one Reddit user suggested that his blood could be used to remove V from infected supes and stop the virus at the same time. Their reasoning was simple enough: if the virus attaches to V, then no V means no virus.

Another viewer guessed that Soldier Boy will probably end up killed by either Homelander or Butcher, while also hoping the show does not bring him back only to dispose of him immediately. Apparently even in a universe full of collapsing morals and exploding bodies, some people still expect pacing.

Since the announcement of Vought Rising, the prequel series centered on Soldier Boy’s early years, some fans have started to worry that his story might not be fully wrapped up in The Boys itself.

One Reddit commenter suggested that Vought Rising could work partly as a prequel and partly as a sequel, similar to how Better Call Saul overlapped with Breaking Bad. Their concern is that Season 5 might leave Soldier Boy’s fate unclear, with the real answer hidden until the spinoff fills in the gaps.

They were not thrilled by that possibility, either. The argument was that The Boys should finish its own story inside the main series instead of making viewers wait for another show to explain the ending. A fair complaint, really. Television has already developed enough side quests.

Others think Soldier Boy could still get a redemption arc. One theory suggests he is deeply tied to the idea of family. He was a disappointment to his father, and he was furious that he never got the chance to raise Homelander.

Under that reading, Season 5 could give him one last chance to connect with someone by mentoring Ryan, Homelander’s son, and helping keep him from turning into his father.

That fan hoped the story would give Soldier Boy and Ryan a decent ending, with Soldier Boy becoming something like “Grandpa Ben.” Another version of the same theory has Soldier Boy dying while saving Ryan from Homelander, after which Ryan joins the Boys.

At the moment, none of that is confirmed. But with The Boys, the odds of a peaceful resolution remain somewhere between slim and extremely fictional.

When to watch Season 5

The Boys Season 5 Episodes 1 and 2 are streaming on Prime Video now, with Episode 3 set to arrive on April 15.

Until then, viewers can keep busy with the series’ many other pressing questions, including Homelander’s milk obsession, where each season ranks, and what to know about Gen V Season 3.