by Ani Bundel
Day two of San Diego Comic-Con 2024 kicked off with a double dose of The Boys and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power panel in Hall H, part of Amazon Prime Video taking over the largest panel room of the venue. First up was The Boys, which opened with a full-blown musical number. An entire phalanx of cast members came out and sang with the official videos projected on the walls around the room. Perhaps it would be the only way to see a life-sized performance of the supes on ice (The Boys won’t be staging their version of Rogers: The Musical anytime soon, despite Amazon’s billions.)
After the Broadway-by-way-of-Hall H, it was time to introduce large-scale including showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke and the dozen cast members who make up the ensemble of the satirical series. Moderated by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the panelists included Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Karen Fukuhara, Tomer Capone, Lazy Alonso, Jessie T Usher, Claudia Doumit, Chace Crawford, Antony Starr, Valorie Curry, and Susan Heyward.
Unsurprisingly, the panel started with the question of what had shocked the actors most, which of course, then devolved into R-rated discussions about “butt stuff” and “breast milk.” Quaid summed it up nicely: “It’s a show about superheroes, but a f***d up one.”
This was the first time The Boys had paneled at SDCC since 2019, which was before the series debuted, so the panel questions didn’t just cover the current Season 4 but the entire show so far. For a series about black humor, the actors (and Kripke) were funny themselves, cracking jokes about discovering their characters’ trajectories, finding some of the scenes they would be filming, and just how far the show was willing to go.
Considering The Boys’ online reputation, it was not surprising that certain audience members thought it appropriate to heckle the panel. Morgan was invaluable in keeping the crowd in check, turning and giving anyone the evil eye who dared to attempt to derail his panel.
Of course, the main questions were about Homelander and the characters dealing with his ego and out-of-control behavior. Season 4 spelled out just how much of a villain the character is (much to the distress of certain sections of the fandom), and for most of the cast, it was beyond time for them to be able to take him on.
Then it was time for blooper reels and ridiculousness, as each of the actors broke in turn at the ludicrous moments of the new season before moving on to the audience questions, which Morgan read aloud, proving that Amazon was going to be very careful to screen what got asked in the room. (That being said, when the questions started, Crawford pointed out that one of them came from a hardcore fan who attends every panel dressed as a female version of Homelander and had her stand up. It was an extra nice touch after all the men interrupting from the peanut gallery.)
The panel also showed the first look at Gen V Season 2, which fans who didn’t make it in will hope arrives on YouTube soon, before bringing out Season 5’s significant addition to the show, Jensen Ackles, where It was confirmed that his character, Soldier Boy, would be a series regular for the fifth and final season, though no word on if he’ll appear in the character’s famous codpiece.
He then revealed a new spinoff prequel, Vought Rising, set in the 1950s and chronicling the company’s rise, which he will star in along with Aya Cash, who returns as Stormfront.
Stay tuned for more SDCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
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