Warning! Contains major spoilers for The Boys season 3.
Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) is Homelander’s dad, as revealed in the closing moments of The Boys season 3, episode 7, “Who Framed Buster Beaver?” and a growing fan theory suggests that Stormfront (Aya Cash) could be his mom. Homelander (Antony Starr) is marketed to the public with an all-American backstory that was completely fabricated by Vought, the corporation that creates The Boys’ Supes. Flashbacks in The Boys suggest Homelander’s childhood was, in reality, much more traumatic, as the young Supe was raised in a laboratory. What’s still partially unknown is exactly how he was created. The Boys season 3 dropped the revelation that Soldier Boy donated the sperm used to father Homelander. This added weight to a theory that’s been circulating since season 2 – Stormfront is Homelander’s mom.
Homelander is the most powerful Supe in The Boys. Stormfront was introduced in season 2, and she’s one of few Supes who can hold her own against him. Stormfront, AKA Klara Risinger, was the first person to successfully receive an injection of Compound V. She’s the first-ever Supe, and likely the oldest. Like her deceased Nazi husband (Vought’s founder, Frederick Vought), Stormfront is a vehement racist and was drawn to Homelander partly due to his embodiment of the Aryan ideal. The two being a physically intimate relationship, and all doesn’t end well. By season 3, a child implied to be Homelander’s son has reduced Stormfront to a charred, one-armed shell of her former self (although this doesn’t, unfortunately, put a pause on her conjugal visits from Homelander). In the end, Stormfront bites through her own tongue, suffocating herself in her hospital bed.
In season 3 of The Boys, Homelander’s predecessor, Soldier Boy, returns after decades in a Russian facility. Soldier Boy initially has Homelander on his kill list, but later learns he’s Homelander’s father. He donated sperm in the 1980s, and it’s from this genetic material that Vought created their most powerful Supe. Soldier Boy is Homelander’s dad, but who is Homelander’s mom? A longstanding Reddit fan theory proposes that Homelander could be the biological child of Stormfront, and the Soldier Boy reveal adds a lot of weight to it. Soldier Boy and Stormfront were both active Supes in the 60s and 70s (Stormfront went by “Liberty” at the time). Homelander and Stormfront also share a shocking connection in the comics: Homelander is a clone of Stormfront. Amazon’s The Boys bends the comics’ material in many ways, including changing the genders and backstories of characters like Victor Neuman and Stormfront. The Reddit The Boys theory argues that instead of being her clone, Homelander is Stormfront’s son.
Homelander’s Comic Origin Points To A Genetic Stormfront Connection
How is Stormfront Homelander’s mother? There are a few factors, some of which tie into the original The Boys comic book. The theory fits with what is known about Stormfront’s history in The Boys: Reddit user sinburger points out that Homelander’s age roughly matches up with when Liberty vanished from the public eye, and her sudden appearance in season 2 — shortly after Homelander killed Madelyn Stillwell for hiding his baby — could be explained as Vought trying to have another “mother” controlling Homelander. Following the clone storyline from the comics, Homelander might simply have been created using her DNA, creating more of a parent-child relationship than the original-clone dynamic in the comics. It would be in line with Stormfront’s Nazi white supremacist ideas to want to create the “perfect” Aryan superhero, and Homelander does represent the Nazi ideal in many ways.
Homelander’s storyline also includes major maternal issues, which are presented clearly through his relationship with Vought director Stillwell; The Boys would bring the Supe’s story and strong Oedipus complex full circle by making Stormfront – his passionate sexual partner in season 2 – his mother. The Boys is known for its sordid themes and gross imagery, so an incestuous plot twist is certainly within the realm of possibilities, especially considering season 3’s Soldier Boy reveal. Given Vought’s lies about Homelander’s origins and Stormfront’s overt racism, the theory is plausible but would be highly damaging to the leader of the Seven’s reputation if it got out.
Soldier Boy and Stormfront engaged sexually throughout the 20th century. Supes in The Boys have increased longevity, so Stormfront appears in her 20s or 30s but is actually 103 years old thanks to Compound V. She’s been an active superhero throughout this time, adopting a variety of identities over the decades. One of her most prominent was as Liberty, a patriotic alias under which she operated from the 1950s until the 1980s. Soldier Boy was the world’s most prominent Supe during these decades (and is coincidentally the same age, as both Soldier Boy and Stormfront were born in 1919). As was revealed in The Boys season 3, episode 6, “Herogasm,” Soldier Boy and Liberty were more than familiar. According to Soldier Boy, it was he and Liberty that started the infamous annual Super orgy. He further alludes to his intimate relations with Liberty/Stormfront in the same episode, describing her as a “firecracker.” There’s every chance that their coupling gave Vought an idea.
Liberty “disappeared” in 1979, several years before Soldier Boy was betrayed. What Liberty/Stormfront was up to during this time hasn’t been fully explored. Since It’s known that Vought used Solder Boy’s sperm to conceive Homelander, it’s entirely possible that Stormfront was artificially inseminated and used to incubate the shady corporation’s latest Supe project. Homelander has threatened Queen Maeve with the involuntary freezing of her eggs in The Boys’ present. This could be clear foreshadowing, but oocyte cryopreservation (AKA extracting eggs from the ovum to freeze and preserve them) wasn’t invented until 1986. Even though his paternal DNA was extracted externally, Homelander would have been carried to term by whomever Vought chose to contribute genetics on the maternal side. Since Liberty/Stormfront disappeared around the time Homelander was Born and just after Soldier Boy donated his seed to Vought, connecting the dots becomes distressingly easy.
Stormfront Might Explain Why Homelander Can Fly
Homelander and Soldier Boy both have super-strength, endurance, and near-invulnerability, but their powersets are a little different. Soldier Boy has an explosive nuclear blast and can permanently neutralize the Compound V in other Supes (rendering them powerless). For his part, Homelander’s unrivaled physical power and durability are complemented by two abilities – laser eyes and, importantly, flight. If Vought chose Soldier Boy to be the father of their ultimate Supe, it’s implied that powers are/can be inherited. Homelander got the Mr. Incredible side of his powers from his dad, but what about his flight? Soldier Boy isn’t airborne. Stormfront, however, is.
If Stormfront is Homelander’s mother, it would explain why he can fly but Soldier Boy can’t. Flight isn’t a common ability in The Boys, and only a few Supes like Homelander and Stormfront can fly. As pointed out by Facebook group “The Boys (Amazon Prime)” user Michael Holt, a merging of Soldier Boy and Stormfront’s powers explains why Homelander can fly. As for laser vision, Stormfront can manipulate plasma and electrokinetic energy. In the superhero genre The Boys so perfectly satirizes, Homelander’s eye beams could easily be explained away as a product of the same inherited cellular abnormalities that grant Stormfront her own energy-based powers.
The Boys Incest Plotline Might Break Homelander
A key reason for the importance of the absolutely gross “Is Stormfront Homelander’s mom?” theory is its implication that The Boys is taking an incredibly dark turn (even by the show’s already bleak standards). Homelander and Stormfront have numerous sexual encounters throughout season 2, and these continue in season 3 until Stormfront’s death. Already, these season 3 moments were harrowing, – by this point, Stormfront is incredibly scarred, permanently bed-bound, and missing all but one limb. If Stormfront was impregnated by Soldier Boy and Vought, there’s no guarantee she would have seen the baby, and flashbacks have shown Homelander’s upbringing in a lab. Neither would have any reason to believe they were related. If they are, it would mean The Boys has an incest arc so disturbing it could make Game of Thrones blush.
This is important to the show’s narrative beyond the additional shock factor, as Homelander’s mental stability has always been fragile at best. Throughout season 3, his sanity has become completely fractured. He experiences regular tinnitus-heavy dissociative blackouts. On top of this, he’s started having conversations with a sinister alternate personality in the mirror. A key theme of these dialogues has been the Mirror-Homelander insisting they purge themselves of their humanity to become “pure.” The more monstrous the acts that Homelander commits, the stronger and more in control the Mirror-Homelander appears to become. Discovering he’s been in an Oedipalf reenactment with his mom could be what sends Homelander over the edge by the time The Boys season 3 concludes.
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