How Did The Seven Get Their Powers On The Boys?
Amazon Prime Video's "The Boys" has continuously gained a positive response from critics and fans since it first aired in July 2019 (via Rotten Tomatoes). As many who watch the show know, "The Boys" is an adaptation of a comic series of the same name from creators Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and the television series is just as brutal, gory, and satirical as possible. During its first season, fans were introduced to not only the Boys, originally consisting of Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and a reluctant Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), but also the corrupt superhero team the Seven.
When we first meet them, the Seven consists of Homelander (Antony Starr), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), the Deep (Chace Crawford), and Translucent (Alex Hassell). The former seventh member, Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore), has seemingly retired, leaving room for Annie January, aka Starlight (Erin Moriarty), to take his place. Shortly thereafter, Starlight discovers not only that the Seven are not who she thought they were but also that her powers came from none other than the company that manages them: Vought International. Like nearly every other superpowered being in "The Boys," Starlight was injected with Compound V as an infant.
However, most members of the original team of the Seven didn't get their powers in exactly the same way.
The Seven received Compound V when they were in the womb
While we learned the story of how Homelander came to be the horrific and unstable parody of Superman that he is, when it comes to most of the other members of the Seven, fans are left to make assumptions about exactly how they obtained their powers if they haven't read the comics. As it turns out, the Seven isn't the most powerful superhero group in the world merely because of all the promotions, movies, and events that its members do for Vought. In the comics, the members of the Seven also received injections of Compound V when they were in the womb.
This means that "Supes" like Homelander were tied to Vought before they were even born, making them literally living weapons for the company to contract to the government and use for profit as they please. Fans of the show have seen the tension and instability this creates for Homelander specifically, who has a complicated — to say the least — relationship with Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue).
Each season seems to give us more insight into the origins of the Seven, meaning that fans will likely learn more and more moving forward. Only at the end of Season 2 did we discover Black Noir's exact abilities and weaknesses. Season 3 of "The Boys" premieres on June 3.