Whose Man Is This?

The Boys, the standout series from Amazon Prime, is gearing up for Season 3, and fans are eagerly awaiting each sneak peek as they come. The most recent teaser featured its newest cast member: Jensen Ackles.

After his long run as Dean Winchester in Supernatural, Ackles is suiting up to be the newest hero on the gritty superhero show. Since Ackles was announced as a member of the upcoming season, fans have been desperate to see him in action, and the first look is finally here.

On June 7th, viewers finally got their wish. Showrunner Eric Kripke tweeted, "You win! Here! You can quit clogging my notifications!"

His character is Soldier Boy, one of the original superheros made with the show's sinister Compound V. The show is popular for its reinventions of popular superheroes and tropes, making them darker and more insidious, and Soldier Boy promises to bring the same.

The little we know about his backstory from the original comics tells us that he was one of the original supes who became a mythologized in popular culture after "killing Germans by the dozens." He was also a member of the original group of supes, Payback, long before The Seven was formed.

As a World War II era supersoldier — think a subversion of Marvel's Captain America — the character is designed to be a relic of 1940s values and aesthetics, a mausoleum to a bygone era of masculinity. Everything from his costume to, presumably, his demeanor will speak to the hyper-patriotism of his time.

In an official statement, Laura Jean Shannon, one of the designers of the Soldier Boy suit, told the origin story of the costume: "Soldier Boy is the original badass … Our goal was to highlight a bygone era of overt masculinity and grit. With that pedigree we dove headfirst into baking in an all-American quality grounded in a military soldier's practicality with a heavy dose of old school cowboy swagger. We knew that the actor had to have Steve McQueen looks and chops with a John Wayne attitude, luckily Jensen Ackles embodies all of that."

The suit is something ostensibly meant to resemble a military green, high tech interpretation of a classic soldier uniform. Although we can't help but think he's giving lizard vibes (very reminiscent of the monsters from the short-lived comedy series Now Apocalypse … if anyone else is deranged enough to have seen that show), and we're still wondering what practical application the heels on his uniformed boots could have had, fans are lapping up the teaser images.

While Season 3 of the show promises more worldbuilding and an in-depth dive into the history of its superheroes, we don't know much beyond that. But whatever it is, with Jensen Ackles in the mix, it's bound to be exactly the kind of chaos we love.