WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for The Boys season 2, episode 4.
The reveal in The Boys that the newest member of The Seven, Stormfront, was formerly a hero known as Liberty has some significant implications for Vought’s superheroes — most significantly, it suggests that some Supers might be immortal. The Amazon Prime original series is an adaptation of the popular comic series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Like the comic, Amazon’s gritty, dramatic, and often funny show satirizes the superhero genre. In the case of Stormfront/Liberty, The Boys season 2 shows the dark side of the superhero industry — and raises some disturbing questions regarding how Vought’s superheroes age.
The Boys centers on a vigilante group — the titular “Boys” — dedicated to exposing Vought International for being a corrupt institution whose “heroes” are immoral, violent monsters. Little is known about the “Supes” Vought creates and manages. Season 1 revealed that the company’s superheroes are not born with powers, as the public was lead to believe, but were actually created by the company through a substance the company created dubbed “Compound V.” The Boys season 2 further elaborated on Vought’s history, revealing that “Compound V” was the result of Nazi medical research — further evidence that Vought cannot be trusted.
The Boys season 2, episode 4, “Nothing Like It in the World” finally answered a mystery that had been teased since The Boys’ season 2 premiere: who is Liberty? Turns out, she was a “classic” hero from earlier in Vought’s history. What’s most disturbing, however, is the reveal that Liberty was a violent racist, not only murdering innocent black Americans unprovoked, but seemingly enjoying doing so. Now, the hero is back with the new look and persona, “Stormfront.” While her true nature is indeed disturbing, the reveal also has troubling implications for Vought’s “Supes” — namely, that they don’t appear to age and could theoretically be immortal.
The Liberty reveal is further evidence of Vought’s dark past, and only adds to mounting evidence of the underlying ideologies at the heart of Vought’s diversity problem; however, it also raises some serious questions regarding the physiology of its enhanced humans. “Supes” like Homelander and Queen Maeve are seemingly invulnerable, which makes them incredibly threatening — how would one stop someone who seems invulnerable to blades, bullets, and even fire? The idea that these people also do not age is additionally disconcerting, as it suggests that they could potentially be around forever, avoiding responsibility for their heinous actions by simply reinventing themselves over and over. The very first scene of The Boys established that these “heroes” are reckless at best — and uncaring violent monsters at worse. Without even the comfort of knowing that they only have a limited lifespan, the “Supes” on The Boys are a downright terrifying prospect.
In a telling scene between Stormfront and Homelander, the former slyly offers her colleague some advice, admitting to him that she had reinvented herself numerous times. While viewers now know that Stormfront was formerly the hero known as Liberty, what hasn’t been revealed is how many times she has reinvented herself. While it’s possible she was referring to having adopted identities in between her ’70s Liberty persona and her current Stormfront one, it’s even more likely that “Liberty” was not her first: the strongest evidence of this is actually the blonde hair she had as Liberty. Stormfront’s hairstyle features a shaved side, which reveals that her roots are dark. Therefore, her Liberty persona had dyed hair — while it’s possible that it was purely for appearances, this doesn’t seem likely since the costume mostly obscured her hair and features. Why go through the trouble of bleaching one’s hair, only to cover it up? Liberty being a reinvention of the previous public persona is a likely explanation.
Stormfront’s conversation with Homelander hints that she could be even older than the Boys have guessed — perhaps she’s even as old as Vought International itself. The supers in The Boys have extraordinary powers that allow them to perform feats that seem to go against the laws of nature — and, as episode 4 seems to suggest, this might include not aging, and effectively being immortal.
