It’s no mystery that The Boys has been poking fun at the current state of the superhero genre, and their latest episode had Vought holding their version of the D23 Expo called V52, where they revealed their upcoming slate of movies and spinoffs with special appearances from their top heroes.
Though Vought may be a fictional company, some fans quickly noticed that many of the jokes were at the expense of the very real Disney company. They’ve been having fun comparing the Vought reveals to events that happened in real life.
How The Boys VCU is Poking Fun at Marvel Studios
Way before Marvel Studios even released Avengers: Endgame, Marvel had already made it a trend to announce a slate of upcoming films over the next few years. That’s how fans knew how many films to expect before they got to the next Avengers movie and when the franchise was in a different “Phase”.
While it was great to know what was coming in the Marvel slate for the next few years, the method kind of backfired, with some projects that were announced eventually getting delayed or outright cancelled. The announcement of the Inhumans adaptation started as a movie before it was changed into a (poorly received) television series, and it’s been half a decade since Mahershala Ali was announced to lead a Blade reboot, which can’t seem to get off the ground.
For the VCU, though, they’ve decided to lean in on the concept and announced four phases of upcoming movies—all covering different members of The Seven and other superhero teams in the “VCU.” Not only are there standalone properties for Homelander, Deep, and A-Train, but there are also movies planned for the Teenage Kix (Sage’s original group) and the Guardians of Godolkin (from Gen V).
Even Firecracker is getting her own franchise of films focused on her Christian Faith, and she’s been announced as the face of a new division of Vought dubbed “Vought Faith” to lean in on the concept of capitalising on Christianity.
Immediately, longtime MCU fans spotted the joke of the oversaturated slate of films, and they can’t help but appreciate The Boys’ attention to detail. Eric Kripke has admitted that they thought of every title and made sure it was accurately designed for the fictional movie.
Captain America: Brave New World and Reshoots
The season has also been teasing an upcoming movie called Training A-Train which has the actual Will Ferrell playing the part of the late Professor Brink from Gen V. It’s not a dig at Marvel, but it’s definitely poking fun at “white saviour” films like The Blind Side.
What was a dig at Marvel was A-Train’s comment on stage where he talks about a show just finishing a bunch of reshoots that resulted in the series being “the most expensive TV show ever,” ending with the thought that, “So you know, it’s got to be good. Am I right?”
Following Marvel's production stories, it has been a common practice for the studio to undergo extensive reshoots when they realise a project “isn’t working.” That’s what happened with the Daredevil: Born Again series, and most recently, it’s been happening with the next Cap movie, Captain America: Brave New World:
It’s funny that A-Train makes the announcement since he looks like Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, complete with the goggles and haircut.
The Boys Poking Fun at Other Superhero Franchises Besides Marvel
Of course, the reshoot story isn’t exclusive to Marvel. For a while, it used to be what DC was known for. There were said to have been extensive reshoots when making the Justice League movie, which resulted in the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. It was also said that the first Suicide Squad was heavily redone after the reactions to Batman v Superman, and this has led to some fans calling for #ReleaseTheAyerCut online as well.
Speaking of the Snyder Cut, The Boys had also poked fun at this in a previous season with Dawn of the Seven getting a ‘Bourke Cut’ after the film had to recast Stormfront with Charlize Theron after the original was outed as a Nazi.
The parodies don’t stop at superhero franchises. Vought also has its own Disneyland spoof called Voughtland, where “everyone’s a hero.” Voughtland’s special section, “Maeve’s Inclusive Kingdom,” is also a dig at companies that try too hard to look progressive and end up singling out the minorities they were trying to represent.
Fans also can’t forget when the show did a parody of Gal Gadot’s infamous “Imagine” video by also having a bunch of celebrities covering the song alongside Vought figures like the Deep, A-Train, and Black Noir.
As long as huge companies mess up publicly, fans can be assured that The Boys will always have something to make fun of in their series. Even when the main story goes to very dark places, audiences can always expect there to be commentary on the other superhero properties that exist alongside The Boys.
The Future of Vought in The Boys
At this point in the series, Vought is just as big a villain as Homelander, and the show will have to address how the company should move forward once the HL problem is fixed.
Ideally, Vought and Homelander could go down simultaneously, but maybe the showrunners will have something to say about the corporate entertainment machine; after all, it is also owned by another huge company, Amazon.
So far, fans have been enjoying the fourth season, and everything should be nicely set up for a finale when Season 5 comes around in a few years.
Catch new episodes of The Boys every Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.
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