The second season of Amazon’s The Boys is already shaping up to continue the gleeful excess of its first year. Production has now wrapped on the show, which we’re expecting to be with us in mid-2020, and we already know that The Boys season 2 will feature new members of corporate superhero team the Seven, and that Amazon are investing more into the budget to continue the series’ success.
Now, producer Eric Kripke has celebrated the end of shooting by releasing a short film online, which deals with a child version of the sociopathic Homelander. The clip, available below, was put out on Twitter with the caption “Could there be anything more terrifying than little Homelander?”, and is shot to resemble video footage from Vought Industries, the company orchestrating the superheroes of The Boys.
Set in 1994, it features a young John/Homelander in a lab being repeatedly shown images of Christianity and US iconography. Events take a dark turn, however, when the boy wants to know if the tutor will be his mother, and, well, things don’t end particularly well for her when she tries to return his affection.
Could there be anything more terrifying than little Homelander? #FlashbackFriday pic.twitter.com/s9OAXattQB
— THE BOYS (@TheBoysTV) November 15, 2019
The short certainly doesn’t contradict what we saw of Antony Starr’s adult Homelander as the public-facing all-American hero exercising power fantasies and cruelty in private. The short shows how far back John’s casual approach to abusing his power goes, and also includes mention of Jonah Vogelbaum, the scientist who created Homelander and kept him in isolation at a Vought laboratory throughout his childhood.
If nothing else, this promo is a treat for fans of The Boys wanting more content in the run-up to season 2. Of course, those looking for a wider view of the series’ world can check out Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s original comics, which have been reasonably well-followed by the Amazon show to date. Now that new episodes of The Boys are in the bag though, we’re expecting to receive further details on the new run sooner rather than later, so stay tuned.