The Boys Trivia | 60 facts about the Amazon Prime series

«The Boys» is an American superhero TV series developed by Eric Kripke for Amazon Prime Video. It is based on the comic book of the same name.

Let’s find out more about the series!

1. The Boys is an American superhero television series.
2. It was developed by Eric Kripke for the streaming service Amazon Prime Video.
3. It is based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.
4. The comic book was originally published by DC Comics under its Wildstorm imprint before moving to Dynamite Entertainment.
5. It follows the eponymous team of vigilantes as they combat superpowered individuals who abuse their abilities.
6. The series stars an ensemble cast that includes Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capon, and Karen Fukuhara as the vigilantes and Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Chace Crawford, Jessie T. Usher, and Nathan Mitchell as members of “the Seven”, an official superhero group run by the conglomerate Vought International who, while maintaining a lofty façade, are shallow celebrity figures prone to doing horrendous things in secret.
7. The first season premiered on July 26, 2019.
8. Ahead of the second season premiere, the series was renewed for a third season in July 2020, which is scheduled to be released on June 3, 2022.
9. The series has received critical acclaim for its writing, storyline, humor, and the performances of the cast, particularly Urban and Starr.
10. Two spin-off shows were ordered in September 2020 and December 2021, the latter of which, The Boys Presents: Diabolical, premiered on March 4, 2022.
11. Every t-shirt that Hughie wears has a saying, slogan, or music group in plain letters on the front. It is the same for the graphic novel character version.
12. Translucent is a new character created for the television show. In the graphic novel, the remaining member of The Seven was an “alien” character named Jack From Jupiter, an expy of DC’s Martian Manhunter
13. American actor Jack Quaid plays the part of Hughie in the series. In the comic book, Hughie is from Scotland and he resembles English actor and writer Simon Pegg. Pegg was “super chuffed” to be “immortalized as a comic book character” and also wrote the introduction for The Boys Vol.1 collection, “The Name of the Game.” Pegg is also known for his role as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the rebooted Star Trek (2009) film trilogy, alongside Karl Urban who plays Doctor “Bones” McCoy.
14. Karl Urban stars as Billy Butcher in The Boys. Pegg was originally supposed to play Little Hughie when the comic was made into a movie or series, but because it took so long to make the jump, he played Hughie’s father instead
15. The show had to tone down the sex, drugs and profanity, which were all more graphic in the comics
16. Vought’s premier team of heroes, The Seven, are a loose pastiche of DC’s Justice League. Several of the Seven share powers and visual similarities with DC’s heroes: Homelander/Superman, Queen Maeve/Wonder Woman, The Deep/Aquaman, A-Train/The Flash, Black Noir/Batman. Several other parodies of famous heroes feature in the graphic novels of The Boys and have been referenced but not yet featured on-screen in the show, such as Tek Knight (based on Iron Man) and the G-Men (based on Marvel’s X-Men).
17. The Seven HQ is the Roy Thomson concert hall in downtown Toronto, frequently used in films & Television. The giant X supports provided a fitting background for an early scene in the first installment of the X-Men (2000) franchise. Also fitting for this show with X-Men characters being some of the inspiration behind characters in the novel it is based on.
18. The series is based on the comic series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The “Coming 2019” poster for the series is an exact recreation of the cover of the first issue, drawn by Robertson, later reused for The Boys Vol. 1 collection, “The Name of the Game”.
19. Madelyn Stillwell’s character was a man in the comic book series.
20. The designer of Starlight’s new costume is based on the character of the costume designer Edna from The Incredibles (2004).
21. Co-creator Garth Ennis has worked with Seth Rogen bringing both The Boys and Preacher to the small screen.
22. Elisabeth Shue was Antony Starr’s childhood crush.
23. To prepare for the role of Homelander, Antony Starr took to YouTube and looked up videos of superheroes like Superman and studied how their actors, such as Christopher Reeve, took off to fly.
24. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were set to direct the pilot, but Dan Trachtenberg replaced them due to scheduling conflicts.
25. The estate where Homelander visits Jonah Vogelbaum is called Parkwood Estate in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the same estate used in Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison (1995).
26. The original Queen Maeve, or Medb, was a likely mythological Queen of the kingdom of Connacht and a central figure in the Irish epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Her supposed tomb is on the summit of Knocknarea overlooking the town of Sligo and still attracts visitors. Fittingly her incarnation in the series is played by an Irish actress, albeit one from Leinster.
27. The name of Hughie’s girlfriend in the series premiere, Robin Ward, is clearly a reference to Robin, Batman’s sidekick. The original Robin’s alter ego, Dick Grayson, was once known as Bruce Wayne’s ward and was also portrayed by actor Burt Ward in the Batman (1966) television series.
28. Frenchie calls Kimiko “Mon Coeur” which translates to “My Heart”.
29. One of Hughie’s favorite musical artists is Billy Joel. Billy Joel’s 1989 album is titled Storm Front.
30. Retired CIA operative Grace Mallory was Greg Mallory in the original comic book series.
31. In the comic book, Stormfront is a man.
32. This incarnation of A-Train is African American and has a brother unlike the comic book version who is Caucasian. As in the comics, A-Train is responsible for the death of Hughie’s girlfriend. The main difference is in this version that it was A-Train himself who recklessly crashed into her. In the comics, A-Train’s costume looks like Captain America’s mask while this version looks like the MCU version of Captain America’s sidekick, the Falcon, only in a blue costume
33. Footage from the show is used in Slipknot’s video for 2019 track Solway Firth.
34. Black Noir in the series strongly resembles and acts just like Snake Eyes from the Hasbro property G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1983).
35. Jack Quaid actually grew up a big fan of the property and is the reason why his father Dennis Quaid played General Hawk in the film version G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
36. Karl Urban (Billy Butcher) shares his home country with fellow New Zealand native Antony Starr (Homelander), who is famous for his role on the NZ series Outrageous Fortune (2005), but better known in America for the Cinemax series Banshee (2013).
37. Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty both previously appeared together in a music video for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?”
38. Karl Urban (Butcher) and Antony Starr (Homelander) are both from New Zealand, so of course both have been in Xena(1995).
39. Antony Starr played David (the Giant killer) and Mesas. Karl Urban played four different characters over 12 episodes: Julius Caesar, Cupid, Kor and Mael.
40. Season 2 has received significant backlash from fans since its September 4, 2020 debut due to Amazon Prime only debuting three episodes at its premiere and one new episode per week to complete its eight episode run, as opposed to the first season where all eight episodes were released at once.
41. Many fans were unaware that the second season would be released weekly though Amazon Prime announced it two months prior. “I get that people are disappointed and, frankly, looking back, we thought that we were communicating that we were weekly,” showrunner Eric Kripke told The Wrap. “Clearly, in hindsight, we had to do a lot more than we did to make sure that people weren’t surprised and disappointed. I would have done that differently. I mean, again, we announced it. But we should have neon-signed it on everything, clearly.”
42. Garth Ennis has written several stories for the character Judge Dredd, who Karl Urban portrayed in the film Dredd (2012).
43. A-Train (A speedstar like Flash/ Quicksilver) achieves a speed of 371 meter/ sec in a race with another speed star like him to determine who is the fastest man in the world. This speed is slightly higher than the speed of sound (332 meter/ sec). Though it was never confirmed whether this is his top speed, since he achieved this speed in a race with a similar speedstar, it is safe to assume this is the top speed he can run a
44. Stormfront is Aya Cash’s first action role, usually she plays very normal characters in comedies and dramas
45. Actor Jim Beaver’s character is named Robert A. Singer. His character in Supernatural (2005) is Bobby Singer, who was named after that show’s Executive Producer Robert Singer.
46. Colby Minifie and Erin Moriarty both appeared in the first season of Marvel’s Jessica Jones (2015).
47. Jack Quaid’s parents Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan are both fans of the series.
48. The Seven appear to be largely inspired by DC’s Justice League, with some elements from Marvel’s Avengers and X-Men as well. The Homelander: The “ultimate hero” of Superman with the patriotic theme of Captain America. Queen Maeve: Warrior princess from a mythological land: Wonder Woman. Black Noir: Silent, brooding, stealthy martial artist of Batman, the mutism of Black Bolt, with a bit of G.I. Joe’s silent, black-clad ninja of Snake-Eyes. The Deep: Aquatic heroes like Aquaman and The Submariner. A-Train: Speedsters like The Flash and Quicksilver. Starlight: Female hero who can control light: Dr. Light mixed with Dazzler. Naïve newcomer with light-based powers also fits X-Men’s Jubilee as well. Translucent: The Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman. The Lamplighter: Marvel villain Pyro. Ezekiel: The Fantastic Four’s Mr Fantastic.
49. jensen Ackles auditioned for the role of Solider Boy in season 3 after a phone call he had with Eric Kripke during 2020. Jensen and Eric Kripke worked together on Kripkes show, Supernatural, where Jensen played Dean Winchester. They were discussing another project Jensen was working on when the role of Solider Boy was mentioned to Jensen. After auditioning via a self-recorded audition Jensen was offered the role
50. Brec Bassinger had auditioned for Starlight. She later went on to star in Stargirl (2020) playing the titular character.
51. Neal H. Moritz was originally attached to the failed film adaptation of the comic book.
52. Claudia Doumit (Victoria Neuman), Shantel VanSanten (Becca Butcher), Malcolm Barrett (Seth Reed) and Goran Visnjic (Alastair Adana) all worked together on the series Timeless (2016) (2016-8). In The Boys, none of them share a scene together, except for a brief phone call in the closing moments of season 2
53. Both PJ Byrne and Aya Cash appeared in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
54. When a movie was being developed in the late 00’s, acclaimed music video director Samuel Bayer had been circling the project.
55. Both PJ Byrne and Aya Cash have worked with comedian and actress Janet Varney, who recorded the RiffTrax commentary for Jaws 3, starring Jack Quaid’s father Dennis.
56. Jessie T. Usher and Jack Quaid’s father and uncle Dennis and Randy have worked with director Roland Emmerich.
57. Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, PJ Byrne have all worked with Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
58. Both Elizabeth Shue and Jack Quaid’s father Dennis Quaid have worked for director Mike Figgis.
59. In the graphic novel, all of The Boys, including Hughie, consume Compound V and gain superpowers. This leads to many graphic beatdowns of various Supes, although Homelander is understood to be stronger than them all. In the show, only Kimiko has superpowers.
60. Black Noir’s tree nut allergy was inspired by his actor, Nathan Mitchell, who has a real life tree nut allergy.