RED to use to kill Homelander, which in actuality is Soldier Boy himself, who, due to experimentation, can now emit an energy beam from his chest (Big Chest-Laser) which negates the superpowers of any other Supes with whom it comes in contact.

In the "What I Know" arc, Butcher is revealed to have killed Soldier Boy with a public funeral being held for him and members of the Seven (including the Homelander) serving as his pallbearers.

[2][3] In The Boys arc "Barbary Coast", in precedence of telling "Wee Hughie" Campbell about the true sadistic nature of Billy Butcher, Lieutenant Colonel Greg D. Mallory tells him about his own history with Supes, beginning with his captaincy during World War II, when his company was made by government and Vought officials to supervise the "Avenging Squad", a team of the first American-made Supes, led by the first Soldier Boy, during the Battle of the Bulge.

While eager to serve, Soldier Boy had little military experience, and ordered the flying members of the team to inspect the area for a Nazi presence, oblivious to the fact that doing so would expose their position.

After coming across a mortally wounded Soldier Boy, near-vertically bisected by a blast, in the aftermath, Mallory had then dropped a grenade by his feet before walking away, mercy killing him.

After being mentioned by Stan Edgar in the 2020 second season as an early test subject for Compound V, represented via a statue,[7] Soldier Boy is said by Marvin T. "MM" Milk in the third season to be responsible for killing his grandfather whilst thwarting a carjacking, motivating his father's decision to "work himself to death" as a lawyer attempting to bring down Vought and causing MM's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Interrogating and killing Soldier Boy's former sidekick Gunpowder after injecting himself with "V-24" (a temporary variant of Compound V) given to him by Maeve, giving himself temporary superpowers,[8][9] Butcher learns that Soldier Boy was actually killed during a joint black ops mission between his Supe team Payback and the CIA in Nicaragua in 1984, working against the Sandinistas, under the supervision of Butcher's own mentor Grace Mallory.

[17] Not wanting it publicly known that the Russian government had the capability of killing Supes, President Ronald Reagan had ordered the incident to be covered up with Vought receiving full immunity.

In reality, Stan Edgar had orchestrated the whole incident to get rid of Soldier Boy by allowing Payback to betray him as revenge for the physical and mental abuse he had inflicted upon them, with the intention of replacing him with Homelander.

After failing to track down the Crimson Countess in the present, Butcher and The Boys make their way to Russia and infiltrate the secret laboratory which Maeve believed to hold B.C.L.

Inadvertently awakened from his induced coma, Soldier Boy exits the pod and releases a powerful radiation blast from his chest (Big Chest-Laser) that hits Kimiko Miyashiro and leaves her powerless and wounded (counteracting her usual regenerative abilities).

The ensuing rage triggers a destructive radioactive burst and he levels the better part of a five-story apartment complex, drawing the attention of Homelander as a potential new supervillain.

After finding his way to former Vought executive "The Legend," he recovers his original uniform and confronts the Crimson Countess, who Butcher had restrained as a show of good faith in a bid to join forces with him (with MM being falsely led to believe was to use her as bait to kill Soldier Boy).

While hunting down Mindstorm, one of the two remaining members of Payback (the other being Noir), Soldier Boy starts to hear voices which greatly concerns Hughie and Butcher.

Hughie had previously learned from the Legend that Soldier Boy's service during the Second World War was mostly propaganda, having taken more active roles in suppressing race riots and opposing the Civil Rights and peace movements, with there being "rumors about Dealey Plaza".

Later, realizing the error of his ways, Hughie betrays Soldier Boy and saves Mindstorm, who in turn frees Butcher in return for being teleported to safety.

[33][34] The character was designed as a parody analogous to Marvel Comics' Captain America, a basic "supersoldier" trained in shield-fighting, who maintains a genuinely patriotic and innocent approach to his role, not realizing the depravity of the Supes around him (never resorting to foul language or joining his team during the "Herogasm" orgies, although he privately has sex with Homelander at each one, believing each encounter to be a "test" for him to join the Seven and leave Payback).

For the 2022 third season of the television adaptation, Soldier Boy was redesigned by Laura Jean "LJ" Shannon and Greg Hopwood as analogous to both Captain America, Superman, and the Winter Soldier, in particular the former's "Nomad" depiction in the 2018 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Avengers: Infinity War, as portrayed by Chris Evans, with a practical pointed shield for defense and attack.

Soldier Boy also possesses the ability to produce radiation that can be released from his chest in beams of energy or explosive burst, that can also fry the Compound V out of a Supe's system, courtesy of Soviet-era experimentation.

[52] Ackles' cover of Blondie's "Rapture" received additional praise from the band itself, with original singer Debbie Harry describing the rendition as "epic".