Set photos from the filming of season 2 of The Boys have given us our first look at Aya Cash as new character Stormfront. Season 1 of the show introduced us to a world where ‘supes’ are far more concerned with their public image and how much fame and wealth they can amass from it than they are with actually saving people.
Like many of the series’ featured characters, Stormfront is an expy of an existing superhero, in this case Shazam with some grace notes of Thor. His PR backstory is that he is a reincarnated Viking, but in actuality is the result of an experiment by the Third Reich and is a fully fledged Nazi aging slowly due to the effects of Compound V. He controls the superhero team Payback through fear and intimidation rather than actual leadership, and is acknowledged as one of the most powerful supes in the world, his strength and abilities putting him on a par with Homelander.
The photos were posted to the Twitter feed of Toronto Filming, an account dedicated to updates of productions in the Canadian capital. One picture shows a placard featuring Cash in costume as Stormfront, along with Homelander and the patriotically propagandist slogan “Fighting for our Freedom”. Being shown alongside Homelander all but states she has been made a member of The Seven as a replacement for Translucent, who met a messy end at Hughie’s hands in season 1. The TV version of the character has been gender flipped, and given other departures from the comics the series has already made, it’s not much to assume other changes to her might be incorporated, least of all toning down the character’s unabashed use of racial slurs and abject contempt for pretty much anyone encountered.
The photos also show a monument to Soldier Boy, the comics’ version of Captain America and one of a number to have held the mantle. An ostentatious shrine to a fallen hero is likely overcompensation for an inglorious death, which in the comics was in the Second World War after his incompetence lead Nazi soldiers to a U.S. army camp, resulting in a massacre.
Nothing has yet been revealed about how The Boys’ version of Stormfront will be characterized, but given the greater confidence real-world white supremacists now feel in expressing their ideology, it would feel remiss to not address the issue, least of all with regards to the character intentionally sharing a name with an infamous online forum for hate speech (while having an actor of Jewish descent play a Nazi adds a meta level of irony). The muted tones of what we can see of Stormfront’s costume suggests a character intended to be more aloof and mysterious than the primary colors of heroes with an approachable public image. Also, her being put on in-universe promo material beside the supremely powerful Homelander suggests she may have been elevated above Maeve, which if accurate will doubtless cause friction between the two.
Next: What To Expect From The Boys Season 2
Source: Toronto Filming
