Characters / The Boys (2019): Soldier Boy

The Boys (2019) Main Character Index
The Boys | Supes (The Seven, [Homelander, Starlight, Stormfront], Soldier Boy) | Vought International | Godolkin University | Others

Soldier Boy / Ben

"No one's the new me, pal."

Portrayed by: Jensen Ackles

"I led the 116th onto Omaha Beach. I was in the fucking Eagle's Nest. I fought for this country. I fought for this country. And what did I get for it? Forgotten. Left to rot by my own team. You know, I wanted some rug rats of my own, with Countess. Yeah. Ain't that a bitch. You know, couple of little boys. Raise them up to be men. Now... Now I got nothing."

A Supe from World War II and one of Dr. Frederick Vought's first successful Compound V projects, and officially the first of Vought International's line of superheroes.

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#-F

• '90s Anti-Hero: Though he lacks the requisite edgy name, he's basically this. He's a super-powered he-man that's extremely talented in battle, carries impractical weapons, possesses potent superpowers, has almost zero positive or heroic qualities (save for a few Evil Virtues), and is ultimately on his own side. He only really fights Homelander just to prove that he can and retake his position as the true "alpha" supe.
• 0% Approval Rating: No one seemed to like him when he came to the war zone and Crimson Countess tells him that she, along with the rest of his subordinates on Payback, all hated him enough to sell him out to the Russians for no money at all. A flashback from Noir reveals that he belittled and beat his teammates on a regular basis, giving the rest of Payback the motivation they needed to get rid of him.
• Abusive Parents:
  • His father was distant and neglectful at best, having shipped Ben off to boarding school, and being verbally and emotionally abusive towards him at worst, often telling his son that he was a disappointment and a fuck up unworthy to carry the family name. He notes that the only reason his father wouldn’t beat him is because that would mean he would have to bother touching him.
  • In the Season 3 finale, his personal issues cause him to turn against his son, Homelander, and he nearly incinerates him again.
• The Ace: Before the coming of Homelander, he was the most beloved hero in America and a sex symbol. He's also shown to have been a successful actor and singer regardless of the quality of his performances (although the real Debbie Harry praised his cover of Rapture). Although he's an arrogant jerk, he's one of the few members of Payback that are actually competent in a fight, and was the most powerful member of the team. Even while weakened after a PTSD episode, he fought on almost equal footing with Homelander and nearly killed him (with help from Butcher and Hughie), beat Black Noir to a bloody pulp (twice), easily overpowered Ryan, Starlight, Kimiko, and Temp V Butcher, and held his ground against the rest of Payback despite being outnumbered. Butcher considers him the only person on Earth capable of killing Homelander one-on-one, and Homelander admits himself that he "was the only one that was nearly as strong as me." Although Maeve was able to make Homelander bleed, she suffered several brutal injuries whereas Soldier Boy walked away from his fight with Homelander with only mildly bloodshot eyes.
• Accidental Murder: His nuclear detonation in New York is this, seeing as it was triggered by Soldier Boy listening to a Russian song, which happens to make him relive the trauma he went through in Russia. The same thing also happens in Herogasm where he unwillingly kills 12 people for the same reason, though it's debatable whether he deliberately killed the TNT Twins in that fashion. He also accidentally murdered MM's family through sheer negligence when he stopped a car theft and tossed the car into their house.
• Action Dad: To Homelander.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Jensen Ackles ranked up the character's attractiveness a lot. In the comics, he is at best, average looking and not even that after Billy leaves him without nose. Here, he has the charms of the rough around the edges seasoned soldier. It's also worth noting that the comic version of Soldier Boy wears an embarrassing, brightly colored spoof of the classic Captain America costume, complete with uncomfortably short shorts.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Comparing the Soldier Boy from the comics to his TV series counterpart would be like comparing Glass Joe to Mr. Sandman. In the comics, he was pretty inept and cowardly, with poor knowledge of proper military terminology and tactics. In the show, he is the only Supe to display combat proficiency during the ambush in Nicaragua other than Black Noir. Butcher considers him nearly as strong as Homelander, which is later proven true as he is the first character to pose an actual physical challenge to Homelander. He's significantly stronger than his character's inspiration and basis, Captain America, who though an enhanced super soldier with a number of physical advantages he's nowhere near as invulnerable or strong as Soldier Boy is (who's strength actually seems closer to that of The Hulk).
  • It gets zigzagged a bit when it's revealed that he never actually saw real combat in WW2, making him a Phony Veteran more in line with his comics counterpart. Other than that, however, he is far, far deadlier than his comics counterpart on account of still being a competent fighter, quite possibly only ranking behind Homelander in sheer power, and the Legend implies he did do some actual work as a soldier. It's just that the work he did wasn't exactly heroic. Furthermore the season 3 finale has him overpower Homelander and easily endure his punches.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • In the comics, both incarnations of Soldier Boy were careless and incompetent as they were just military-themed superheroes and not actual soldiers. The first incarnation of Soldier Boy allowed his fellow supes to fly around the area and didn't consult the other soldiers or even consider the idea that the enemy might notice several men flying around the area and might follow them back to their base. The second incarnation of Soldier Boy never served in World War 2, was a coward who fled from fights as soon as he realized he was losing, he had no knowledge of military tactics, and was overall naive and easily manipulated. He had sex with Homelander under the belief that it was a test to join The Seven and would often grovel to other well-known superheroes in the comics. The covers of the comics even show Soldier Boy wetting himself in fear and Butcher made a point of insulting Soldier Boy by calling his backstory of serving in World War 2 an insult to the people who really did serve in it.
  • In the series, Soldier Boy is far more competent and dangerous as he did serve with the military, and is shown to be manipulative with Hughie, who later learns the truth about Soldier Boy from the Legend. He also easily spots one of Mindstorm's brainwashing tricks when Hughie himself was completely fooled. While Soldier Boy did not serve in World War 2, The Legend has stated that Soldier Boy just didn't fight in Germany, instead using a hose on civil rights protestors, participated in the Kent State Massacre, and is rumored to have been involved in Kennedy's assassination. Soldier Boy also revealed that he flunked boarding school in his youth and only became the first test subject for Compound V through his father's connections. However, he said he failed out because he "was a fuck up", suggesting that he flunked boarding school because he didn't apply himself enough.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Despite all their flaws, the Soldier Boys in the comic were well behaved, if naïve. The show's Soldier Boy had a habit of hazing his sidekick and making sexist remarks, as well as coming onto women in front of his girlfriend. In addition, he's also an Attention Whore and doesn't like it when others share the spotlight. Then there's his involvement with the Milk family. His Jerkass traits were actually much worse behind closed doors, with him even physically beating Black Noir to a pulp before the rest of the team as a warning, which provide them all the motivation they needed to betray and gang up on him on the mission in Nicaragua. These traits and similar behavioral patterns seem to have been passed down to the son, Homelander.
• Adaptational Modesty: In the comics, he wears a ludicrous blue costume, which does not cover his arms and legs, but here, he wears a green and militarized version of Captain America's costume and thus has only his head uncovered.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Played With. His comics version often had sex with Homelander, believing it is a test for him to join The Seven. Here, he is as straight as you could get from a man born in the '20s or '30s.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In addition to increased strength and agility, he has explosive energy powers given to him by the Russians, which allow him to depower other Supes to boot.
• Adaptation Personality Change: He has little characterisation in the comics, but from the little it was shown, he was coward, childish and an incompetent fool. Ben on the other hand, is the very embodiment of the conservative macho man. He is arrogant, reckless, womanizer and a macho man.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • With Butcher. In the comics, they never are anything more than enemies, and he got beaten, tortured, and murdered by Butcher. Here, they become allies for a while.
  • And Homelander too. In the comics, he is nothing more than Homelander's sexual toy. Here, they are both built up to be Arch Enemies fighting for the spotlight... until they both learn that Soldier Boy is Homelander's father.
• Age-Gap Romance: Hinted at. He is an ageless man born in the inter-war era and dated Crimson Countess in the '80s.
• The Ageless: Unlike his comics counterpart, this one did apparently live on after fighting in WWII without aging a day. The Legend indicates this was actually a problem, as though he was Older Than He Looks people were still beginning to find the idea of his immortality troubling (apparently people were uncomfortable with him being paired with actresses that were barely legal for his movies). Crimson Countess comments that he looks the same even after being held captive by the Russian government for decades.
• Allegorical Character:
  • He's the physical embodiment of toxic masculinity. He matches the criteria for the stereotypical Manly Man, i.e. has a beard, hot-blooded, muscular, and stoic, but these traits are shown to be unhealthy. If Stormfront represents active bigotry, then Soldier Boy represents subtle bigotry that arises from apathy and inaction toward victims of discrimination (although he can be a bit upfront at times). His aggressiveness makes him toxic towards his teammates in Payback, he discriminates against the non-whites and non-heterosexuals, he's sexist and anti-feminist, and his bottled-up emotions are now symbolically expressed through nuclear blasts whenever his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is triggered by a Russian song called "Escape".
  • Also like Stormfront, he can be seen as a metaphor for how narcissists and sociopaths usually don’t change even as they become elderly. This matches up with the slowed aging effects he received from the Compound-V he was injected with. He was literally and figuratively frozen in place as a person.
  • He's also the embodiment of the US military's ugly side. He's one of the most powerful and influential forces in the world, but he accidentally kills innocent people with nuclear explosions and then acts like he's the good guy for the most part. As a result, most people are too scared to stand up to him. Homelander's response to the danger he represents also mirrors the Trump Administration's "nothing to see here" response to the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic.
• All Take and No Give: He expected loyalty and respect from his team Payback while giving none to them in return, and assaulted and threatened members off the team whenever any of them, like Black Noir, tried to "take the spotlight" from him. Ultimately this selfish attitude led to both Payback, and Vought, to betray Soldier Boy to the Soviet's.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: He's the Comedian if he were given superpowers. He's always shown presenting an almost identical gruff, boorish, womanizing, highly conservative corruption of the Captain America archetype with a background in World War II, down to the same weapon of a Thompson submachine gun. He's even obliquely implied to have shot JFK. A major revelation within each series is that they are the biological father of another main character; Silk Spectre II for the Comedian and Homelander for Soldier Boy.
• Amazon Chaser: Played With. Perhaps it was just bluffing since he was trying to flirt with a young Mallory, but he stated he likes the assertive ones like her, and is genuinely impressed that she is leading the Nicaragua mission.
• Ambiguously Trained: Although it's revealed he never saw combat in World War II, he's still a very skilled fighter and clearly familiar with firearms and throwing knives. His ability to remain calm and easily fight off communist soldiers in Nicaragua also suggests prior experience. He clearly has had some type of combat training, but whether he received it mainly from the US military, the CIA, or Vought is unknown.
• Animal Motifs: Eagles. As the leading hero of Vought and a source of propaganda, Soldier Boy is given an eagle motif to reflect his status as a symbol of America. An eagle is etched into his shield, an eagle is designed on the chest of his costume, and the hilt of his knife is also shaped like an eagle's head. In Black Noir's cartoon flashbacks, he's portrayed by an anthroponotic eagle, and his son Homelander also wears an eagle symbol for his costume after inheriting his status as Vought's most profitable hero.
• And I Must Scream: For close to forty years, he was kept as a prisoner in Russia, where he was experimented on. From what little is shown, some of these experiments included firing an assault rifle into his mouth, poking his eyes with sharp implements, attempts to burn him with a blow torch and subjecting him to such intense doses of radiations that it fundamentally changed his physiology. When the crew finds him, he's completely restrained but fully conscious inside a small pod with a breathing mask over his face.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To MM. Even while (believed to be) dead, Soldier Boy haunts Marvin's thoughts like no other, which makes sense since Soldier Boy killed his grandfather, which in turn caused Marvin's father's heart attack. The minute that Butcher tells M.M. that he has a lead on Soldier Boy's death, he begins to spiral until he loses it in front of his daughter, leading him right back to Butcher. This is one-sided on MM's part though, as Soldier Boy doesn't really recall MM, asking him dismissively "which one?"
  • He's clearly one for Black Noir of all people when his abusive past of Payback is revealed.
• Arc Villain: Soldier Boy is the central threat of Season 3. While less overtly unhinged compared to the Psychopathic Manchild Homelander, his unstable powers make him a dangerous loose cannon as he kills numerous innocents in his quest to get revenge on his old teammates, while his alliance with Butcher endangers thousands more and alienates the rest of the Boys—particularly M.M., whose grandfather was accidentally killed by the hero.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Resorts to violence with minimal provocation, like Black Noir simply coming late to train.
• Attention Whore: So much that he lied and bad-mouthed Black Noir to Don Simpson, making him lose the role of his life, Axel Foley. Then he beats Noir, just because. Just like Homelander, it’s implied he was desperate for public adoration to compensate for the love and respect he never received from his father growing up.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His nuclear blast can destroy buildings and De-power Supes, but it takes so long to charge that his targets usually have enough time to escape if they're aren't being restrained.
• Awesomeness-Induced Amnesia: Soldier Boy never remembers what happens when his powers are triggered by his Trauma Button. He cannot control the outcome and it always leaves corpses behind.
• Ax-Crazy: The man's got a Hair-Trigger Temper to rival them all and is extremely quick to resort to gratuitous amounts of bloodshed and savagery upon being challenged. Even Butcher, who isn't a paragon of mental health himself, had to keep him toked out all the time during their brief team-up so that he was calm enough to work with. This was partially the reason why Payback turned on him, as even they weren't safe from his psychotic rages, something that the horrendous physical and mental injuries of Black Noir can attest to.
• Bad Boss: The reason why he got betrayed by Payback, was because he mistreating and threatening all of them.
• Bait the Dog: Until Herogasm, Soldier Boy is shown as a supe who is rough around the edges but is competent and ultimately at least intends to do the right thing. Noir's flashback however reveals him to be The Bully who used to batter his teammates to the point that they got sick of him and had the Russians take him away.
• Battle Couple: Used to with Crimson Countess, or so he thought back in Nicaragua. He even dreamed to have a family with her.
• Badass Longcoat: His WWII look had him wearing a leather longcoat.
• Beard of Sorrow: His beard grew while he was in captivity in Russia. Though he trims it after escaping, it is still much longer than the Perma-Stubble he had when he was captured in The '80s.
• Been There, Shaped History: He took part in the Red Scare, met the likes of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Princess Diana and was friends with Bill Cosby. He was part of a CIA secret operation that sided with the Contra Rebels against the Sandinistas and the communists in Nicaragua, 1984.
  • He also brutalized civil rights activists in the 1960s and personally murdered anti-war protesters at Kent State. And he might have shot JFK.
• Believing Their Own Lies: See the quote at the top of the page? Soldier Boy genuinely views himself as a war hero who gave his all for his country, and is depressed by the idea he was cast away and forgotten. Except he's a Fake Ultimate Hero who never actually fought in WW2, yet his angst appeared genuine and he gets violent when Hughie outright calls him out on his lies, indicating at some point he came to genuinely buy the hype around himself and it doesn't help that Vought's corporate influence and pandering to his needs, along with his torturous experimentation at the hands of the Russians, plays a factor into that.
• Beneath the Mask: To the public, he is this ultra manly seasoned war veteran who found true love in Crimson Countess. In reality, he is a sexually-depraved man, who bullied and often abused his teammates. And he never fought in Normandy, he only took part in a photo-op.
• Berserk Button: Any attack on his ego.
  • He gets noticeably angry when Mallory says that the women he hits on don't actually like him, so the idea that he's not good with women appears to really bother him.
  • Don't even think about touching, let alone breaking, his shield.
    Soldier Boy: Hands off the fucking shield.
  • Hughie telling him that he has PTSD clearly upsets him.
    Soldier Boy: OK, first off, I don't have shell shock. Fuck you.
  • Hughie insulting his reputation by bringing up how he never stormed Normandy or fought the Nazis clearly bothers him. He even slaps Hughie for this.
    Soldier Boy I warned you.
  • As Black Noir learned, attempting to steal the public spotlight from him, or making him think that you are, makes him very angry.
  • It's also really not a good idea to betray him. He only agrees to help Butcher and Hughie because they promise to help him find the rest of Payback.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Even though Homelander wants Soldier Boy to join him and Ryan as a family, Soldier Boy turns on them in the Season 3 finale out of disgust for what he perceives as weakness, spurning Butcher to in turn betray him in order to protect Ryan.
• Big Good: He was framed as this to the large American public.
  Memorial Video: He helped guide America into a brighter future, and along the way, he found the love of a good woman, which made his sacrifice all the more noble, when he gave his life saving [the Americans] from a nuclear holocaust.
• Bigotry Exception: Soldier Boy considers Bill Cosby to be America's dad, but he also spent most of his service fighting civil rights protestors.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ben has a weird mixture of values. He's perfectly fine with abusing his teammates and shows little remorse in accidentally killing innocent people. Like his son Homelander, he has a Social Darwinist mindset. However, he thinks promises should be unbreakable. It seems to him, treachery is the worst sin anyone can commit and the punishment for it is death. In Soldier Boy's eyes, if you make a deal with someone, regardless of what it is or who you made it with, you must hold up your side and shouldn't shed any tears or express any regret while doing so. He also has a very outdated view of masculinity that he tries to abide by at all times and harshly criticizes other men for not fitting into. In his eyes, being a man involves being stoic, tough, and sexually dominating as many women as possible. Not to mention his homophobia and hatred towards communists.
• Book Dumb: Although he’s a competent fighter and tactician, he seems to not understand more nuanced issues like international affairs or geopolitics, referring to America and its allies as “the good guys.” He also failed out of boarding school and it’s unknown whether he received any further education.
• Break the Badass: He was Vought International's most celebrated hero and their symbol of pride, and Soldier Boy had the arrogant attitude to show it. Then he was captured, experimented, and tortured on by Russians and he comes out a much more somber and stoic man.
• Broken Ace: In present day, Soldier Boy is "radioactive, highly traumatized and highly self-medicated" with weed from Butcher.
• Broken Pedestal: Several times over.
  • Hughie really believed that at least Soldier Boy was a true hero, for all his outdated ideas. The Legend made sure to shatter all of Hughie's illusions about him.
  • MM was apparently a fan of Soldier Boy as a child, and was excited to see him stop a carjacking in front of his family home, even waking up his grandpa to come and see it. Then Soldier Boy chucked said car right at the house, killing Marvin's grandpa on the spot, helping set Marvin on the road to becoming one of the Boys, hating Soldier Boy as much as Butcher hates Homelander.
  • Homelander also viewed Soldier Boy as his idol growing up and is ecstatic to learn he's biologically his son. Soldier Boy shatters his views when he calls him a cheap knockoff and a fucking disappointment of a son.
• The Bully: He is not a nice teammate or boss, viciously beating his colleagues on the flimsiest excuse.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a Jerkass, a Casanova Wannabe, and displays Reckless Gun Usage (especially egregious as he is an enlisted soldier), but is one of the very few Supes who is actually shown to be competent in a fight.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Mother's Milk confronts Soldier Boy and tells him that he killed his family, Soldier Boy dismissively replies "which one?"
• Beware the Silly Ones: He can be pretty eccentric, and he's appeared in some funny music videos throughout his career, but don't let that detract from the fact that he's a cold-blooded killer and the second most powerful Supe on Earth (and probably the most dangerous).
• The Cape: Before Homelander, he was advertised as this by Vought, being the archetypal superhero that everyone looked up to due to him being the first superhero and having fought in World War II. Of course, the truth is anything but and it turns out he didn't even fight in WWII. Hell, he doesn't even like capes.
• Captain Patriotic: He was a soldier who fought in World War II (but not really as he arrived in Normandy two weeks after D-Day) and being Vought's first superhero, he was specifically designated to represent the United States's values and ideals. Soldier Boy's title, costume getup, and style are evocative of what's to be expected of a soldier and he's Vought International's oldest, and one of their most recognized superheroes.
• Catching Up on History: Soldier Boy is observant, learning about Vought and the prevalence of The Seven from advertisements, as well as social progress that makes him uncomfortable and/or angry. He misses the update on Bill Cosby, however.
• Catchphrase: He loves the word "pussy" as much as Butcher loves the word "cunt".
• Caught with Your Pants Down: If there is a habit Homelander inherited from his father, it's shamelessly masturbating anywhere. The lack of shame sets him apart from most examples.
• Chest Blaster: Soldier Boy discharges his nuclear blasts from his chest and stomach if there is a strong emotional trigger.
• Chick Magnet: Despite his misogyny and rude behavior, he has a long history of sleeping with several famous women like Jane Wyman & Loni Anderson. He seems to be more popular with women closer to his age bracket.
• Close-Range Combatant: The only saving grace for his enemies is that Soldier Boy has no immediate long range attacks nor any way of closing the distance quickly like Homelander who can do both. But when he does get within arm's reach, and there's no stopping that thanks to his Super-Toughness, there's nothing in the world that will save them from a brutal thrashing. However, if you give him a few seconds to charge, you should consider leaving the surrounding area.
• Comfort Food: After he connects with Hughie and Butcher, what's the first favor he asks in return for hunting down Homelander? A bottle of whiskey and some fast food from Vought-A-Burger, namely orders of chicken strips, fries, and a cheeseburger. He's disappointed that they stopped carrying the Chop Sockey Oriental Sauce. Possibly a Shout-Out to Iron Man, where the titular hero's first wish after escaping a hellhole prison in Afghanistan is to stop at the nearest drive-thru for a cheeseburger.
• Composite Character: In the comics, there were three Soldier Boys, the Monster Progenitor who fought in WWII like its show version, but died after a while. The first two got replaced by the Soldier Boy we meet in comics, who was an unskilled coward instead and not a seasoned soldier like the first one. This even applies to his Corrupted Character Copy nature, as he takes on/parodies aspects of both the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, as well as the 2000s-era Captain America, Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier, which in itself seemed to be the inspiration for the original Soldier Boy being a Legacy Character. This version of Soldier Boy also takes on aspects of the comic version of Stormfront, namely being The Ageless WWII era super soldier rather than a Legacy Character, having the raw power to rival Homelander's, his personality and him being Homelander's father (in the comics Stormfront's genetic material was used to create Homelander, making him the closest thing Homelander had to a biological father)..
  • Also, while Soldier Boy's costume bears almost no resemblance to the one present-day Soldier Boy wears in the comics, it very heavily resembles the outfit worn by the original, with a similar muted green color scheme, cowl design and almost identical looking shields.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: He is this to Stormfront, who outside of being among the first Supes, couldn't be any more different from one another.
  • Both came from the World War II era, but Ben was advertised as an American patriotic soldier for propaganda against the Nazi whereas Klara is a Nazi. This didn't stop them from being friends or even lovers in the '50s.
  • Soldier Boy is distant from Vought and the Seven upon resurfacing in the modern era, and joins up with Billy and Hughie in an Enemy Mine situation. Stormfront was made Transluscent's replacement in the Seven and antagonized the Boys.
  • Both have some very outdated views but while Ben's is attributable to his macho attitude and the time period he came from and he is capable of at least some growth and nuance, having a positive view of middle eastern people, Stormfront is a full-fledged Nazi.
  • Both have a close association with Homelander, with Soldier Boy being considered his greatest threat to his popularity and power, but also his biological father, whereas he was willing to go to bed with Stormfront upon taking her advice.
• Cool Helmet: Dons a similar one to Captain America's.
• The Comically Serious: The show mines a lot of humor out of him saying incredibly ridiculous things with a straight face, often for black comedy.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Of Captain America, being an empowered soldier from World War II. While Steve Rogers is humble and polite, earning the admiration of fellow superheroes and becoming the Big Good of his setting, Soldier Boy basks in his status and ends up so arrogant as to abuse and alienate his peers. Also, like Steve Rogers (and his former sidekick-turned successor, Bucky Barnes, more commonly known as the Winter Soldier) Soldier Boy is a Fish out of Temporal Water, but while Steve and Bucky are remarkably egalitarian for the time period they originate from, Soldier Boy is a crass bigot who scoffs at the idea of men not fitting his definition of masculinity. Essentially Soldier Boy is what you'd get if the recruit who bullied Steve Rogers during training became Captain America, or rather, if you take John Walker's Jerkass traits to the extreme. Arguably making him a somewhat toned down William "Commie-Smasher" Burnside. Humorously, his costume's green redesign of Captain America's suit gives him a noticeable resemblance to Hydra-Cap from Secret Empire.
• Crazy-Prepared: He knows how to take down and kill each member of Payback, as seen when he fights Mindstorm.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: His one-on-one fight against Homelander in Herogasm; Homelander is physically stronger, faster, and has a wider variety of powers which allows him to hold the advantage, but Soldier Boy's combat experience and superior durability prove that he can get some good hits in and prove that Homelander is Not So Invincible After All.
• Daddy Issues: Nearly every problem that Ben has arises from his emotionally distant and abusive father and no matter what he did, he could never get his father's approval. Even after being renowned throughout America and outliving his father by a century, Ben still had hangovers from his father's lack of approval and apathy towards him as seen in his talk with Butcher.
• Deadpan Snarker: He tends to make quite sexist quips toward Mallory.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Living Relic. As a living time capsule of a man raised through the 1940s, Soldier Boy presents all the outdated views of masculinity from that time period - smoking, fighting, dismissive of women and LGBT people, looking down on men who look after their families, and rejecting any display of emotional vulnerability. Rather than make people nostalgic or reflect on the "golden years", Soldier Boy pretty much shows why society is trying to move on from these traits. Tellingly, even in the '80s, it's shown that he's something people would prefer to move past, as his attempts to flirt with Mallory hew closer to sexual harassment than anything. This reaches its nadir in the finale, as he immediately rejects Homelander, his own son, for crying and tries to murder him for being a disappointment.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • As expected from a man from the 40s, he's got some very dated views. His interactions with Mallory display a heavily chauvinistic attitude, musing that an attractive woman is wasted as an officer, making numerous unwanted advances, and derogatorily calling her a "lesbo" for shooting him down. While traveling around New York, he's confused by the promotion of Queen Maeve (which was marketing around her bisexuality) and bemused by the sight of an interracial gay couple kissing in public, rolling his eyes in disbelief. He later on questions the idea of men acting in a nurturing way after seeing an ad for baby care aimed at fathers, and speaks fondly of Liberty, better known as Stormfront, an actual Nazi.
  • This isn't just played with him being blindly bigoted, though, as he speaks fondly of Afghanistan and doesn't understand why the US had invaded; in the time he was from, Afghanistan was America's ally against the Soviets, so he lacks the Islamophobic, anti-Middle Eastern prejudice many conservative American men like himself developed following the last few wars overseas.
  • While he hates black people, he thinks the icon of the perfect and ideal American dad, and a wonderful drink mixer, is Bill Cosby, though Bill Cosby was known for mocking black people, and he did crack down on Civil Rights protests during the 1960s, and later verbally accosted and brutalized Black Noir when he wanted to break out on his own, including callously saying he shouldn't try to "move on up", which is a reference to The Jeffersons and a clear jab at Black Noir's race. Soldier Boy has also shown to be quite negligent in handling problems in black communities, as a group of kids stealing a Mercedes Benz resulted in the Supe hurling the car through an apartment building and killing M.M's grandfather in the process.
• Disappeared Dad: Turns out that he is Homelander's dad. Something he did not know 41 years after the later was born.
• Disinherited Child: He was originally the son of a business tycoon who, according to Soldier Boy, "own half the steel mills across the state" but was disinherited by his father after being kicked out of boarding school for being a "fuck-up and a disappointment". Never the mind good enough to carry his name.
• The Dog Bites Back: His team sold him out to the Russians as payback for how he mistreated them over the years.
• The Dreaded: Upon his revival and return into the modern-day, almost everyone, including Black Noir and Homelander himself, are scared shitless of him. And given what he does to Crimson Countess once he catches up with her, they are all reasonably right to be afraid of him. He already was scary enough due to his great strength, nigh-indestructibility, and highly aggressive nature. Now, he's literally a living nuclear weapon that could go off at any minute. Mother's Milk even developed his OCD as a result of his intense fear of Soldier Boy. The fact that his family was murdered right in front of his eyes makes this justified. The only people who aren't scared of him are Butcher, Stan Edgar, and Grace Mallory.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He's mentioned and shown a few times before he makes his full appearance in season 3. First, he's mentioned by Stillwell in a Season 1 promo as the earliest known Supe leading up to The Seven, and then glimpsed in a video collage of Vought supes in the series premiere. In Season 2, depictions of him appear, first a cardboard cutout in the pawnshop and later a statue in front of the tower.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: His comic standee and statue we see in season 2, which depict him early in his career, are different from how his early costume we see in season 3. The helmet had a more unique shape was blue and red, and wore a dark suit with little detail aside from a nuclear hazard symbol on his belt, which was both anachronistic and prescient. In the redesign, he wears a stylized armored vest with an eagle symbol and a regular army helmet with a star on it.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Implied. While Soldier Boy is revealed to have never fought in WWII, and most of his combat experience involves quelling civil rights activists and anti-war protestors, his ability to stay calm in live combat as demonstrated in Nicaragua makes it plausible that he was involved with either corporate or U.S. Military (or both) wetwork (both inland and overseas) but wasn't put on public record due to its morally ambiguous nature.
• Enemy Mine: After leading Soldier Boy to Crimson Countess, Butcher proposes an alliance between themselves to take out Homelander, his replacement.
• Enraged by Idiocy: He tells Hughie how annoyed he was at TNT Twins for being unprofessional and missing their marks all the time.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Upon finding out that Crimson Countess sold him out to the Soviets during the Nicaragua operation, he calmly fries her alive with his nuclear power.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Even if he was a bad influence on his team he still genuinely loved Crimson Countess and wanted to start a family with her one day. He also contemplates not killing Homelander after finding out that he is his biological son, even being willing to step into obscurity so that Homelander can take his place. It would be kind of sweet if it wasn't Homelander we were talking about. Then it's subverted in the very next episode, when his self-hatred and daddy issues cause him to turn against his son.
• Even the Guys Want Him: If his anecdote of Bill Cosby making "strong drinks" is of any indication, Cosby may have had a thing for him. Or, Ben sipped some of Cosby’s “special” drinks by accident.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As toxic and brutal as he is, Soldier Boy was disgusted by Homelander's entitlement and prejudice toward humans as Soldier Boy knows that Supes aren't born and he was raised as a human before getting Compound V. Also unlike Homelander, he sees no point in harming those who aren't in his way. He even seems somewhat disturbed by the Midtown Manhattan incident. Also, although he boldly and frequently flirts with women and often makes sexist remarks, he’s never shown forcing himself on any woman physically unlike his son, who just raped a woman on a whim. He sticks to threatening and intimidating women to get them to sleep with him (and a few are actually consenting). He also seems to have a genuine hatred towards communists and Nazis (despite sleeping with one).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Having daddy issues and being a terrible father willing to kill his son for being "disappointing", he's genuinely surprised when Butcher defends Ryan. When Butcher says that Ryan is his wife's son, he's completely baffled and asks what's wrong with him that he'd want to save his wife's bastard.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: His line after shooting a priest and nun he believes to be brainwashed by Mindstorm is "What's black and white and red all over?" After Butcher tells him he killed Gunpowder, he responds by saying "that's like killing Emmanuel Lewis."
• Eviler than Thou: Zigzagged; While Homelander is a truly abhorrent person, his one redeeming trait is that he genuinely loves Ryan and actively tries to bond with him. Soldier Boy, while comparatively less of an outward psychopath, tries to kill Homelander, his own son, due to his own unresolved parental issues, which he projects onto Homelander. At the same time, it's understandable why anyone would be disgusted and disappointed in having Homelander as a son. However, he also knocks out his own grandson and possibly would've killed him when he tried to blast Homelander. Then again, Homelander is also shown to have gotten even 'worse' this season in every other aspect; He forces a depressed girl to commit suicide and tries to harvest Maeve's eggs to make super babies. While Soldier Boy causes a lot of collateral damage, it's shown to be accidental. However, he shows little guilt afterward.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Admits he always wanted children because he imagines he could've done it better than his father - the exact definition of "good" here is debatable, but he is certainly disgusted with the way Homelander turned out enough to call for a do-over.
• Evil Virtues: Say what you want about Soldier Boy, but he's loyal to his word. When he makes a deal, he'll hold up his side even if it means life or death or killing his own family. Just before the Herogasm fight, when Butcher is temporarily incapacitated, Soldier Boy still is willing to face Homelander. Even when Butcher is put into an "endless nightmare" by Mindstorm and he thinks Butcher will likely die, Soldier Boy still promises to Hughie that he'll help kill Homelander. In the finale, where fans expected him to betray Butcher and Hughie to side with his son Homelander, it's actually Butcher that betrays Soldier Boy and sides with Homelander (temporarily) to protect Ryan.
• Exact Words: He did storm the beaches of Normandy as he claimed — but he just left out that he did so 2 weeks after the Normandy Landings.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Kills Mindstorm by bashing his head in with his shield, then proceeds to keep beating the corpse while screaming in a rage.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: For decades, from his service in World War II until his disappearance in the '80s, Soldier Boy was promoted as the ultimate American hero. The Legend reveals to Hughie that, like with everything else tied to Vought, stories of Soldier Boy's exploits were the result of good marketing; his supposed storming of Normandy was a photo op which took place two weeks after D-Day.
• Family-Values Villain: If his claims are genuine, had he known Homelander exists, he would have let Homelander take the spotlight from him one day. Though those claims end up being thrown out the window as he sees Homelander as Weak-Willed and is still gunning to kill him due to his deal with Butcher.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride, wrath, and being unable to get over the past. He bullied the hell out of Payback to keep them beneath him, relishing in the limelight with an absolute refusal to share with anyone, which is what motivated them to betray him. After which, he hunts them down one-by-one on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, irked they would betray him, and he gets violent with Hughie when the latter calls him on his fake backstory. It’s revealed that at the core of all his toxic behavior is a gaping emotional wound left by his father from calling him a “disappointment.”
• Faux Affably Evil: While he is very much a product of his time and spouts out some dickish remarks and responses, Soldier Boy is capable of attachments and camaraderie. Except it turns out that he was an abusive bully to the rest of Payback. He even personally disfigured Black Noir in an incredibly painful fashion during their betrayal of him, beating him so badly he gave him brain damage, even using his shield to carve further damage into his skull, all without regret.
• Fights Like a Normal: Soldier Boy's powers are quite mild compared to the other heroes as he only gets his radiation powers after the Russian experiments. So far, he has superhuman strength, superhuman durability, various immunities to poisons and toxins, superhuman speed and reflexes, a regenerative healing factor, and longevity. He might not have been trained for World War 2 but he appears to have some level of combat training, either through Vought or when he assisted the military in repressing some civil rights activists in the 1960s and he personally murdered anti-war protesters at Kent State. He could have also received training with Payback when they went to Nicaragua as part of a publicity stunt.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: When walking through New York after escaping from decades of Russian captivity, Soldier Boy is confused and surprised by modern developments he encounters, such as the Seven, new technology, and open sexuality. He's also unaware of American Islamophobia and even questions why the US invaded Afghanistan, and hasn't yet learned about the Bill Cosby scandal.
• Fluffy the Terrible: He has a pretty campy superhero name for being such a legendary Supe as well as The Dreaded.
• Folk Hero: In-Universe, The Legend wrote his story about Soldier Boy being a humble hero coming from the working class to defend America and its freedom.
• Freudian Excuse: He grew up in a privileged environment as the son of a business tycoon and failed out of boarding school. His father was emotionally absent, and constantly expressed his disappointment and embarrassment in having Ben for his son. He used his father's connections to be one of the first test subjects for Compound V in America as a means to finally impress him. When he returned from WW2 as a supposed war hero, his father claimed he took a 'shortcut'. These words are heavily implied to have always remained with Soldier Boy, and as such, he overcompensates with a hyperaggressive and arrogant bravado to convince others (and himself) that he's a "real man." Even worse, the public adored and encouraged his war hero persona, and the Compound V he took protected him from physical harm, the downsides of aging, and amplified his narcissistic personality. As such, just like Homelander, he's emotionally stunted with an underdeveloped sense of empathy.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Believe it or not he Used to Be a Sweet Kid who became a super-hero to earn his fathers respect. This failed as his father despised him viewing him as weak and unworthy to carry his name, even saying this to his face. This caused him to hyper compensate with Testosterone Poisoning, worse the public loved him for it, reinforcing his behavior. Consequentally, 40 years of enabling, insecurity, zero accountability for his actions, and heavy drug use resulted in a raging jerkass who lashed out at everyone and everything. His behavior got to the point where just about everyone from his agent, to his girlfriend, his teammates, and Vought had enough and handed him over to the Russians to be rid of him. Despite the danger of them reverse engineering Compound-V, knowing he would suffer, be experimented on, and presumably killed in horrific fashion was worth the price to everyone for him to be gone. Zigzagged with Gunpowder; despite receiving a torrent of physical and emotional abuse at his hands (to the point Billy assumes that it even involved sexual abuse, but Gunpowder denies it) Gunpowder remained loyal to him, and even was the only one who didn't take part in the scheme to send Soldier Boy off to Russia.
• From Zero to Hero: His public backstory is a poor kid from South Philadelphia who worked his way up through hard work and tenacity. Soldier Boy reveals to Butcher it was complete bullshit made up by a marketing department. In truth, he came from a very privileged upbringing in a wealthy industrialist family.
• Functional Addict: Justified because Compound V has made him immune to all toxins, poisons, and diseases; It is revealed all those years Soldier Boy has been not only an alcoholic, but also constantly on benzedrine, more commonly known nowadays as amphetamine, probably picking both even before he was turned into a Super-Soldier. Despite all that, he's highly functional and considers both heavy drinking and being high to be purely recreational, but it is clear he's addicted to both. Even after almost 4 decades in captivity, he immediately relapses back into abusing a variety of substances.

G-L

• Giftedly Bad: He takes great pride in his abilities as a performer, particularly as a singer and actor. The few on-screen examples given show that he is embarrassingly bad at both.
• Green and Mean: His costume is mainly a dark shade of mint-green and he's pretty crude and abrasive as a person.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Despite learning Ryan is his grandson, he doesn’t hesitate to knock the kid out with his shield and insult him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He will become verbally abusive and violently lash out at others just for questioning him.
• Handsome Lech: A good-looking and muscular guy with many sexual conquests (that he's happy to tell you about), but a deeply off-putting, repugnant personality that kills any chance at romance.
  • In spite of their public relationship and her visible outpouring of grief after his capture, Crimson Countess hated him just as much as every other member of Payback for his (even for a Supe) asshole behavior, and was the one who sold him out to the Russians.
  • When he tried hitting on a young Mallory, she pointedly shot back that his lines aren't as smooth as he thinks they are, and most women don't call him out because they're either intimidated or humoring him. His response was to call her a frigid lesbian while trying not to cry.
• Hated by All: When asked why he was betrayed, Crimson Countess said it was because everyone hated him. One of Black Noir's flashbacks shows that this was the result of him being an abusive bully to the rest of Payback, Black Noir in particular who he disfigured and mutilated. However, Gunpowder noticeably was the only member of Payback who seemed to actually like Soldier Boy, as he refused to join the plan to get rid of him. He did, however, file complaints against Soldier Boy.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: In his first appearance, Soldier Boy looks like a stray, with unkept hair and long beard and dirty clothing. After visiting The Legend who gives his costume back, he goes after his ex wearing his costume, with his hair trimmed and a Perma-Stubble.
• Hearing Voices: Played With. As a sufferer of PTSD, Soldier might be hearing voices, given that he constantly asks Hughie and Butcher if they said something. As he's on a lot of weed by this point though, it's possible that its just aggravated his paranoia.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Zig-zagged. He used to wear a helmet back before he was taken by the Soviets, but it was more to complete his costume, given that he was pretty much immune to headshots. In the present, he doesn't bother with it, going bareheaded.
• Heroic Build: While the heroic part is questionable, he is shows being well built even after four decades in Russia, in contrast to Homelander's fake Heroic Build. Jensen declared in an interview that he had to work for six months to biff up as much as possible for his role.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite his philandering Soldier Boy did apparently genuinely love Crimson Countess, based on his heartbroken reaction to her betrayal. He later admits he wanted to start a family with her; "I wanted some rugrats of my own with Countess…a couple little boys, raise them up to be men." Subverted though by the fact he abused all of Payback, likely her included, so whatever love that existed was probably not healthy and definitely not reciprocated.
    • It's possible though he did care about his team and rationalized his abuse as "tough love" that prepared them for war. After all, he considered his father's refusal to physically abuse him as an insult, as to him it fully confirmed that his dad simply regarded him as too worthless to pay even a bit of effort to. He also goes out of his way not to shoot Hughie when a brainwashed nun jumps on the latter's back. He even plans on holding up his end of the bargain when he thinks Butcher is going to die from terminal hydration due to being put into an "endless nightmare" by Mindstorm. This is more proof that he values whatever team he's on, but his approach to being on one is very questionable.
  • While he has a lot of Deliberate Values Dissonance around him, his bigotry is a bit more nuanced than is typical for the series. Though he took part in squashing civil rights activists and was excessively violent at crime fighting in black neighborhoods (leading to the deaths of MM's family), he admired Bill Cosby as "America's dad", though this could be because Bill Cosby was known for pandering to white people and mocking black people, and is proud of his role in raising publicity for the Afghans' resistance against the Soviet invasion, calling them "the good guys" and being very confused to why the US invaded Afghanistan.
  • Also he reveals in a moment of vulnerability that, unlike his "successor" Homelander, there is a measure of a conscience and genuine conviction buried beneath his smarminess and bigotry as he admits to the terrible things he did and doesn't excuse himself for it, making him A Lighter Shade of Black compared to that of his other teammates and most other Supes by actually owning up to his actions in earnest. Subverted though when it turns out his combat history is made up, and when confronted by MM, he pulls a For Me It Was Tuesday without any guilt. However, he does show a small but genuine amount of remorse for accidentally killing 19 people in Manhattan, even saying, "I didn't mean to hurt those people" with a somber look on his face.
  • When Homelander introduces him to Ryan, he says that "it's a shame that I've missed…so much." He even says he would've liked to have raised and seen the birth of his son. He also gives Ryan a quick loving stare. However, whatever care he shows for either of them is completely overshadowed by how he tries to kill both of them moments later.
  • He shows a surprising amount of self-restraint in the present when compared to his Payback days. When Hughie insults his reputation by saying "He didn't storm shit", he responds with a hard slap after warning him that he would do so. In the past, he assaulted his teammates for simply going against his wishes, such as when Black Noir confronted him for ruining his chances to star in Beverly Hills Cop. Even when Mother's Milk attempted to gas him out with halothane and raised his fists to fight, he's easily convinced to leave him alone by Butcher. This shows that while he doesn't tolerate any perceived attacks on his ego, Soldier Boy won't harm anyone he doesn't view as in his way (unless by accident).
  • While in Nicaragua, he shows Grace Mallory a sign of respect for killing an enemy that was sneaking up behind him despite having insulted her minutes prior for rejecting his advances. He doesn't like it when people attack his ego, but he respects those who have his back and are skilled in combat.
  • Also, after Hughie betrays him by teleporting Mindstorm away from him to heal Butcher, and it's likely he either heard or could guess that Hughie promised to get Mindstorm out of his reach forever if he cooperated, Soldier Boy simply gives him a single punch with a lot less force than he could have used, and had no problem continuing to work with him. His restraint might be because ultimately he was able to take his revenge regardless of the interference, or that he respected Hughie standing there and taking it rather than teleporting out like a "pussy" might be expected to, but it's likely that he recognized the enormous risk Hughie took for Butcher, and given how much he resented his own false True Companions betraying him, he respected Hughie's genuine loyalty.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: He had a... sketchy singing career.
  The Legend: Between you and me, Soldier Boy did to singing what pantyhose did to finger-fucking.
• Hopeless with Tech: As expected after missing for 38 years, he has no idea what the GPS, wireless or the Internet are.
• Horrifying the Horror: He manages to put the fear of God into Black Noir and even Homelander by just making his presence known.
• Hour Glass Plot: If Season 1 finale was about Homelander learning that he has a son, now it's Soldier Boy's turn to learn that he has a son on the Season 3 finale.
• Hypocrite: And a very self-aware one at that.
  • He calls Homelander a "weak sniveling pussy starved for attention" but brutally assaulted Black Noir for trying to steal the spotlight from him. This is what leads to Ben calling both his son and himself disappointments.
  • He calls himself this while doing an anti-drug PSA; He tells kids to say no to drugs and yet is an addict himself. Not to mention, the only reason he has powers in the first place is because he volunteered to take the super serum Compound V. He even laughs at the fact that weed is now legal as he once beat a bunch of people over it.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: Although he did the bare minimum of military service by quelling civil rights movements and was captured in Nicaragua before he could actually do anything in service to the army. He's not wrong when he points out how cruel it is that he was practically tossed aside after serving his country.
• Imaginary Friend: In episode 6 of Gen V, is revealed that Cate always had a huge celebrity crush on Soldier Boy, and turned him into her imaginary friend and boyfriend. Even as the imaginary friend of a girl who never met him in person, he somehow has same crass behaviour and nasty mouth.
• Immortality Hurts: He has Nigh-Invulnerability, but still feels every bit of pain from attacks he receives.
• Immune to Bullets: One of the Russian experiments on Soldier Boy's invulnerability was to unload a machine gun into his mouth, with no effect.
• Immune to Drugs: Downplayed. Soldier Boy's enhanced physiology allows him to do hard drugs in amounts that would kill a normal person, but for him is seemingly equivalent to a light buzz. He treats a halothane gas grenade like a bong. It takes an incredibly potent nerve toxin to actually knock him out.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Soldier Boy is an aggressive chauvinist that arrogantly wears the title of the strongest, greatest, and most popular Supe of his era. He's also extremely sensitive about anyone questioning his position of power or masculinity, as seen when he beat Black Noir to a bloody pulp for nothing but trying to start a film celebrity career that could potentially make him a threat. Turns out, this insecurity stems from having a distant, emotionally abusive father who always wrote Ben off as a loser who cheated his way to success. Ben on some level agrees with his father's assessment, considering he doesn't deny the similarity between himself and his own son, Homelander: both are 'disappointments' in the end of the day.
• Informed Flaw: While recounting Payback, Mallory deems him "the most idiotic of them all". While Soldier Boy did act like a misogynistic jerk and it's easy to see why Mallory didn't like him, he comes across as relatively tame compared to the rest of Payback whose incompetence got 116 of her men slaughtered. If anything, he's actually quite the clever fighter and tactician.
• I Have No Son!: He concludes that Homelander is a Psychopathic Manchild Attention Whore Beyond Redemption and calls him a fucking disappointment of a son before trying to nuke him off the face of the earth. When Ryan tries to defend his father, Ben derides him as a little shit and decides to kill both son and grandson with one shot.
• In Name Only: The only thing the show and comic versions have in common is the codename. The comic iteration is the most cowardly character of all, who'd wet his pants every time before a battle, while Ben is build to be The Dreaded to everyone. In the comics there were three of them, while here Soldier Boy is The Ageless. One major similarity does exist however; like his comic counterpart, this version is ultimately revealed to be a fraud who never actually fought in World War II.
• It's All About Me: Is revealed as a hyper narcissist in the 80's who destroyed Black Noir's movie deal because he could not allow any other Supe to have a time in the spotlight.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite Soldier Boy being an aggressive individual and his harsh rejection of Homelander during their final showdown, he is definitely correct that Homelander is a weak willed, spoiled, child who only craves attention and that he is way beyond fixing. He also has a point when calling out Butcher on not holding up his side of the bargain despite the latter claiming he'll do whatever is necessary to kill Homelander.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Every sympathetic moment he had in the present day is washed away come "Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed", where it was shown he is just as vicious and callous as Homelander. Even besides that, though he initially seems to be A Lighter Shade of Black compared to Homelander, this is simply due to the Enemy Mine situation between him, Butcher, and Hughie, and when this is set aside he's just as much of a violent and narcissistic bully.
• Kick the Dog: Both Black Noir and Gunpowder were at the receiving end from him in the 80's. More specifically, he sabotaged Black Noir's movie auditions to keep him from getting any level of fame, purely to keep him in his shadow.
• Large Ham: Downplayed. His quick appearance in a Season 3 promo has him act in vocal "superhero gravitas," which is just an act he drops when the focus on him is dropped.
• Large and in Charge: He was taller than anyone in his team.
• The Leader: Of the Payback. And he was an abusive one at that, as the audience finds out in Black Noir's flashbacks.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: At first it seems this way; Soldier Boy is no saint, and in some aspects can be just as bad as Homelander, but he does regret all the lives he had taken by accident, actually can be reasoned with, all of which cannot be said about Homelander. He stops being a lighter shade when it's revealed that Soldier Boy was an abusive bully toward the rest of Payback and faked his combat experience, making him no better than his son. In the Season 3 finale, this trope is fully inverted, when his issues cause him to try to kill not only Homelander but his grandson, Ryan, as well (thereby forcing everyone present to form a temporary Enemy Mine situation just to take him down).
• Lightning Bruiser: Soldier Boy is one of the strongest, toughest, and most experienced supes to ever be introduced in the series to where he could compete with Homelander. He is also very reflexive as he moves just as quick.
• Like Father, Like Son: Like his son, Homelander, he was an abusive and egomaniacal leader of his team until it drove most of its members to conspire against him. Also, like Homelander, he hears from his redhead ex-girlfriend that she never loved him.
• Likes Older Women: Justified; Butcher and Hughie walk in on him about to have a threesome with two old ladies; Butcher even calls him a "granny fucker" at one point. Another Deleted Scene has him making out with an old cleaning lady. Although, given that he's 103, they're technically younger than him.
• Living Relic: Not only was he active during the 1940s, but he was also cryogenically frozen by the Russians since the 1980s. As a man from the 1940s, Soldier Boy has some outdated values and opinions of masculinity and everyone despises working with him because of his abuse of his teammates in Payback and his sexism and toxic masculinity.
• Logical Weakness: For all of his nigh-invulnerability, especially compared to other heroes with Super-Toughness, Soldier Boy still needs to breathe, and someone with sufficient enough strength can get him into a hold to choke him out. The Russians also dosed him with novichok to keep him prisoner: being doused in a (normally lethal) nerve agent is damaging enough to weaken him.
• Lost in Character: Soldier Boy was only supposed to be the mascot of the United States military during World War 2 and Vought never allowed him to see any actual combat despite having the means to survive it. In the upcoming years, he did fight against the civil rights protestors and eventually fought in Nicaragua but was knocked out by his own team and given to the Russians to endure over 40 years of torturous experiments. When the boys inadvertently rescued him (they were expecting a superweapon, not Soldier Boy himself), Soldier Boy started genuinely believing that he served in the Second World War instead of just being the lead actor in a series of propaganda works.
• Loved by All: While Soldier Boy was disliked by his inner circle, the people really loved him. Before Homelander, Soldier Boy was THE superhero. Homelander fears his return will affect his own popularity since even the modern public fondly remembers Soldier Boy.
• Loving a Shadow: While indeed a womanizer, he loved Crimson Countess and waited for her to save him, not knowing she sold him out. Too bad she hated him the whole time.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Like his inspiration, he carries an eagle-themed shield that is too heavy to even lift for regular humans. He needs it, too, since while he can't be injured, he does feel pain. Though, like the rest of his character, this too is part of his Deconstructed Character Archetype; Captain America's shield is perfectly round and made of a metal known for its ability to absorb shocks, meaning that it gets a lot more use defensively than offensively, and when it is used as a weapon it's typically only to stun or knock out opponents that he hits with it since it would take some real work on Cap's end to make it into a lethal weapon. Soldier Boy, by contrast, wields a kite shield that is seemingly made out of normal hardened steel, allowing him to use the points on the corners as makeshift punch-daggers on top of bashing the face of it into his enemies which, combined with his Super-Strength, allows him to wreak some truly heinous damage on anyone in his way such as Black Noir, who got his skull caved in by it and suffered permanent brain damage as a result despite his Super-Toughness and Healing Factor.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Learns from Mindstorm that Homelander is his biological son.

M-R

• Manchild: The only things Soldier Boy really cares about are sex, drugs, and receiving praise and validation from being a movie star, war hero, and singer. He’s so insecure and incapable of receiving criticism that he strikes Hughie, beats up Black Noir, and insults Grace Mallory just for pointing out when he’s done something wrong.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His superhero name is Soldier Boy, and he's a Military Superhero with the personality of an entitled angsty teenager to match.
  • His real name, Ben, means "son or boy" in Hebrew. Not only does Soldier Boy's present-day issues have nearly everything stemming from his emotionally abandoned father, but it also serves as a foreshadowing of his true parentage to Homelander.
• Miles Gloriosus: Not by his own decision, Vought never allowed Soldier Boy to actually fight in World War 2 and solely made him a propaganda hero to represent America's role in the war. By the time the Boys rescued him from Russia, he genuinely believed he served in World War 2 and gets very defensive when confronted over it by Hughie.
• Military Superhero: Deconstructed. Soldier Boy was created as a mascot for the United States military and Vought marketed Ben as a working-class, all-American hero who fought for his country as soon as he was able. However, Ben never took anything seriously and was seen as a disappointment by his father after being expelled from boarding school. Ben joined the military through his father's connections and became the first test subject for Compound-V to be a supersoldier, but Vought only used him for war propaganda instead of actual combat, something that only further disappointed his father. Ben never performed in World War 2 and only stormed Omaha Beach two weeks after D-Day for a photo op. The only experiences he was confirmed to have had with the military were in quelling civil rights movements and participating in the Kent State massacre. He was only in Nicaragua to promote Payback and was betrayed by his own team after abusing them for so long. Vought also wanted to get rid of him so they could replace him with Homelander and gave him up to the Russians, who experimented on him for 30-40 years. After enduring the experiments, Ben actually starts believing that he served in World War 2, something that disgusted Hughie and he loses any remaining respect for Ben in the process.
  Hughie: So [Soldier Boy] didn't see any action?
  The Legend: Not in Germany. Sprayed a fire hose in Birmingham, some target practice at Kent State...there were some rumors about Dealey Plaza.
• Mirror Character:
  • As Kripke puts it, 'Soldier Boy was Homelander before Homelander', and used to be the world's most famous superhero until he disappeared. Both of them are Vought's most successful creations, and strongest men in the world, each in their own era, depicted as charismatic, patriotic Americans, who exist to protect the people; and none of them are what is presented on TV, as in reality, they're bigoted, violent bullies with a Hair-Trigger Temper who's greatest heroics are mostly faked propaganda. They reflect everything wrong with America from the eras they come from.
  • He's also this to Stormfront. Both Supes are The Ageless who represent the ideals of their time, but while Stormfront represents Nazi ideals from World War 2 era Germany, Soldier Boy represents American jingoism from the same era. Both Supes are intrinsically tied to Homelander's origin (Stormfront is one of the original Supes and the research that she inspired helped create Homelander, while Homelander descends from Soldier Boy directly as his son), and holds an important relationship with him (Stormfront is the closest Homelander has gotten to a genuine girlfriend, and Soldier Boy is his father) but while Stormfront sees Homelander as the culmination of her vision, Soldier Boy sees him as a disappointment. Both Supes even get a moment to directly tell Homelander how they feel; but while Stormfront gives Homelander a Rousing Speech monologue about how he represents everything she's hoped for, Soldier Boy gives him only a few sentences that consist of Wham Lines that destroys any hope that he could see Homelander as anything other than a failure.
  • And also one to Billy Butcher. Both suffer from toxic masculinity mindsets, are experienced soldiers, and are loathed by the teams they lead. However, Soldier Boy represents what Butcher could become if he lost or never had the various moral anchors in his life like Hughie, Becca, Lenny, and Ryan.
• Misery Builds Character: By all accounts, he was a detestable human being in his glory days, but after years of being tortured, he seems to be less of an asshole. For one thing, he seems to be a bit less bigoted than he used to be and remarks that he genuinely loved Crimson Countess after having previously treated her like crap.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Billy assumed Soldier Boy groped and even abused Gunpowder when he was a kid, though Gunpowder denied any sexual abuse.
• Monster Progenitor: He was one of the first super-abled humans ever created and paved the way for more Supes. And though he was the first that Vought acknowledges, Stormfront actually preceded him.
• Moral Myopia: Wants revenge on Payback for selling him out to the Soviets, completely uncaring and unrepentant about how they only did so as retaliation because he was such a horrifically Bad Boss to them.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: His costume is a lot darker and more muted in color than most superheroes. His World War 2 outfit, though only shown in a black and white photograph appears to have been a black trenchcoat over a black tactical outfit with a black cloth mask.
• Mr. Fanservice: Ben is a handsome man that attracted many women though his life. He makes his first appearance being half-naked, revealing how ripped he is. Jensen Ackles even talks about how he was asked to become jacked for his role as Soldier Boy.
  Antony Starr: You do look really good with your short off.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: He looks about as old as his son Homelander as a result of him being The Ageless. In fact, he's even old enough to be his grandfather because he's sixty-two years older than him.
• Naked on Arrival: Comes out of his cryotank completely naked, leading to a Naked First Impression for those who see him emerge.
• Narcissist: Just as much as one as Homelander.
• Nazi Hunter: Subverted. Soldier Boy is presented to the public as the working-class superhero who bravely fought the Nazis. But he was not as heroic as he is presented, in fact, as he was on friendly terms with Stormfront back in the '50s. And then it is revealed he didn't really fight the Nazis on Omaha Beach, he only came two weeks later for a photo op.
• Never Found the Body: The official story is that he died in a nuclear meltdown, thus leaving no remains. The truth is that during the failed Nicaragua mission, Russian special forces neutralized him and took him back to Moscow with them.
• Never Going Back to Prison: Not your typical prison, but he's traumatized by his decades of captivity in Russia and the thought of being put back in similar conditions drives thermonuclear in the season 3 finale.
• Never My Fault: Just like his son Homelander. It never once crossed his mind that his being handed over to the Russians could have been avoided if hadn't been such a Bad Boss to the rest of his team who understandably wanted payback.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: In movies, songs, and commercials, Soldier Boy is shown being an easy-going and friendly guy who keeps up with the modern times. The moment the camera goes out, he shows his reverses back to his smarminess. In the PSA made in 1984, he advises the youth to say NO to drugs, but the behind scenes show him being ill-tempered, coursing the employees and laughing about how he, a drug addict, makes a commercial about not consuming drugs.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The Russians try everything on him; empty an AK into his mouth, blowtorch his neck, radiation, acid, none of which harms him, though he still feels the pain. He can take hits from Homelander and while it does overwhelm him eventually he doesn't get any serious injuries.
• No Full Name Given: Jusitified. He's only called "Ben" with no mention of his surname because he was disinherited by his tycoon father for being a "fuck-up".
• Noble Demon: The season 3 finale is set up so it seems like Soldier Boy will betray Butcher out of his love for his son. But he actually sticks to his word (even if it involves killing a child), and it's Butcher who betrays him, not the other way around.
• Not Good with Rejection: When Mallory rejects his advances in Nicaragua, he looks like he's on the verge of tears before bottling it up and telling her to be nicer before calling her a homophobic slur.
• Nuke 'em: His new power courtesy of Russian experiments is a high-yield radioactive explosion that, when sufficiently charged, will vaporize anything within a close distance. And because it also serves as a Power Nullifer to Supes, he is essentially an instantly lethal Man of Kryptonite regardless of their Super Weight.
• Offing the Offspring: He intends to kill Homelander, who turns out to be his son, and even after finding out about this revelation, Soldier Boy doesn't stop, rationalizing Homelander as a disappointment from what he had seen. This also ends up extending towards his grandson, Ryan, when Soldier Boy knocks out the boy for simply preventing him from killing Homelander.
• Older Than He Looks: He is over a century old but thanks to the effect of the original Compound V he never aged past his mid-twenties. However, due to being played by the forty-year-old Jensen Ackles he is both this trope and Younger Than He Looks (see below).
• Old Superhero: Played With. Ben carries with him the immense bigotry of the time period in which he grew up. However, being The Ageless, being 103 years old only makes him more dangerous due to the amount of experience he’s had to master his powers.
• One-Man Army: One of the first successful Supes ever created, and with his new powers, he can take people out by the dozens.
• Our Founder: Has a statue in front of Vought Tower. Following his outing as a murderer who killed dozens of New Yorkers and the attendees of Herogasm, it gets toppled.
• Pædo Hunt: Subverted. According to a complaint found by Butcher, Soldier Boy was extremely abusive towards Gunpowder while Gunpowder was his 14 year old sidekick. Butcher assumes the abuse was sexual, though Gunpowder denies it, claiming that he was only being hazed. Soldier Boy is later shown in flashback and current time to be into women, preferring older ones in part because it was weird to the public he dated women not close to his age even if legal, thus showing Gunpowder was telling the truth. Soldier Boy was indeed extremely abusive physically to Gunpowder and the rest of Payback, but never sexually.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He becomes one of these after his return to America in the modern day, thanks to his new nuclear powers that can level city blocks with one blast. In terms of sheer destructive power, not even Homelander can match up to it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Gives a grateful nod and a thumbs up to Mallory after she takes down an enemy soldier about to attack him from behind.
  • He spares MM after he tries to kill him, though that's partly because the attempt was just so lackluster.
  • Also, after Hughie betrays him by teleporting Mindstorm away from him to heal Butcher, and it's likely he either heard or could guess that Hughie promised to get Mindstorm out of his reach forever if he cooperated, Soldier Boy simply gives him a single punch with a lot less force than he could have used, and had no problem continuing to work with him. His restraint might be because ultimately he was able to take his revenge regardless of the interference, or that he respected Hughie standing there and taking it rather than teleporting out like a "pussy" might be expected to, but it's likely that he recognised the enormous risk Hughie took for Butcher, and given how much he resented his own false True Companions betraying him, he respected Hughie's genuine loyalty.
• Phony Veteran: Soldier Boy never really fought in World War II, he only did photo-ops. He did work with the military in suppressing some civil rights protestors. If he really fought in other military conflicts, like the Soviet-Afghan War, is up in the air.
• Police Brutality: According to The Legend, Soldier Boy was involved with suppressing civil rights protests in Birmingham and the Kent State Massacre.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He makes some misogynistic and homophobic remarks to Mallory and his views are hopelessly dated. "Herogasm" plays with this, as he has genuine respect for Afghans due to their resistance against the Soviets and, due to his capture, he's unaware of the War on Terror which has soured opinions toward the Middle East.
  • Also, he's shown to be quite racist towards black people. He explicitly cracked down on protests during the Civil Rights movement, and later punished Black Noir when he wanted to break out on his own, which included subtle jabs to Black Noir's race. A group of black kids stealing a Mercedes Benz resulted in Soldier Boy hurling the car through an apartment building filled predominantly with black people, which killed M.M's grandfather and traumatized M.M for the rest of his life.
• Posthumous Character: Soldier Boy is the first officially acknowledged supe created by Vought, and was "Homelander before Homelander." While he died in The '80s, his influence over the world remains, and finding the weapon the Soviets used to kill him is the Boys' main goal in the first half of Season 3. Subverted when it's revealed that he's still alive but captive in a Russian lab, and his return to the United States drives the latter half of the season's conflict.
• Power Incontinence: After being released from his prison in a Russian lab, Soldier Boy's newfound radiation powers are noticeably difficult for him to fully control. The first thing he does after being released from the Russian lab is almost kill Frenchie and Kimiko (although this could've been intentional). When he arrives in Manhattan, upon hearing Russian music, he accidentally obliterates 19 civilians and a couple buildings. Later at Herogasm, hearing Love Sausage's Russian tunes causes him to destroy the house, kill 12 people, and severely injure/depower almost everyone there. However, he does get better at controlling his powers with time.
• Power Nullifier: His energy power blasts can depower other Supes, as demonstrated on Kimiko. Analysis of his victims shows that Soldier Boy somehow burned out the Compound V in their bodies, returning them to regular humans.
• Propaganda Hero: Soldier Boy was designed to be a symbol of America's efforts during World War 2 but considering that he had superpowers, he was vastly underutilized and a waste of potential. Soldier Boy was eventually used in military services to quell civil rights protestors in Birmingham and he eventually participated in the Kent State Massacre. When he took part in the Contra War as part of Payback, he was meant to fight the Soviet-backed Sandinistas, but this was actually a ruse to have Homelander succeed him and Soldier Boy only participated in one battle against the Sandinistas before being overwhelmed by his own team.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Like father, like son. Although definitely less so than Homelander, Soldier Boy is still very emotionally immature for a man who is over one hundred years old. He’s arrogant, gets angry when he doesn’t get his way, irresponsible, lacks self-awareness, and he has a simple black-and-white view of the world. He has a lot more in common psychologically with spoiled teenagers than other centenarians. This is very fitting considering his backstory.
• Punny Name: Abiet in a dark way, as Soldier Boy is a Deconstructed Character Archetype of the Military Superhero and an Allegorical Character to toxic masculinity and the ugly sides of the U.S. American Military. Also, despite his advanced age, Soldier Boy's personality and maturity is that of a spoiled and entitled teenager with boatloads of angst and drama regarding his past.
• Real Men Hate Affection: He was on board with supporting Homelander until the Season 3 finale, when Homelander started crying over his emotional vulnerabilities and desire for a real family. Upon seeing this, Soldier Boy deems Homelander an unsalvageable disappointment and tries to kill him.
• Related in the Adaptation: Barely a sex toy in the comics to Homelander, now father to Homelander thanks to Vogelbaum in the show.
• The Reliable One: He (and Noir, to a lesser extent) are the only ones in Mallory's flashback in Season 3 who display actual combat proficiency. Justified in that, unlike his teammates, he was an actual soldier and thus has the training and discipline needed to pull his weight. Except not really. The Legend reveals he was never an actual soldier (or if he was, he didn't actually see action in World War II) and all his combat experience comes from beating up his own teammates and murdering innocent civilians, particularly anti-war protesters and civil rights activists. It's possible though he went on actual missions across the ocean as a soldier that weren't publicly known due to their morally questionable nature.
• Retcon: Stan Edgar tells Homelander that Soldier Boy's performance against the Germans was what convinced President Roosevelt to pardon Dr. Vought and let him keep his Compound V experiments going. The Legend tells Hughie that Soldier Boy was kept for photo-ops throughout the war.
• Returning War Vet: Butcher released him in order for Soldier Boy to add another name on his black list.
• Revenge: His main goal after being awakened by the Boys is to get revenge on his old team Payback for selling him out to the Russians.
• Rich Bitch: The story about Soldier Boy growing up in poverty was a lie cooked up by Vought. In reality, Ben grew up wealthy to an industrialist father, got kicked out of boarding school for his fuck ups, and used his father's connections to become Vought's first American supe.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Going after TNT would be exactly what The Boys themselves would be up for, as they're depraved sexual deviants who's Herogasm event leaves many sex workers abused and seriously hurt without any care, as well as allowing bestiality to take place. However Soldier Boy doesn't give a rat's ass about Herogasm (in fact he was the one who started it), he just wants to punish them for betraying him, despite that in itself having been an act of self preservation due to how he treated them. His revenge against the rest of Payback also counts, as while none of them are saints he doesn't take issue with their actions against anyone else, it's just that they sold him out to the Russians and left him to be experimented on for several decades and figures he has to pay them back tenfold.
  • When he has his big confrontation with Homelander, he doesn't take issue with Homelander being a psychopathic murderer and an existential danger to the rest of humanity. His issue is that Homelander is an emotionally fragile, insecure manchild, and considers his expression of his emotions to be evidence he's a weak disappointment. At this point, he doesn't want to kill him to end his threat, but because he can't accept that his own son isn't a "real man". To be fair though, Soldier Boy wasn't aware of how bad Homelander really was; He wasn't informed about how his grandson Ryan is a child of rape or of the Flight 37 disaster.
• The Rival: To Homelander for the title of the top superhero. He gets Homelander alarmed of his return, and their eventual meeting has shades of two apex predators fighting to stay at the top.
  Kripke: When you have two alpha males who both consider themselves the most powerful, most famous person on the planet, that gets to conflict pretty quickly.
• Ruder and Cruder: In the comics, one notable aspect of Soldier Boy was his constant use of outdated curse words, never going beyond Gosh Dang It to Heck!. The show iteration often drops the F-bomb whenever he wants, as shown in the PSA for the people of America.

S-Z

• Sealed Evil in a Can: He's as bad as Homelander or possibly worse and he's too invulnerable to kill. So after the Boys knock him out with novichok, Mallory has his comatose body contained in a tube.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: When a Russian song starts playing during "Herogasm," Soldier Boy starts to have a breakdown which causes his powers to go off. Considering his idea of masculinity, he fervently denies that he does have PTSD.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Ben's powers (enhanced strength and abilities, invulnerability, longevity, radiation blasts) aren't as flashy as flying, laser vision or invisibility. But combined with extensive combat experience, they make him extremely formidable and dangerous.
• The Snark Knight: His snarkiness is excessive, but rather than jovial or fun, it's just cynical and bitter.
  Butcher: Listen, let's have a little chat about this team-up, yeah?
  Soldier Boy: Yeah, why the hell do I need a team for? The last one handed me to the Reds.
• Sociopathic Soldier: He's depicted as the vengeful all-American hero who wants to fight for his country by any means necessary. Except Soldier Boy was never an actual soldier, and used his position to abuse anyone he deems weaker than himself.
• Something Person: His superhero name is this.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Based on the original version of Soldier Boy in the comics, who "fought" — ineffectively, and not for very long — in the Battle of the Bulge during WWII.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: In the videos MM watched with Soldier Boy, it is shown he was experimented on strapped to an operating table by the Soviets.
• Strong and Skilled: What sets Soldier Boy apart from all other Supes in the show — unlike the vast majority of Vought's supes, Soldier Boy was not born a supe as he predates Compound V. He fought in conflicts throughout the 20th century, giving him time to gain a grip on his powers and know how to both throw and take a punch. During Payback's doomed mission in Nicaragua, he's the only member (other than Noir) who isn't shown to be a Dirty Coward or a Team Killer, and unlike modern Supes, he wastes no time with one-liners or showing off — he just fights and kills his enemies, and gives Mallory a curt but respectful gesture when she saves him from a soldier he missed. While it is ultimately revealed that he never actually fought during WWII and his actual military credentials beyond that are ambiguous, he still proves to be a formidable fighter, to the point where Homelander and the Boys have to pull a temporary Enemy Mine in the finale just to take him down.
• Summon Bigger Fish: As what was basically the original Homelander except in all the right ways, Soldier Boy is the only Supe that can take the real Homelander in a straight fight, which Butcher seeks to capitalize on. Unfortunately Soldier Boy is revealed to be like Homelander in all the wrong ways too and is just one small push away from going completely rogue, which Butcher only realizes when the old hero tries to kill Ryan. Butcher is ultimately forced to stop Soldier Boy and sacrifice his best chance to take down Homelander.
• Superpower Lottery: While his abilities aren't really fantastical, what Soldier Boy does possess is enough to make him one of the most formidable Supes in the series, on par with Homelander. He has enhanced strength, durability, reflexes, speed, immunity to chemicals and toxins, and can emit a nuclear blast that is capable of depowering other Supes. He also doesn't seem to age or at least does so at a much slower rate than humans, a power even Homelander doesn't possess.
• Super-Power Meltdown: Soldier Boy's radioactive powers combined with his intense PTSD cause him to go nuclear without control whenever he is presented with a strong emotional trigger, incinerating basically everything around him in the resulting kaboom. Even getting emotional begins to set off Geiger counters.
• Super Prototype: He's the first successful attempt at making an American supe, creating, as a result, a Super-Soldier with Nigh-Invulnerability, Super-Strength and also making him The Ageless, along with other things. No Superpower Lottery that all the future experiments suffer from, but instead, the very thing Vought wanted to create from the start. Pretty much everything that follows up until the development of Temp V gave inferior, if mass-made, results, and Temp V itself is still in its early testing phase. Even Homelander can't really match up, because while being a Flying Brick and stronger in general, he still does age like everyone else.
• Super-Soldier: A living weapon by Vought's founder, effective enough to get compared to Oppenheimer and his tinkering with the atomic bomb. Subverted with the revelation that he faked his WW2 veteran status and only went to Normandy for a photo shoot 2 weeks after the fighting had already finished, leaving it ambiguous if he did any real fighting at all before the Nicaragua disaster. While he's definitely super, it's made clear that if he was a soldier, it was more the "violently suppressing civil rights activists" kind than the Nazi-slaying kind.
• Superhero Packing Heat: His statue, his comic standee, and a movie where he starred as himself, he is depicted wielding a Tommy gun. In the modern day, he packs a 1911 pistol and a knife in addition to his shield.
• Super-Strength: He has it as part of his abilities and is only slightly below Homelander in terms of it. Homelander is even shown questioning whether or not he can beat Soldier Boy in a fight. He's strong enough to leave Homelander with a black eye after their fight and would've killed him had John not fled. In the Season 3 finale he's able to physically overpower Homelander with one hand (albeit briefly).
• Super-Toughness: As Butcher points out, not even 20 sieverts of radiation^note the equivalent of standing in Chernobyl's reactor core immediately after melting down, or as Butcher puts it "shoving Chernobyl up his arse" and the sulfuric acid did any harm to him when the Russians experimented on him. And unlike most of the Supes with any sort of Super-Toughness like the Translucent, he is impenetrable on the inside too. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell, though. Not even Homelander can do a damn thing to Soldier Boy at full power. It’s arguable that he’s actually even more durable than Homelander since he’s immune to his own radiation blasts. Novichok is the only known substance in the world that can stop him, and even then it's more like a sedative than the deadly nerve poison it actually is.
• Sympathetic Murderer: In his defense, he really didn't want to kill any of the civilians. He blacked out the moment he heard Russian music which reminded him of the traumatic experience in Russia and suffering a Super-Power Meltdown.
• Taking You with Me: He charges up one last blast as he was being knocked out by the Novichok to kill everyone in the area, but Queen Maeve tackles him out the window in order to ensure the two of them are the only ones caught in the explosion. He ultimately fails at this, as Maeve survived albeit without her powers anymore and Soldier Boy ended up in stasis again.
• Testosterone Poisoning: He's got the extreme macho 60s era tough guy act down pat. He's foul-mouthed, verbally abusive to everyone around him, casually misogynistic and derides Homelander as a "pussy" for showing emotional vulnerability. It's an overcorrection from an emotionally abusive father who would constantly tell him how much of a disappointment he was and how he was weak and trying to use superpowers to make up for it.
• Thin-Skinned Bully: Implied. Soldier Boy was very abusive towards his teammates during his time in Payback but when Mallory rejects his advances in Nicaragua, he looks like he's on the verge of tears before bottling it up and telling her to be nicer before calling her a homophobic slur.
• Time-Passage Beard: Back in the 80s, Soldier Boy had a Perma-Stubble, but when the Boys release him in the present day, he has a long, unkempt beard. The Russians did not exactly bother to take care of his physical needs.
• Token Evil Teammate: With the reveal that most of his former teammates are at worst very pathetic people, Soldier Boy becomes this for how bad he treated everyone around him. Not to mention his abusive behavior which could range from slurs, racism or even violently beating them for perceived slights. Case in point he sabotaged Black Noir's film career because he couldn't handle anyone even approaching his level of fame. When Noir pressed the point he savagely beats him half to death, racistly mocks him by comparing him to George Jefferson and then threatens the rest of his team with worse.
• Tom the Dark Lord: His name is simply Ben. Considering his son's name is "John," it seems to be a family thing.
• Took A Level In Cynicism: Flashbacks depict Soldier Boy as a jovial and gregarious individual who thrived in the spotlight. He actively participated in the celebrity lifestyle, engaging in lighthearted musical performances and being a movie star. However, he is betrayed by his own team and sold to the Russians which tortured and experimented on him for 38 years, which acted as a Cynicism Catalyst for him. When the Boys encounter Ben in the present day, he became jaded, bitter and disillusioned, his personality reflecting the emotional toll of his experiences.
• Trauma Button: Russian music or the Russian language brings back traumatic memories of his experiments at the hands of the Russians and causes him to release a radioactive explosion he cannot control.
• Turn Out Like His Father: In the season 3 finale, he called Homelander the same thing his own father called him, "a fucking disappointment".
• Unblockable Attack: His nuclear blast is this. Not only does it boast extreme destructive power, but it's ability to De-power other Supes means that they can't hope to tank it with their Super-Toughness (except Maeve for some reason).
• Unreliable Expositor: Beside being the Fake Ultimate Hero, he lied to Hughie about how much he fought for his country in the WW2, when in fact he went there just for a photo shoot. Hughie took him at face value.
• Unstoppable Rage: He doesn't just kill Countess when she reveals the truth about her feelings towards him, he incinerates her. The rest of Payback and Butcher also learn the hard-way what happens when you betray Soldier Boy's trust. The only reason he was defeated in the finale was because Maeve tackled him through a window to save everyone in Vought Tower from his explosion.
• Unwitting Test Subject: He was sold out to the Russians by his own team, with Vought's full approval, and ended up being experimented on by them. His trip to Russia was not a nice experience for him, to say at least.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: He (the prototype) has this against Homelander (the upgrade). The two even lampshade the occasion when they meet in the aftermath of the Herogasm disaster.
• Uriah Gambit: Vought sent him to Nicaragua under the pretense of testing Supes in the military, but in reality to ship him off to the Russians so he wouldn't go on a rampage when he learned that Homelander was going to replace him.
• Villainous Legacy: Not only was he the most famous Supe who ever lived before Homelander came along and helped create the toxic celebrity culture that the community is now, but he's also Homelander's father, and his infamously assholish nature is probably what contributed to Vought raising the kid in such controlled and sterile conditions in the hopes he'd come out better than his predecessor (which backfired horribly).
• Villainous Respect: Of all the people he meets, he shows the barest amount of respect to Billy Butcher, likely because the Vigilante Man is just about the only person who lives up to his warped standards of masculinity. Even opening up to him and bonding over their shared trauma with abusive fathers. For a pathological he-man like him, that's saying something.
• Villainous Valor: Shown during his mission in Nicaragua, being the only member of Payback (other than Noir) to be actually fighting. He also fought against Homelander without any intention of backing off, even when he was on the losing side.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Completely indestructible ageless supe with truly destructive powers... that goes down like everyone else from breathing halothane, a commonly used anesthesia gas, and maybe also other anesthesia drugs. This is later subverted, as it actually wasn't halothane used to incapacitate him, but Novichok, a very deadly nerve agent.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He constantly yearned for the approval of his father who constantly saw him as a disappointment. Not even becoming America's idol Soldier Boy earned him any points as Daddy considered it cheating. To quote Tony Stark, everything special about Ben came out of a bottle.
• Who Shot JFK?: The Legend implies that Soldier Boy may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination.
• Wild Card: What makes him so dangerous despite being the best means to take down Homelander is that he's just too unpredictable. Whilst he is someone who honours their agreements, they're still often shady and unscrupulous, and ultimately his personal issues cannot be ignored. His PTSD and his new explosive powers make him a literal time bomb, and his mental state is severely unstable thanks to being experimented on by the Russians, to the point he apparently can't remember what parts of his life were fabricated for the sake of PR. All these mean it's highly undesirable to leave him to his own devices, since one of the sources of conflict in season 3 was the people he put as risk with his presence and rampage alone.
• The Worf Effect: Downplayed at first; At Herogasm, he doesn't defeat Homelander, but he's the first character in the show that's shown capable of keeping up with him and actually gives him trouble during their brawl. With help from Hughie and Butcher, he's able to almost kill him and manages to give Homelander his first bruise. This is played straight in the finale when he's at full power; He holds Homelander still by the face with one hand long enough for Butcher and Maeve grab him, easily knocks Ryan and a Temp V-enhanced Butcher unconscious, and tosses around Starlight and Kimiko like ragdolls.
• Worf Had the Flu: His narrow loss against Homelander in Herogasm is ultimately shown to be this. Uncontrolled use of his powers severely drains him, explaining how he needed Butcher's help to contend with Homelander then, but is a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut in the finale that requires the entire team and a specialized nerve agent to take down. Even then, he isn't defeated directly in combat by them, and is only put into a coma as a result of blowing himself up. It's unknown though how well he would do against Homelander at full power since we never see them go directly head-to-head again.
• Working-Class Hero: Soldier Boy grew up as a poor kid in Philadelphia before deciding to serve his country, and then got the opportunity of a lifetime to become the first superhero during World War II, killing Nazis "by the dozen" according to Stan Edgar. Except that's another lie; Stormfront preceded him as the first supe, he grew up as the son of a wealthy industrialist, he used his father's connections with the War Department to get into Vought's program, and he didn't actually fight at Normandy. Much like everything else, his impoverished background was a propaganda tool cooked up by Vought.
• World's Strongest Man: Before Homelander, Soldier Boy was the strongest Supe in the world. Even in today's time he is one of the only people capable of actually hurting Homelander and with his new upgrade from his time being experimented on by the Russians, he can now cause incredibly destructive explosions and even De-Power other Supes. The finale of Season 3 shows Soldier Boy as even more powerful in terms of raw physical abilities than at Herogasm. He's able to restrain Homelander by the face (although he was off-guard) and the audience can hear Homelander desperately trying to punch his way free, yet Soldier Boy isn't even tickled.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • According to Gunpowder, he admits that Soldier Boy did slap him around at times. Then there's Billy's suggestion that he also molested him, though Gunpowder denies it.
  • He also hits Ryan hard enough with his shield to make the boy bleed, after Ryan used his laser vision to stop him from strangling Homelander. And after Butcher tells him that Ryan is Becca's son as well as Homelander's, he asks Butcher why he left the boy alive.
• You Are What You Hate: Soldier Boy writes off his son, Homelander, as a "disappointment" just as his own father did with him.
• Younger Than He Looks: His stated date of birth is 1919, meaning he was only 25 or 26 when he took the Compound V that turned him into The Ageless but since he's played by the forty-three-year old Jensen Ackles, he appears lot older than he should look like for a man of his (physiological) age. Although being a century old, he is both this trope and Older Than He Looks (see above).

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