The boys has become one of the most popular superhero franchises, which is hilarious considering how much both the show and the comic are based on superhero franchises that they absolutely hate. But nevertheless, The boys is certainly a superhero franchise that is here to stay, something that became clear with the spin-off series Generation Vand with the announcement of a new spin-off prequel series, Vought rising. And in the last series, The boys finally gets the chance to explore a specific team of superheroes that not even the comics have fully covered.
In The boys #54 by Garth Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns, Hughie Campbell and Greg Mallory (the original founder of the Boys) are discussing the history of supers. Specifically, the two are talking about how Vought-American superheroes once fought in the military and how they didn't last long. After completely botching a military operation that resulted in dozens of American casualties, the superheroes were quickly removed from the military by Vought-American and rebranded as crime-fighting domestic superheroes. Vought-American even created the perfect team name for them: Crimefighters Incorporated.
Crimefighters Incorporated would eventually become the superhero team Payback (Image: Getty Images)The boys' parody of Marvel's Avengers). However, in The boysIn comic book continuity, this team would not use this name for some time, meaning they operated as Crimefighters Incorporated at least through the 1950s. Not only that, but Crimefighters Incorporated is the second generation of these heroes, as each of them – including Soldier Boy – died alongside the American soldiers who were killed. That means there's an entire superteam in The boys story that fans never knew.
Who are Crimefighters Incorporated?
The boys'Super Mystery Team, Explained
The members of Crimefighters Incorporated were: Soldier Boy, The Steel Knight, Laddio, Eagle the Archer, ManBot, The Buzzer and Crimson Countess. They made their debut in The boys on the front page of The Washington Post, which Mallory was reading in disbelief while previously watching each of those superheroes die right before her eyes. However, he quickly realized that these were new people who inherited these superhero identities and that their mission would be very different from that of their predecessors. Crimefighters Incorporated operates strictly as a group of superheroes in the United States, not as soldiers fighting abroad.
In fact, this team was the first of its kind in The boys universe, paving the way for the likes of Payback and Seven under the Vought-American umbrella. While little is known about this team in terms of specific missions and stories, it's easy to guess what Crimefighters Incorporated was like just by looking at the most recent superhero teams in The boys canon. In other words, it's fair to say that they were a corrupt group of fakes who just did Vought's bidding and did absolutely nothing.
But that alone leaves fans with nothing but questions. There wasn't a Boys version at that time (Mallory was still trying to get it off the ground). So did Crimefighters Incorporated operate unopposed? The supers were certainly not fighting real crime, and were most likely drug addicts, sex-crazed, and violent lunatics like the other supers in The boys. So what did they do? And who did they fight? This is an entire chapter of The boys story that fans know nothing about, and while there are certainly some changes, that's something Vought rising You're finally free to explore.
Crimefighters Incorporated consists entirely of legacy heroes, poking fun at a common comic book trope
Crimefighters Incorporated's superheroes, like Soldier Boy and Eagle the Archer, are clear parodies of characters like Captain America and Hawkeye, and that includes the fact that these characters are part of a chain of legacy heroes. Soldier Boy and Eagle the Archer in Crimefighters Incorporated were second generation, as the original heroes died during World War II. Likewise, both Captain America and Hawkeye have passed the torch to the next generation, with characters like Sam Wilson and Kate Bishop taking on their respective mantles.
In The boysthe act of a super passing on his nickname to a successor is much less heroic than in Marvel Comics. At Marvel, a hero will recognize the potential of a rising hero and give them their superhero name, creating a legacy character that honors the original. In The boysLegacy heroes are created as a means of preserving Vought-American's intellectual property, banking on name recognition to maintain the profitability of a specific super. Which, in a meta sense, is exactly what Marvel does, but not within its stories.
Crimefighters Incorporated is The boys denouncing the use of legacy characters by comic book publishers as a way of selling the same 'product' with old superheroes, instead of creating new heroes/stories. This makes the team even more interesting, as in addition to being a corner of the The boys unexplored universe, but it's also yet another chance for the series to attack the establishment of the 'superhero genre' – both in comics and films. And now, The boysThe prequel series will have the chance to explore these aspects of Crimefighters Incorporated in a way the comics never did.