The Boys Season 5 Just Established A Disappointing Gen V Crossover
Is the spinoff now just a vehicle for daddy issues?
The Boys Season 5 is doing whatever it can to build up to an epic finale, and that includes a few big crossovers. Gen V, the college-focused spinoff series, ended Season 2 with an epic moment where Starlight recruited the young adult Supes to help her take down Vought for good. However, it doesn’t look like they’ll play that big of a role in the season at all.
In fact, Season 5 Episode 3 contains the first reappearing character from The Boys. But instead of having Marie Moreau, Jordan Li, or another major player from that series show up, a next-gen hero who served as a running joke in Gen V made a cameo: Maverick. Unfortunately, his role in the series seems to be purely to make another character face his past — a bad sign for any future crossovers.
Warning! Spoilers for The Boys Season 5 Episode 3 ahead!
Oh Maverick, we hardly knew ye. Or saw ye.
The third episode of The Boys’ final season brings the gang to the complex underground bunker of former Vought CEO Stan Edgar, who appeared heavily in Gen V Season 2. But there aren’t any familiar God U faces here, just the lack of a face entirely. Maverick, the invisible son of Translucent, is living there because Stan Edgar “believes that children are the future.”
But what purpose does he serve to the story? Essentially, he’s there to remind Hughie about Translucent, whom he murdered all the way back in the second episode of the series. Back then, Hughie had a grudge against all Supes as a whole, but now he has to reckon with the fact that they’re not all bad. In fact, he’s fighting to get V1 in order to ensure the survival of the Supes he loves.
Hughie is wracked with guilt when he sees Maverick (or rather, when he learns that Maverick is there), but that’s mitigated somewhat when he learns that Maverick believes that Homelander is to blame for the loss of his father. Hughie tries to bond with him over this, but by the end of the episode, Maverick learns the truth and confronts Hughie, but that’s interrupted by telekinetic Supe Cindy murdering Maverick.
Homelander’s task force makes quick work of Maverick.
So what was the point of Maverick’s appearance? He’s the sole connection we have to Gen V so far, but he’s apparently only there to provide perspective and closure for Hughie before being unceremoniously written off. Sidelining the rest of the Gen V characters is bad enough: Season 2 proved that Marie Moreau has the power to revive people from fatal injuries, something that sure would have come in handy when Homelander snapped A-Train’s neck. But incorporating a minor Gen V character for nothing more than emotional stakes — and subsequently redshirting them — is just an insult added to injury.
It’s a bad omen for what lies ahead. We’re now almost halfway through the final season, and there’s still no sign of Marie Moreau, arguably one of the most powerful Supes still alive. Hopefully, by the time she’s introduced, she’ll get a better treatment. At least she’ll be visible, even if it’s brief.
