The same team that makes “The Boys” (which has aired three seasons) tries their hand at a spinoff with “Gen V,” the first three episodes of which have aired on Amazon Prime. We switch from the adult members of The Seven – the Vought Corporation’s packaged and commodified superhero team – to budding supe students at Godolkin University. This allows for fresh faces and storylines, but the same social commentary (in a good way).
“Gen V” doesn’t take place in a literal multiverse (like “The Flash” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home”), but its young heroes must navigate various realities. These students exist in a baseline reality, but there’s also the “image” reality (TV punditry and social-media influencers) as crafted by Vought for people to consume.
Then there are also the dirty things Vought is doing behind the scenes (a literal underground facility – dubbed “The Woods” — where some students are held prisoner).
“Gen V” Season 1 (2023)
Fridays, Amazon Prime (three of the eight episodes have aired so far)
Developed by: Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke
Starring: Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway
Navigating college … and various realities
“Gen V” could be a show about naïve young people being used and abused entirely for the purposes of Vought, which promises them a shot at being one of their “heroes.” But what makes the show great is it doesn’t wallow in Davids being smashed by Goliath.
While these youngsters are in over their heads in some ways, they are also observant and suspicious. And they have superpowers – as per their parents dosing them with the experimental Compound-V as children – so that gives them a chance to fight back.
Indeed, the mystery and thrills kick into gear when Luke/Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger) – No. 1 in the God U. amateur supe rankings – embraces the too-beloved-to-be-true Professor Brink (Clancy Brown) in a suicidal/homicidal hug and burns him up with his fire powers.
“Gen V’s” core group of friends smoothly forms and picks up Luke’s mission to find out if his supposed dead-by-suicide brother Sam (Asa Germann) is still being held in The Woods, and what’s being done to him.
A fresh batch of supes
The audience-surrogate character — the type who wouldn’t normally get into God U. but can’t be turned away since she’s brilliant — is Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair). She can manipulate blood; she slits her wrists and flings the plasma as a deadly weapon.
Marie sounds like an X-Man who fails to gain a fanbase because her power is so gross; I’m thinking of Marrow, who grows bone spurs and flings them. But the blatantly disgusting power is part of the point of “Gen V”; indeed, the PR team initially doesn’t rank Marie too highly, knowing her power won’t play well in Peoria.
The best actor is the casually charismatic Chance Perdomo, who also had that status on “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” (from which Sinclair also comes). Here he has a normal American accent and plays Andre, who can manipulate metal, but on a smaller scale than Magneto.
The best character is Emma (Lizzie Broadway), who gets small (the size of a cricket) by vomiting and then returns to normal size by eating. Broadway is adorable and brings vulnerability and decency to contrast with the general Gen-Z cockiness around her.
(If you run into someone raving about “Gen V,” they’ll focus on the scene where Emma hooks up with a fellow student – who claims to be a fan of her Vought kids’ show “Little Cricket” – and hangs off of his penis, which she wryly admits is massive from her small perspective. While the weirdness factor is well-earned, it must be noted that “Gen V” – like “The Boys” – doesn’t actually need scenes like this, narratively speaking. But the chuckles are welcome.)
A critique of our times
Of course, they’re supes, so they have reason to be confident – particularly Cate (Maddie Phillips), who is a pusher. She can touch people and manipulate their mind into doing her bidding. Perhaps the most 2020s character is Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), who is bigender. They are sometimes female, sometimes male, depending on their whim – transgenderism made biologically literal.
Like “The Boys,” “Gen V” exists in a world of political correctness, cancel culture and branding. What makes both shows an extra level of great is how they navigate our unfortunate reality. They make fun of our times while at the same time having no problem with outsiders who have recently gained some of the spotlight, such as trans people.
Marie and her friends don’t like their world of false heroism, but they must navigate it. “Gen V” acknowledges that society’s interest in created “truth” rather than actual truth is a bad thing, but it also knows that created truths have an extreme magnetic pull on Joe and Jane Q. Public.
“The Boys” and now “Gen V” will stand out from the superhero-boom pack when we look back at them decades down the road. We’ll remember these series as smart time capsules of the 2020s. What’s still up in the air is whether society will start to reject artificial realities, or if it will get so ridiculous that these series will not be seen as parodies, but rather as snapshots.
As “Gen V” amusingly critiques mass manipulation of the populace, I feel like the pendulum must swing back toward an appreciation for things that actually matter. But maybe I’m more naïve than the students.