Eric Kripke Makes It Clear VOUGHT RISING Won’t Soften Stormfront: “She’s a Nazi, and She Sucks”

The world of The Boys is about to dig deeper into its twisted history with the upcoming prequel Vought Rising, and one character already stirring conversation is Stormfront.

With Aya Cash set to return as the electrifying and deeply disturbing Supe, fans have been wondering how the series might handle her past. According to creatorEric Kripke, there’s one thing viewers shouldn’t worry about: the show isn’t about to rewrite who she is.

Kripke addressed the concern head-on, saying that the prequel won’t attempt to humanize Stormfront in a way that excuses her ideology. “In no way will I ever ask the audience to sympathize with Stormfront. She’s a Nazi, and she sucks,” he explained to ScreenRant.

That doesn’t mean Vought Rising won’t explore her past. The show is set in the 1950s and will dive into the early days of Vought, including Stormfront’s original identity as Clara Vought, also known as Liberty. But Kripke is aiming for context, not redemption. The series will expand on her story while still keeping her firmly planted as one of the franchise’s most vile characters.

There’s also a major focus on Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles, and his connection to Stormfront. Kripke teased that their relationship goes deeper than previously hinted. “Soldier Boy? I think, if it’s teasing anything, it’s teasing that he really had feelings for Clara more than he had originally let on, and that you’ll see a lot of that play out in Vought Rising. You’ll understand a little bit more of what Soldier Boy and Bombsight’s relationship is, and why they resent each other, in Vought Rising.”

So, it sounds like we’re getting a messy, complicated dynamic without losing sight of who these characters really are.

Another big takeaway is that Vought Rising isn’t being built solely for longtime fans. Kripke emphasized that the show is designed to stand on its own, even for people who haven’t watched The Boys.

“But we always try to hit the right balance, where it provides a little bit of context and some good Easter eggs. But by no means do you have to watch The Boys to enjoy Vought Rising. In fact, we just had some audience testing with some people who had never seen The Boys, and they liked Vought Rising on its own. So, that is for sure the goal.”

Stormfront first showed up in Season 2 of The Boys as a powerful Supe with lightning-based abilities and a horrifying secret. Her relationship with Homelander, played by Antony Starr, eventually exposed her true identity as the wife of Frederick Vought and a longtime white supremacist operating under different aliases across decades.

Now, Vought Rising is set to rewind the clock and explore how characters like Stormfront and Soldier Boy became who they are. Ackles recently talked about stepping back into the role, but from a very different place in the character’s life.

“It was exciting, and it was a little bit more challenging because I felt like I’d gotten to know modern day Soldier Boy pretty well and had him kind of dialed in,” he explained.

“And then it kind of stripped a lot of that away to tell the story of how he was back then, before a lot of the shit had happened. But also, while that stuff is happening when we see him in The Boys, this is the past of all of that stuff, and it’s how that kind of shaped his life and shaped who he was and his ideology of himself and of the world.”

Ackles went on to explain how the prequel digs into the emotional groundwork that shaped Soldier Boy into the man fans met in The Boys.

“But you kind of have to strip all that away because he’s now going through it, so it’s the heartache and the breakup and the experience that he’s having in V Rising that we then understand why he became who he became.

“So, it was a little bit different. It was a little trickier to get some footing in that character but Paul Grellong, who ran the show, did an incredible job of writing these characters out, these storylines, and you’ll definitely see the modern day Soldier Boy, he’s in there. But you kind of get the sense of seeing why certain elements of his personality took over more.”

Between Kripke’s clear stance on Stormfront and the deeper character work promised for Soldier Boy, Vought Rising is sure to be a wild ride through Vought’s dark past. It’s not about softening villains or rewriting history. It’s about showing how messed up this world has always been.

Meanwhile, The Boys is heading toward its endgame. The penultimate episode drops next Wednesday, with the series finale hitting 4DX theaters on May 19 before landing on Prime Video the following day.