‘The Boys’ Season 5 Makes Obvious Sony Villain-Verse Reference

Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Boys Season 5, Episode 5, “One-Shots.”The Boys never shies away from poking fun at various superhero franchises, but there is often a thick layer of satire between what’s being referenced and what’s being shown or mentioned in the Prime Video series. However, every now and then, The Boys makes such a strikingly clear acknowledgment of one of its competitors within the comic book genre that it’s almost breathtaking. That’s exactly what just happened in Season 5, Episode 5, “One-Shots.”

It’s primarily DC characters that The Boys bends out of shape and thrusts into its twisted formula. Even iconic heroes like Superman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman have had irreverent counterparts in the show. The project does also parody beloved Marvel heroes, just a little less frequently. In “One-Shots,” an entire sequence is dedicated to perhaps the biggest Marvel figure of all time: Spider-Man. That said, the extended Easter egg is far from complimentary, and there’s a very good reason for that.

‘The Boys’ Season 5 Just Went in Hard on Sony’s Failed ‘Spider-Man’ Villain Franchise

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Although it’s known officially as Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), one specific series of Marvel films is more commonly known as the Villain-Verse. With Disney currently making full use of the on-loan live-action movie rights for Spider-Man (that are legally held by Sony), the latter studio has busied itself in recent years with trying its best to kick-start its own Spider-Man franchise – only without ever featuring or even mentioning any version of the iconic web-slinger. Predictably, it has since crashed and burned pretty unceremoniously after six movies.

“Maybe we’re not part of the official VCU, and maybe we can’t mention Vought, or, you know, any licensed Vought hero, but hey, I’m still making magic.”

– Mister Marathon in “One-Shots.”

Almost every detail of the SSU also applies to its counterpart in The Boys. “One-Shots” shows the audience a variety of cheesy-looking movie posters, all of which starred Jared Padalecki’s Mister Marathon. Homelander (Antony Starr) makes many of the same criticisms of Mister Marathon’s movies that are also relevant when talking about the SSU. Mister Marathon’s franchise is even still produced by Sony. Fictitious titles such as Marathon of the Heart, Mr. Marathon: Around the Speedy-Verse, and Mr. Marathon: Vampire Hunter all look and sound like direct nods to the real-world Sony efforts that largely flopped. What’s especially funny here is that the scene is actually a self-reflection. Sony Pictures Television co-produces The Boys with Amazon MGM. As such, The Boys‘ roast of the SSU is even more meta.

The Biggest Difference Between the SSU & Its Counterpart in ‘The Boys’

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Tom Hardy’s Venom trilogy actually made a lot of money, and therefore sort of redeemed the SSU as a whole. However, each Venom movie received lukewarm reviews, and the SSU’s other three efforts were downright failures in almost every sense of the word. The Boys‘ version of the SSU presumably expands beyond Mister Marathon’s awful-looking movies, but the only project he tries to boast about lost $170 million. So, it stands to reason that the rest of the Sony Vought movies in The Boys were also critical and commercial flops.

While the two Sony franchises might seem functionally inseparable at this point, it’s important to bear in mind the biggest way in which they differ. Homelander explains in “One-Shots” that the movie franchise to which Mister Marathon’s projects belong is “where washed-up Supes go to die.” In The Boys, Sony only recruits Supes (who double up as actors) who are past their prime but looking to maintain their public profile. Mister Marathon is a perfect encapsulation of this philosophy, as he was once a member of the Seven before Homelander replaced him with A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). Spots in the cast of official Vought movies are reserved for A-listers like Homelander and other active members of the Seven.

Inversely, one of the SSU’s only redeeming features was that it often cast big names in the throes of fruitful acting careers. Alongside Tom Hardy, the SSU gave roles to actors such as Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Adam Scott, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. None of these can be described as “washed-up,” as Homelander strongly implied was the case for Mister Marathon. Regardless, it’s undeniably the SSU that served as the inspiration for this brief-but-funny sequence in The Boys.