The old adage goes that comic book deaths don’t count for much, and Gen V Season 2 almost proved as much with the return of a long-deceased supe. Obviously, The Boys universe has been there before – in a way – thanks to the replacement of Black Noir, but that’s not quite the same as actually seeing a character after the point of their actual death. And had the plans been realized, it wouldn’t have been a flashback or a clone swap that did it, despite the same character appearing multiple times after his death in Season 1.
Ahead of Gen V Season 2’s finale, Eric Kripke spoke exclusively to ComicBook’s Bryan Cairns to reveal how close we came to seeing more of Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Golden Boy. Asked if the creatives had discussed a return, he said:
“We did. We did. If I remember correctly, there were a couple of dream sequences. I forget who was having the dreams. Maybe Sam, but 100 percent it made its way to the outlines where Golden Boy was showing up. But Patrick… I think he was shooting some tiny show about a hotel. I don’t know. Some tiny indie thing. I don’t think anyone saw it [laughter]. Obviously, he was doing White Lotus and was super-busy with that and the press. I don’t
think we could work out the schedules, if I remember correctly.”
Scheduling issues aside, there was clearly interest from both sides for Golden Boy to make an unlikely return. Kripke went on to say: “He’s checked in with us and has been nothing but lovely. I would work with him again in a heartbeat. He is such a good, nice, genuine guy.” This follows Schwarzenegger himself telling ScreenRant back in February 2025 that he only didn’t return because of scheduling issues and that he wished he could have. So maybe there’s a chance in future? Again, he told ScreenRant that while “It didn’t work out [for season 2 of Gen V]… maybe season three or some other time.” Fingers crossed.
The actor has a longer association with The Boys lore than just his active part in Gen V: he actually auditioned to play Homelander initially, and impressed the casting team enough to earn an eventual call-back for the spinoff. Schwarzenegger revealed details on the Happy Sad Confused podcast:
“When they were doing the Gen V spinoff, they came to me saying, ‘We know you auditioned for [Homelander] and we remember it and we want you to audition for this Golden Boy… It was just kind of positioned as he was going to be this kind of a miniature version of Homelander, but he was honestly like a really good kid and a really nice, genuine person, and he was kind of struggling with having to become part of that superhero and that kind of level of fame.”
So the love runs deep. The mechanics of how he could return aren’t clear, but this universe has already introduced clones, and the comics have a dark version of resurrection that basically turns the victims into brainless monsters. Not exactly a nice way to come back, but there’s always hope.
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