Amazon's The Boys season 2 gets the official blood-stained thumbs-up

Looks like Karl Urban will get to fight more superheroes with rectally inserted pipe bombs. Yes, that actually happens in the R-rated superhero satire The Boys.

Amazon is going all in on Supernatural creator Eric Kripke’s adaptation of the Garth Ennis comic series by granting an early season 2 renewal, prior to the first eight episodes premiering this month. Reports began circulating about casting for a potential future batch of episodes, but the streaming service made the news official on Friday during San Diego Comic-Con.

In addition, Aya Cash from You’re the Worst was announced in the season 2 role of Stormfront, a male character in the comics who acts like a mash-up of Marvel’s Thor and DC’s Shazam.

The Boys, the comics, were penned by Ennis, illustrated by artist Darick Robertson, and first published in 2006. They introduced a world in which superheroes are very real, but also very egomaniacal in their godlike status, and only save lives as publicity stunts for their own glory. The titular group of blue-collar street-level vigilantes are the only ones capable of keeping them in check through brute force.

For the Amazon series, Kripke’s team adapts the material to fit a more modern audience, leaning into the dark intersection of celebrity and politics. But, also, the feeling of total debauchery is still there with stuff like superhuman orgies and dolphin erotica.

On the Boys’ side are Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as “Wee” Hughie, Tomer Capon as Frenchie, Laz Alonso as Mother’s Milk, and Karen Fukuhara as the Female. On the side of the Seven, the main team of totally corrupt and sociopathic superheroes, there’s Antony Starr as Superman-esque Homelander, Chace Crawford as the Deep (a play on Aquaman), Dominique McElligott as Wonder Woman-adjacent Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as speedster A-Train, Nathan Mitchell as Batman-inspired Black Noir, and Erin Moriarty as new recruit Starlight.

Elisabeth Shue also stars as Stillwell, the wrangler of the Seven as their senior VP of hero management at the shady company Vought, while Simon Pegg plays Hughie’s father.

Just as they did with AMC’s Preacher, also based on an Ennis comic, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg executive-produce the series. Season 1 of The Boys will premiere July 26 on Amazon Prime Video.

Related content:

• How Eric Kripke’s superhero satire The Boys riffs on DC and Marvel
• The Boys wannabe Spice Girls in NSFW trailer for Amazon’s superhero show
• Superheroes gone wild! Supernatural creator previews The Boys, his super-R-rated new show