Who's Who In Gen V? A Guide To The Characters In Prime Video's The Boys' Spin-Off

Gen V takes the violent, gritty lens of The Boys and refocuses it on the young people of that world. What is it like to be a young Supe? How does it change your life? How do people respond to you? The series follows Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), a young woman with the power to control blood. As she joins Godolkin University, called God U by its students and faculty, she quickly learns that things are amiss. She and a small group of students band together and bond over their shared suspicion and trauma as they try to get to the root of corruption at the superhero school.

Each member of the cast represents some of the difficulties young people have to navigate to survive in the modern world. The same way that Spider-Man constantly reminds us of how much Peter Parker has to give up to be the guy with the coolest moves in Manhattan, Gen V never lets us forget about the trauma and sacrifices its characters are making, surviving, or reliving.

While Gen V is spun off from a storyline in The Boys comic, it isn't pulling characters from that story one to one. This is a quick rundown of Marie Moreau and the other primary members of Gen V's cast. Beware minor spoilers for Gen V Season 1, Episodes 1-6.

Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair)

Marie is a young Black woman who discovered her blood-manipulating powers in the goriest and most traumatic way possible. She's grown up now but did so in an orphanage. Going to God U and becoming a superhero--a real, citizen-protecting superhero--is her dream and her perceived path to redemption. But God U is all about popularity, and her power is, to many, disgusting (and the pocket knife she uses to cut her hand open each time certainly doesn't help). But she could become the first Black woman to reach the top of the school's rankings. She's literally slicing away pieces of herself to help others around her, and the only thing the faculty--and even some students--see is a potential PR boost.

Emma Meyer (Lizzy Broadway)

Marie's roommate, Emma, is best known as a YouTube celebrity named Cricket who shrinks down to the size of a mouse. Her ability, though, is linked to a dark secret that causes her great shame. She literally has to minimize herself for the sake of fame, and each time she does it destroys her body a little more.

Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo)

Andre Anderson is the son of a well-known hero named Polarity. He's a powerful Supe who can reshape and project metal, but he's always standing in his father's shadow. He's expected to succeed in the way his father did and to behave within the expectations set out by his father, and that knowledge informs his every decision--whether to be what people expect or to rebel against it.

Luke Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger)

Luke, known to the world as Golden Boy, is the #1 ranked hero at the school, his rank established by a combination of his power, popularity, and social media presence. Highly ranked students go on to do things like join The Seven, pick up contracts to protect cities or become huge stars.

The Golden Boy moniker is meant to refer to the way his eyes glow when he's using his flame powers, but it's also about who he is--a young man under immense pressure to succeed in a wildly treacherous environment bubbling over with secrets. He's handsome, smart, athletic, popular on and off campus, and incredibly powerful--but you can never be all of those things without it being a show for other people. To make it worse, one of the campus' darkest secrets concerns him directly. He's the center of attention everywhere he goes, whether he wants it or not.

Jordan Li (London Thor/Derek Luh)

Jordan is kind of a shapeshifter; they can shift at will between male and female versions of themselves. They can't take on random faces like X-Men's Mystique, just their own. They're also Asian and subject to the stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that come with that. University higher-ups recognize Jordan as a high performer, but their combination of race and ability makes certain demographics uncomfortable, those in power say, even as they match the stereotype of the model minority. When we meet Jordan's parents, we see how their traditional father expects them to pick one gender or the other, with the implication that one of those genders is more desirable and that the other should be suppressed.

Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips)

Cate is a popular and attractive woman who can control people's minds with a touch. In one scene, she forces one guard to perform sex acts on another so that someone can get away from them. Before that, she ordered a student to beat and humiliate himself in public. It's the kind of power that feels good to watch in movies; it's instant and cathartic. But her friends don't trust her, her family is terrified of her, and of course, God U is very interested in someone who can simply force people to behave the way that they want. She seems to be living the dream, but suffers in silence, lonely and feared by her friends.

Sam [Redacted] (Asa Germann)

Finally, there's Sam. Sam is incredibly strong, leaving behind huge craters when he jumps. People are paper dolls to him. But he hallucinates constantly--whether or not that's his own fault is another story. Televisions talk directly to him, and people look fake--let's leave it at that so that we don't spoil the surprise. Sam is the thing you sweep under the rug when your first priority is protecting the school rather than its students--it would damage your school's reputation if word about the "crazy" one got out. His mental state is a direct result of the school's experimentation on him, but he's treated as if that's his fault.