- For the Dynamite equivalent of the character, see Jessica Bradley.
| “ | Look, Starlight, sh... I am CEO. Next time, make a fucking appointment.
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Ashley Barrett is a major antagonist in the Amazon series The Boys and Gen V, serving as a supporting antagonist in both Season 1 and Season 2, and a major antagonist in Season 3. She is the CEO and former Director of Talent Relations for Vought International.
After Madelyn Stillwell's death, Ashley took over her position as the Senior Vice President of Hero Management, though she held no authority over The Seven like her predecessor did. After Stan Edgar's ousting from his position, Ashley went on to take over the role of CEO before later being unofficially demoted to a lower position.
The Boys Series[]
Background[]
Ashley claimed that when she was only seventeen years old, her mother died of cancer.
Season One[]
At first Ashley was Madelyn Stillwell's assistant. Being assigned to deal with The Seven's new recruit, Starlight, Ashley booked her an appearance at the Believe Expo. But between her and Vought’s mistreatment of Starlight and forcing her into their constant scripts and demands, the super-heroine had enough and revealed the truth of her frustrations on live TV, resulting in Ashley getting fired.
Season Two[]
After Homelander murdered Madelyn Stillwell, he recommended Ashley to fill her spot. Ashley is thrilled to have the opportunity to not only get her old job back, but with a promotion, yet Homelander quickly reminds her that she is there to tell him what's going on and that he is really in charge.
Ashley tries to help fill the empty spot in The Seven with Blindspot, but soon realizes that she has very little power as Homelander and Stan Edgar seem to make all of the important decisions.
Diabolical[]
She appears in Boyd in 3D. After some mishaps with Boyd Dune and Cherry Sinclair she told them they are fired because of their reckless behavior and also, they signed the contracts, much to Boyd's and Cherry's frustrations. Boyd tried to text her about wanting for Envision but she texted him to (bleep) off. It turns out it was all a dream from Boyd cause the cream he was tested on had too much Compound-V, and his head exploded to a fountain of blood.
Season Three[]
Ashley is now working in a senior position at Vought on public relations. She continues to obsess over "the numbers" and status of the Supes as she tries to help save and support their public image.
Ashley is having a sexual affair with Adam Bourke, the director of the latest Vought Studios blockbuster Dawn of the Seven. She also gets a new assistant, also named Ashley, who she seems to enjoy bossing around.
After Stan Edgar is asked to step down, Ashley is promoted to CEO of Vought- at Homelander's suggestion to the board. Ashley presents herself as an ally to Homelander, eager to please him at any moment. Starlight asks Ashley to please help her stand up to him, but Ashley tells Starlight she has no superpowers and can't help.
Ashley and The Deep go to the basement where Maeve is being held prisoner. Ashley argues with The Deep, telling him someone is coming with a search warrant to look for Maeve. Gas floods in through the vent in Maeve’s cell and Ashley mouths “I’m Sorry” as Maeve starts coughing and collapses to the ground.
Later on, while watching security footage, Ashley sees MM and The Boys helping Maeve up after the fight with Soldier Boy. She thought Maeve was dead but realizes she's alive. She and Anika look at each other and delete the security file, protecting Maeve’s secret and hiding her from Homelander, Ashley's silent act of rebellion against him.
Although Ashley had been technically demoted by Homelander, she still retained the title of CEO in official Vought press releases. One example was when she appeared in the investment summary video for Vought in January of 2023, which revealed that the board had given her an additional seven-month renewal on her contract.[1]
Gen V[]
God U.[]
After the suicide of Golden Boy, Ashley is seen doing a press comunication stating that Golden Boy's death happened in a isolated space outside the campus of Godolkin University reassuring that is still considered the safiest place in the entire U.S.
First Day[]
Later that night, Ashley makes a phone call to the board of God U to see how they would handle the cover story of Golden Boy's suicide, the next candidates to the top 10 students at the university picking Marie Moreau in the top despite being a freshmen student alongside Andre Anderson as the new number one of the ranking. After this, she asks Indira Shetty to take the speaker off so they could talk privately, then she asks to Indira if what happened to Golden Boy is somehow connected to The Woods.
A few days later, Ashley sends Tek Knight to the campus with the mission to find someone they could blame Luke's death on for the cover story, however, the plan fails due to Indira blackmailing Tek Knight to leave the campus saying he didn't find anything.
Guardians of Godolkin[]
Ashley is seen having a meeting at Godolkin with the board members to choose candidates for The Seven, frustrated because she missed a "gastronomic orgy" and because she can't find Indira, unaware she'd been killed shortly before. During the meeting, Cate Dunlap alongside Sam Riordan and several other innmates of the Woods start creating chaos at the campus. Desperate, Ashley gives the order to call the top 10 students asking them to kill Cate with the promise of a place in the Seven. Ashley then calls Marie Moreau and promises to give the girl a meeting with her sister if she helps her with the mission of killing Cate. While the chaos getting worse, she and the other board members hide inside of a helicopter and orders to call Homelander asking him to go to the campus inmediatly.
Personality[]
Like most Vought employees, Ashley is a deceptive self-promoting liar: She works Vought company managing PR duties, but never displays any kind of real sympathy toward others. Especially with the Seven, she fails to even bother concealing her general disregard for others. She prioritizes promotional events of the famous over any moral and ethical issues and loathes any co-workers who do share her goals. Notable examples include her loudly belittling Starlight over her public appearance, and ranting about Starlight going off script, completely ignoring the fact that Starlight saved a person’s life. Another such example is when she became angry at Queen Maeve after she broke up with Elena.
The only time she showed a little bit of compassion and understanding for others was after Maeve was shown to be deeply upset over Elena separating herself from her, due to now knowing the "truth" about her actions for Vought's interest and falling into a self-loathing binge of heterosexual sex to bury her depression, pain and being lectured by Ashley for being "Not Lesbian". Maeve disgusted by her behavior, tearfully asks her try and be "a fucking human being for once"; Ashley pauses after realizing how upset she was and showed some remorse for her insensitivity before sincerely apologizing to Maeve about her separation with Elena and gave her space. As shown in the events of season 3, unlike Edgar or Madelyn, Ashley has shown to have begun becoming more outwardly disturbed with Homelander’s more psychotic behavior and to a degree, has begun becoming more sympathetic to the victims of his actions and even towards the other members of The Seven, such as the Deep, who he has begun terrorizing in order to control. Further evidence of Ashley's kindness and compassion is shown in her behavior towards Maeve, as seen where she apologized to her after knocking her out with knockout gas in her cell to hide her imprisonment from the authorities and her willingly helping Maeve escape Homelander and Vought's radar by deleting the evidence of Maeve's survival after Soldier Boy's self-detonation.
As shown during her angry rant against A-Train, Ashley possesses extreme levels of stress due to her job of having to cover up the never-ending number of crimes and even murders done by The Seven and the other Supes she manages, which has increased even more due to her two promotions as the Head of Hero Management and now as the new CEO of Vought. This is seen where she angerly told off A-Train about his callous actions and of how she was the one who had to cover them all up to protect him and was even further enraged and disgusted at his hypocrisy of wanting justice for his brother when he himself had committed numerous crimes and caused massive collateral damage without guilt or hesitation. This serves to showcase Ashley’s true feelings regarding her opinion on the Supes underneath the corporate mask of her job, showcasing that Ashley does possess a conscience and at least some sense of morality.
After becoming Vought's new CEO, her outward tone has become seemingly more ecstatic with joy due to her new position, she however has also become willing to do Homelander's bidding out of fear, likely due to knowing that she was only put into the position by his orders as an easy puppet for him to control the company. Despite this however, Ashley has also shown to have more self-confidence to assert herself more towards the other members of the Seven due to her now being technically above them in rank. This is seen where she was more than willing and capable of talking back at A-train. When A-Train ask her to change his image to reflect his black heritage, she sarcastically agrees while also awkwardly speaking almost in stereotypical jive slang towards him (including getting his catchphrase wrong), hinting that she maybe out of touch. When A-Train gets a heart transplant with Blue Hawk's heart, Ashley informs him to wear his regular suit and that his new movie shows his manufactured new origin story that he grew up as a gangster who was trained by a White coach (played by Tom Hanks) rather than his brother Nathan, erasing A-Train's new publicity.
As also shown in her rant to A-Train and in other instances, Ashley suffers from trichotillomania, a disorder characterized by the urge to pull out one's own hair at the scalp. Likely due to the immense stress of her job, it was later revealed that Ashley had already torn out nearly all of her hair to the point she was practically bald and had to use a wig to hide it.
She also displays sexual tendencies as a way to destress herself as seen when she has aggressive sex with Adam in the bathroom at the premiere event of the Dawn of the Seven movie, and when she insinuated to Cameron Coleman.
During the events of Gen V, Ashley's personality has not changed at all and has mostly remained the same. But now she seems to lack of filter when talking to others, when attending a meeting with the board of God U, she complained to missed a "gastronomic orgy" for being there and is seen constantly asking "where [the fuck] is Indira Shetty". She also is more than capable of scheming and cover up everything that could tarnish their reputation, including keeping The Woods as a secret no matter what, to the point of finding someone to blame and use as a scapegoat.
Relationships[]
Family[]
Allies[]
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Enemies[]
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Trivia[]
- Ashley is based on Jessica Bradley, a character who was in the original Dynamite comics series.
- Ashley's trichotillomania in the show is likely a nod to her counterpart in the comics.
- While obviously more grounded and realistic, Ashley still fits the classic image of the supervillain's sycophantic sidekick. Since Homelander is, beneath his heroic act, a classic tyrannical dictator, Ashley's main incentive for associating with him is clearly to enjoy the overspill of his success and with his support, push her own opponents around. If annoyed, she may even try to steer Homelander's anger towards a shared target.
References[]
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| TV series The Seven members |
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| Current Homelander • A-Train • The Deep • Black Noir II • Sister Sage • Firecracker Former Mister Marathon • Translucent † • Lamplighter † • Stormfront † • Supersonic † • Starlight • Black Noir † • Queen Maeve Associates Madelyn Stillwell † • Ashley Barrett |