| “ | Don't worry, silly. Frederick had a solution for everything.
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Dr. Frederick Vought is the posthumous overarching antagonist of The Boys. He was the inventor of Compound V, the husband of Stormfront, and the founder of Vought-American, later known as Vought International. Before defecting to America in the 1940s, he was a prominent geneticist in the Nazi Party.
Despite their betrayal of the Nazis, Frederick and his wife never abandoned their belief in their ideology. In fact, the two plotted to use Compound V to create an army of superhumans, with the ultimate goal of launching a global race war.
The Boys Series[]
Background[]
Fredrick was born in Germany at some point in the early 20th century. As a young man, he earned his medical degree at the University of Munich and was known for his unprecedented talent in genetics. In 1939, Adolf Hitler personally appointed Fredrick as the chief physician of the Dachau concentration camp, giving him access to human subjects (presumably either Holocaust victims such as Jews, homosexuals, Romani people or P.O.Ws.) that he used to test his early prototypes of Compound V. During this time, he met a woman named Klara Risinger who would eventually become his wife and bear him a daughter, Chloe. At some point towards the later stage of the Second World War, Frederick injected Compound V into his wife, giving her superpowers and making her his first successful patient.
In early 1944, Fredrick lost faith in Germany's ability to win the war and defected to the Allies, whom helped smuggling him out of Europe. By this point, he had already developed a field-tested version of Compound V while his contemporary J. Robert Oppenheimer was still developing the atomic bomb. Fredrick's serum led to the creation of superheroes like Soldier Boy, who were able to slaughter Nazi soldiers by the dozen, and his wartime achievements were so essential to the Allied victory that Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually chose to pardon him.
Following the war's end, Frederick went on to found Vought-American, later known as Vought International, and became an icon in American culture, with many seeing him to be on the same level as Walt Disney and Thomas Edison.
In 1965, Frederick along with Thomas Godolkin, co-founded Godolkin University.[1]
Later on, he wrote an autobiography that omitted many facts about his Nazi past.
Season Two[]
When Homelander threatens Stan Edgar by claiming that he would move on when his contract with Vought was up, Stan asks him about what he knows about Frederick Vought. After giving a Homelander a brief summary of Frederick's life, including the Nazi history that he omitted from his autobiography, Stan explains that Vought International is not a superhero company, but a pharmaceutical one, and that their most valuable asset is not Homelander; instead, it is Fredrick's secret formula for Compound V.[2]
When Stormfront tells Homelander about her past, she explains that she was Fredrick's wife and his first successful patient, making her the first Supe ever created. She also tells him Frederick's true intentions were never for Vought International to become a shallow business company. Instead, it was to create a race of literal supermen to fight back against other races for "grinding them down" and win the war for their culture.[3]
Personality[]
As a geneticist ahead of his time, it can be assumed that Frederick was an intellectual. However, despite his immense knowledge in human genetics, he still believed in Adolf Hitler's ideas of racial superiority. At the same time, he was not willing to die for his ideals and had no problem in defecting to the Allies when it became clear that Germany would lose the war, even though he still believed in the Nazi Party's ideology.
Abilities[]
| “ | Got his doctorate in Munich. Ahead of his time in genetics. Such the rising young star that in '39, Hitler appointed him chief physician at Dachau, where he enjoyed a ready supply of human subjects on which to test his earliest iterations of Compound V... for which we condemn in the strongest of possible terms.
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- High Intelligence: As the founder and CEO of Vought, Frederick Vought was a very intelligent individual. He was able to realize that Germany was losing the war and was also able to negotiate with the Americans in order to flee Nazi Germany. With his intellect, he managed to found Vought and under his leadership, the company would grow and eventually become one of the most influential companies in the world.
- Genius Geneticist: Vought was recognized by the Nazis for his talent in genetics. He was also the creator of Compound V, the serum that gives people superpowers. While J. Robert Oppenheimer was still developing the atomic bomb, Frederick had already managed to create a field-tested version of Compound V.
Relationships[]
Family[]
Allies[]
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Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Frederick Vought is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Stan Edgar) in the Amazon TV series The Boys.
- Fredrick shares characteristics with several prominent real-world Nazis. He has the leadership and stage presence of Adolf Hitler, the "Final Solution" mentality of Reinhard Heydrich, the medical criminality of Josef Mengele, and the post-war American commercial success of Wernher von Braun.
- In the comics, Compound V was created by Jonah Vogelbaum. Frederick Vought is also based on the comics version of Vogelbaum in that they were both German scientists who defected to the United States and founded Vought.
- Fredrick is very similar to Marvel Comics' Abraham Erskine, a scientist who helped developed the super soldier serum that gave Captain America his powers. Both were brilliant scientists who worked for the Nazi Party and eventually defected to the USA, successfully developing a chemical that would create superhumans. However, while Abraham never believed in the Nazi ideology and was even in fact Jewish, Fredrick always believed in it, even after he betrayed his home country to the Allies.
- Vought's first name, appearance, and backstory as a German-born physician who immigrated to the U.S. during the early 20th century parallels the life of Fredric Wertham, a child psychologist most famous today for his activism against what he saw as as the corrupting influence of comic book violence and immorality on children, argued in published works such as 1954's Seduction of The Innocent. Though simply wanting industry regulation instead of outright censorship, Wertham's writing (as well as the campaigning of other figures) led to the comic book moral panic of the 1950s and the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954, a self-regulated industry censorship board that controlled the content of most mainstream comics for decades until its end in 2011.
References[]
- ↑ A to Gen V: A crash course in The Boys' college-set spinoff
- ↑ Season 2 Episode 1 The Big Ride
- ↑ Season 2 Episode 6 The Bloody Doors Off.