A Stormfront Is A Brewin’
How Aya Cash’s Stormfront shook up season two of The Boys.
Before the start of the second season of The Boys, the creators of the Amazon Prime show promised to deliver a member of The Seven that would be worse than even Homelander. As hard as it was to believe it was even possible, fans of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic series jumped at the mention of the name “Stormfront”, and fans of the show had no idea what they were in for.
When the season debuted, Stormfront just felt like a witty, pro-women hero that didn't take shit from anyone, including Vought and members of The Seven. However, as the season progressed, it was obvious that the promise to deliver a “hero” worse than Homelander was not only fulfilled but the showrunners over-delivered on it.
Portrayed by Aya Cash, Stormfront first appears in the premiere when she crashes a commercial shoot for Vought and spoils all the behind-the-scenes secrets via social media. Imbued with flight, superhuman strength and durability, a healing factor (something that could come in handy later down the line), electrical telekinesis, and plasma manipulation, Stormfront is The Seven’s version of the Avengers’ Thor or the Justice League’s Shazam! After invading the set, she’s introduced as the newest member of The Seven, something that Homelander doesn’t agree with. Eventually, she earns her place among the team, even killing the Female’s brother, Kenji, by snapping his neck. As the season progresses, her origin as a Nazi and wife to the creator of Compound V, Frederick Vought who intended for the drug to create a group of superhumans to destroy races that he felt were inferior are revealed.
Klara Risinger, Stormfront, was Frederick’s first success and the two even had a daughter together. In the ’70s, after moving to America with Frederick, Klara operated under the codename “Liberty” and committed at least one known racially motivated crime. She would go on to join the Church of the Collective before disappearing later in the decade and finally resurfaced in the public eye under the name “Stormfront.” Now playing to the public and her “Stormchaser” fans through her social media accounts, Klara eventually becomes one of the most beloved members of The Seven thanks in no small part to her romance with the team’s leader, Homelander. After introducing her to his son Ryan, Homelander and Stormfront take the boy away from his mother in hopes of raising him together as a replacement for her own lost daughter. This sets up the final confrontation between The Boys and Stormfront as the team faces off with her while Butcher rescues Ryan. Following an all-woman beatdown, she flies away and eventually confronts Billy, Becca, and Ryan in the woods.
In Ennis and Robertson’s comic, Stormfront never joins The Seven and is the leader of Payback, the superhero team that comes in second to The Seven. The most noticeable change between the Amazon Prime show and the source material is obviously the gender swap. Still, a gross Nazi and the first Supe ever created, the comic iteration of Stormfront flexed his muscles by savagely beating down members of The Boys, something that the TV version didn’t get to do. He beats the Female into a coma and brutally takes out Mother’s Milk, and while the Female has several encounters with Stormfront on the show, including the girls' beatdown of the super Nazi, Mother’s Milk and Stormfront never have a face-to-face which is fortunate for him because unlike in the comic, The Boys aren’t pumped with Compound V.
At the end of issue #34, the comic version is killed by The Boys and the Soviet Supe, Love Sausage, in a savage beatdown which is no less than any Nazi prick deserves. The end of the comic version differs from Klara’s fate on the show, in which she’s fried by Homelander’s kid, Ryan, losing both her arms and legs but is seemingly still alive muttering some German shit. The comic also reveals that Vought is reusing Supe DNA and that Homelander was actually created using some of Stormfront’s DNA, something that the show may pursue in the future, although the two have been shown to swap DNA differently when left to themselves.
If there were any fans of the comic out there moaning and complaining about the change of gender for their favorite Nazi character, Aya Cash’s performance should have erased any doubt from their minds. Known most for her incredible turn as Gretchen in FXX’s You’re the Worst, Cash absolutely kills (pun intended) as Stormfront and delivers a performance worthy of all the praise she’s been getting. As promised by the show’s creators, Stormfront does indeed end up being much worse than Homelander with her racist views, and the explanation she gives his son Ryan about white genocide even makes Homelander pause and question what he’s doing with her.
Stormfront is the perfect character for today’s world, and Cash’s depiction of a white supremacist that feels that she’s being wiped by society perfectly matches the narrative going on today in the wasteland of America. To lose her now, while great for the characters and the show’s world, would be a shame as Stormfront represents the misguided local terrorists supporting the Nazi currently in the White House, further grounding the series and making it even more relatable to audiences today. She is, essentially, the perfect villain of 2020 and there’s so much more that can be done with (and to) her in future seasons.
Stormfront looks pretty well fucked by the end of season two, but bringing her back wouldn’t be the craziest things that the showrunners of The Boys have done. Aya Cash is just too good and Stormfront is just too intriguing (and evil) a character to be left on the sidelines for the remainder of the show’s run.
