The Boys Season 5 Just Dropped a Bold Sony Villain-Verse Easter Egg
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe may be finished, but The Boys still have it in their sights—read on for the review.
Spoiler alert for The Boys Season 5, Episode 5, 'One-Shots'—if you haven’t seen it and care about surprises, maybe bail now.
The Boys has never been shy about taking brutal, snarky shots at superhero culture in general, but every now and then, the show drops all subtlety and goes for the jugular. This week? They took aim at a very specific, very embarrassing corner of the Marvel universe—but not Marvel Studios itself. No, this is about Sony's ongoing attempt to make their own Spider-Man-ish world…without Spider-Man.
The Boys Dunks on Sony’s “Not Spider-Man” Franchise
In case you haven’t been following, Sony has spent the last several years building a string of Spider-Man adjacent movies, technically called the Sony Spider-Man Universe (or SSU), but more commonly referred to as the “villain-verse.” The catch? Because the actual Spider-Man character is tangled up in a complicated rights deal with Disney/Marvel, Sony decided to push forward with a bunch of films starring only the side characters—Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, Kraven, and so on—without Spider-Man himself, or even a whiff of him.
Predictably, the results have ranged from “surprisingly profitable” to “faceplant.” Overall? Not the cinematic universe anyone was clamoring for.
Enter The Boys, never one to miss a chance for a roast. In 'One-Shots', the show dedicates an entire sequence to skewering the SSU. The target: Mister Marathon (played by Jared Padalecki), a painfully on-the-nose parody of these unwanted, aimless superhero vehicles.
How The Boys Turns the Knife
The details they drop aren’t just winks and nudges. The episode goes full meta, with fake Sony posters showing Mister Marathon in titles like 'Marathon of the Heart,' 'Mr. Marathon: Around the Speedy-Verse,' and 'Mr. Marathon: Vampire Hunter.' (No points for guessing which real movies inspired those names.)
Just to make sure everyone’s in on the joke, Homelander stops to trash Mister Marathon’s movies, essentially echoing every complaint ever made about Sony’s attempt at a shared universe.
'Maybe we're not part of the official VCU, and maybe we can't mention Vought, or, you know, any licensed Vought hero, but hey, I'm still making magic.'
—Mister Marathon, laying the cringe on thick in 'One-Shots'.
The irony is delicious: Sony co-produces The Boys with Amazon, so the studio is actively mocking its own superhero side-hustle on national TV. There’s some real self-awareness here—or maybe just a complete lack of self-preservation.
What's Actually Different (and What's Not)
In the world of The Boys, the “Sony-Vought” franchise is basically a dumping ground for superheroes past their sell-by date. Homelander flat-out tells us that this is 'where washed-up Supes go to die.' In other words, if you were ever part of the cool kids’ club (The Seven) and got kicked out, there’s always a spot for you in a bargain-bin Sony movie. Mister Marathon himself used to be in The Seven, before being replaced by A-Train. The real world wishes the SSU had this much brutal honesty.
The actual SSU, though? They went the opposite route, recruiting actors who are genuinely at the top of their game, or at least still in demand: Tom Hardy, Dakota Johnson, Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Sydney Sweeney, Adam Scott, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. For all the mockery, you can’t call these folks “washed up.” (Though they'd probably prefer not to have “Morbius” next to their name on IMDb.)
In Case You Need Receipts: The SSU’s Track Record
- Venom (2018): $110 million budget, $856 million box office, 31% Rotten Tomatoes
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021): $110 million budget, $506 million box office, 58% RT
- Morbius (2022): $80 million budget, $167 million box office, 15% RT—yes, really, fifteen
- Madame Web (2024): $100 million budget, $100 million box office, 10% RT—ouch
- Venom: The Last Dance (2024): $110 million budget, $479 million box office so far, 40% RT
- Kraven the Hunter (2024): $110 million budget, $62 million box office, 15% RT—double ouch
Even sticking just to the facts, it’s a rough lumberyard of bad reviews and disappointing returns, with only Tom Hardy’s Venom outings propping up the whole structure (and not much even there, aside from ticket sales). According to The Boys, Sony’s in-universe equivalents couldn’t even manage that much—Mister Marathon’s latest movie lost $170 million.
Final Thoughts
The Boys isn’t just dunking on superhero movies in general—it’s specifically calling out a real contemporary embarrassment, and doing it right in front of one of the guilty parties (Sony) who bankroll the show. If you like your superhero satire with a side of actual risk and self-deprecation, you really can’t ask for much more.