Prime Video’s The Boys recently concluded its fourth season with a deeper, irreverent exploration of what a world full of superheroes would really be like. It uses the concept of superpowered individuals to skewer the most toxic parts of nerd culture and corporate media. The fifth and final season most likely won’t premiere until 2026 — according to Variety, creator Eric Kripke stated the final season is currently being written and won’t begin filming until November 2024. So, viewers will have to wait for more of its signature brand of satire, wild, gross-out comedy, and unique characters. While fans wait for The Boys Season 5, they should check out Future Man, created by Howard Overman, Kyle Hunter, and Ariel Shaffir. In case those comparisons weren’t enough, Future Man also just so happens to be another series produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
Several of the actors who have prominent roles on Future Man also have small roles in The Boys. Derek Wilson, who played the Batman parody Tek Knight, gives an incredible performance in Future Man as Wolf, a hilariously disgusting and brutish man sent back in time to save the world. Haley Joel Osment, who played child star Mesmer in Season 1, has a great arc as a scientist who becomes a world leader in a dystopian future. Even Rogen, who appears as himself on The Boys, has an arc as a future game show host.
What Is ‘Future Man’ About?
In the same way that The Boys parodies superhero media and takes it to a gross, violent extreme, Future Man puts a repulsive spin on ’80s sci-fi movies like The Last Starfighter, The Terminator, and Back to the Future. Josh Hutcherson stars as Josh Futturman, an ordinary slacker who’s pulled into a wild time travel adventure after he finishes a video game that’s known for being impossible. The tone of Future Man is set early on when Wolf and his partner Tiger (Eliza Coupe) come from the future to recruit Josh. He’s in the middle of masturbating and climaxes on them just as they appear to tell him he’s the only hope for saving the future.
While The Boys is a fairly large ensemble, Future Man mostly focuses on Josh, Wolf, and Tiger. This allows the series to really go deep into exploring these three characters, all of whom are very unique. As the protagonist, Josh is the strongest character and the most representative of Future Man’s themes. Like Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) on The Boys, Josh is an unremarkable young man who gets roped into something bigger than himself. Future Man is, at its core, a parody of nerd wish-fulfillment fantasies. As a result, Josh suffers an endless onslaught of torture and humiliation — even more, it could be argued, than Hughie. He has moments of heroism, but he’s also cut down again and again. While similar characters save the world and get the girl, after the first time Josh saves the world, he ends up living as Wolf’s puppy. There’s a real bite to how much he sacrifices for no glory. The pilot even sets up the fact that Josh still lives with his parents (hilariously played by Ed Begley Jr. and Glenne Headly) as something he’s ashamed of. But, by the finale of Future Man, there’s a real sense of how much Josh regrets giving up just being a guy who lives with his parents.
The character of Wolf is also a parody of ’80s archetypes, a masculine hero who easily gets caught up in the pure ego and excess that exemplified the culture of that era. To put it more succinctly, Wolf is an example of what would happen if one of the characters from Top Gun was raised in a sewer eating rats. Meanwhile, Tiger, played by Coupe, is an embodiment of what constantly being in survival mode does to a person. Whether she’s trying to murder a baby or almost marrying the dictator of a virtual world, her storylines are always interesting. It’s surprising and refreshing what a three-dimensional character she is after being introduced primarily as someone Josh only thinks is hot. The way the show almost immediately moves away from Tiger merely being a love interest is just one way Future Man always stays surprising.
‘Future Man’ Is Even More Comedic Than ‘The Boys’
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The plot of Future Man is often not as strong as the plot of The Boys, especially after Season 1. It doesn’t have a main antagonist like Homelander (Antony Starr), so, at times, the goals of the characters can feel too abstract. However, its strength is great standalone episodes. Season 2’s “The Last Horchata” and Season 3’s “The Land After Time” are reason alone to keep watching even when the overarching plot is weaker. Yet the series’ very best episode happens in Season 1: “Operation: Fatal Attraction,” which exemplifies what Future Man does so well. While trying to prevent a dystopian future, Josh gets caught in a Frasier-like farce, full of mistaken identity and relationship hijinks.
Future Man also leans more into pure comedy than The Boys. It can be very wacky and cartoonish, prioritizing doing the funniest thing at any given time over plot consistency. This can often be a strength, since even the weaker episodes still have great laugh-out-loud gags. Perhaps the most memorable thing about Future Man is the raunchy humor and innovative sex scenes that rival even the most bizarre encounters on The Boys. Fans who enjoyed the horrifying Termite scene in The Boys‘ Season 3 premiere should also see the hookup between Josh and Wolf that occurs after they’ve swapped body parts. The show also includes multiple characters having relations with robots or computers, someone sexually stimulating a brain in a jar, and a fully nude fight between two Josh Hutchersons with different-sized members.
Future Man is the perfect watch for fans who love the inventive ways The Boys uses superhero tropes to push both the characters’ misery and its gross-out humor as far as possible. While it’s even denser with jokes than The Boys, and the characters are richer, it’s also a complete three-season show perfect to fill the time until The Boys returns for its grand finale.
Future Man is available to watch in the U.S. by purchasing it on Prime Video.
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