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This Villainous Benchmark was Headlined on August 2024. | ||
| NOTE: This page is only about the live version of A-Train. For his comic version, see here. |
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"Spoiler Content Warning!" |
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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I'm A-Train. I'm the fastest f*cking man alive! | „ |
| ~ A-Train gloating about himself. |
Reggie Franklin, better known as A-Train, is a major character in the 2019 Amazon TV adaptation of the comic book series The Boys.
Former archenemy of Hughie Campbell, member of The Seven and fastest man alive, he is a corrupt speedster that is highly paranoid about staying on top and will do whatever it takes to defeat his competition and remain in the Seven.
He is portrayed by Jessie T. Usher Jr.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
In General[]
- While he has a couple comedic moments, unlike for The Deep or Black Noir II, they are not detracting and his worst actions are taken seriously overall.
Season 1[]
- He has historically used Compound V, the equivalent of steroids to keep his powers and maintain his image, despite his brother and girlfriend telling him not to.
- Under Homelander’s orders he gave samples of compound v to terrorists and criminal organizations, which led to these horrid groups giving compound v to their henchmen, which led to these henchmen turning into Supe-Terrorists or Supervillains, one of these was Kimiko adding another layer to A-trains personal villainy towards people. However it’s unclear if A-train knew this was Homelander’s goal he just gave these criminals the samples for the V.
- While running, he stampeded through Robin Ward, instantly killing her. This could've easily been avoided since Robin was only one foot off the sidewalk, which A-Train lied about and said she was in the middle of the street. While this was accidental, he initially felt no remorse over this, as he kept running after killing her, didn't apologize to her boyfriend Hughie and later made a joke about her death. To make matters even worse, he completely forgot who Hughie is later, showing he thought nothing of the affected victim. His cruelty ultimately is what turned Hughie into the hero-hating vigilante he is throughout the series.
- To save face however, he gave Hughie a fake apology for killing Robin.
- He brags about his athletic abilities to a child dying of cancer. While this wasn't malicious, it is still insensitive.
- Under orders from Vought, he attempts to kidnap Kimiko Miyashiro.
- He ignores his girlfriend, Popclaw, in favor of his fame.
- Later, he kills Popclaw when learning she revealed the truth about his substance abuse although he was forced into this by Homelander.
- He broke into Hughie's house and held his dad hostage to blackmail him into coming. He would then threaten to stampede through his father as revenge of "killing" Popclaw.
- He attacked Starlight, having a fight with her, and he was almost about to defeat her, but he didn't do it because his heart stopped.
Season 2[]
- While he did give Hughie and Starlight the information about Stormfront’s Nazi background, it was solely for his own benefit for him to get back on the seven.
Season 3[]
- He attacked and threatened The Deep by telling Homelander that he recovered a video of him from the plane crash that caused him only to hit him in the gills.
- He told Homelander about the conspiracy that Starlight was making against him and in revenge he killed Supersonic, being indirectly responsible for this.
- According to Ashley, she covered up 3 of A-Train's murders, meaning he killed someone else off-screen.
- He killed Bluehawk out of revenge for hurting his brother, Nathan. While Bluehawk certainly deserved this fate, this is not what Nathan wanted, as he wanted his offender to be locked behind bars.
Season 4[]
- While he didn't take part in Homelander's orders to kill Todd and 2 of his loyal followers, he still aided in the act as he blocked the doorway to prevent Todd from escaping, resulting with him getting beaten to death by Black Noir II (although it didn't seem to be his intention as he was lowering the bat to spare him). Later, he helped put their corpses in a fight between Starlight and Homelander's admirers, incriminating 2 men although he'd later help set these 2 men free.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- Despite being a very personal villain towards Hughie and Kimiko, he fails the massively high heinous standard set by Homelander and Stormfront who have each murdered hundreds or dozens, including children, to the point his lower resources don't even matter. He also fails to Billy Butcher, Little Nina, Indira Shetty, Professor Brink, Victoria Neuman, Tek Knight, both Black Noir's and even The Deep with similar or less resources.
- He is protective of several people, which are the following:
- He cares about his brother, Nathan, and his family as well as part of his reason for becoming a superhero was wanting to help him. He's angered when Blue Hawk cripples Nathan and kills him for revenge and is shown to genuinely enjoy spending time with his nephews. After his redemption, he makes sure they go into hiding with him so Homelander can't kill them.
- Despite prioritizing his fame over her, he genuinely loves his girlfriend Popclaw. He felt remorseful for killing her and wanted to avenge her death, he also watched an old clip of them affectionately cuddling and kissing each other and reminisces about the good times they had together, until it’s eventually ruined by the clip being interrupted by a sex tape of her and their apartment neighbor accidentally getting killed. he also didn't want to hook up with other women after her death.
- Although he is an egotistical hypocrite and goes about it in the wrong way, he does have good intentions of wanting to help the black community and tries to have Blue Hawk, a racist officer, stop his harassment towards minorities and tries to have him give an apology, stopping him when he goes ballistic and starts assaulting people. Before killing him, he even condemns him for "hurting a lot of people". This also shows that he has standards against racism.
- His tragedy of growing up poor is played for sympathy at times as it resulted in his insecurities and caused him to believe he had to dedicate his life to being the number one superhero to be able to make it in life.
- He has several standards, such as hating Stormfront for being a Nazi, showing horror at the courtroom massacre, Homelander's murder of Noir and Ashley's loss of hair and being disgusted by the Deep's beastality and depraved tendencies, even admitting he's always hated him. He's also hesitant to kill Todd, even lowering the baseball bat in pity for Todd and later being disturbed by Cameron Coleman's brutal murder.
- Over time, he has reflections on his actions. He briefly is regretful after kidnapping Hughie's dad and realizing Hughie was a fan of his. He eventually feels remorse for killing Hughie's girlfriend and apologizes to him a second time, this time being genuine and later saves his life from Homelander. He finally buries the hatchet with Hughie after stealing some Compound-V for him in order to save his father and is genuinely grateful for him finally showing forgiveness.
- Although A-Train started out as Faux Affably Evil, over time as he began to seek redemption (even before his official redemption) he became a genuinely affable person, especially with The Boys.
- Although he spends most of the series being on and off, he redeems himself in season 4 after saving Hughie from Homelander and later saving MMs life from a panic attack, causing him to realize what it really meant to be a hero and finally turn against the Seven for good. He then saves Starlight and Butcher from Deep and Black Noir 2, later trying to get Ashley to leave the country with him, and in Gen V Season 2, actively is leading a resistance against Homelander with Annie.
External Links[]
- A-Train on the Villains Wiki
- A-Train on the Heroes Wiki
- A-Train on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
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 Villainous Benchmarks
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