Misha Collins And Jared Padalecki's The Boys Season 5 Characters, Explained

Contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 5 — "One-Shots"

The bold and occasionally brilliant "The Boys" Season 5 returns Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy to the forefront of action. Since he and showrunner Eric Kripke are both "Supernatural" veterans, the hilarity potential of other names from the long-running The CW show joining in has rarely been away from the fans' minds. 

Jared Padalecki's one condition to appear on "The Boys" has evidently been met, as "One-Shots" finally gives us the big "Supernatural" reunion of Ackles, Padalecki, and Misha Collins. Padalecki plays Mister Marathon, a speedster who lost his place in the Seven to A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). Collins' character is Malchemical, a fellow supe whose ability to create poison gas turns out to be surprisingly formidable.  

The "Soldier Boy" segment of the anthology-style episode features a particularly bloody battle between the Sam and Dean Winchester actors' supe characters, with Malchemical dying early in the game — but not before taking down Homelander (Antony Starr) himself. It's a magnificent reunion that bears similarities to some of the monster battles in "Supernatural," as Marathon hunts Soldier Boy and the latter uses his wits and tactics to survive. In the end, Soldier Boy remains victorious — but what fans might not know is that both Mister Marathon and Malchemical play very different roles in the comics. let's take a look at Padalecki and Collins' characters.

In Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's "The Boys" comic series, Mister Marathon is an early member of the Seven who is lost during the team's fateful attempt to foil a plane terror attack. He clings to Homelander and promptly dies when the flying supe smashes through the plane, accidentally crushing Marathon's head. 

The show's version of Marathon is somewhat more formidable, as he's unafraid to take on Soldier Boy after the latter refuses to join Marathon and Malchemical's improvised mission to kill Homelander. Soldier Boy is forced to use guerrilla tactics that involve a series of gory Hollywood star cameo deaths and an unholy amount of lubricant, but ultimately emerges victorious. 

As a nod to the comic book character's demise, the final blow is delivered by the recovered Homelander, who delivers the coup de grace by stomping on Marathon's head. The whole encounter is relentlessly grim and gleefully gory — in other words, a true "The Boys" moment.

Misha Collins' Malchemical is effectively just a supe who can make dangerous chemicals, apparently by breathing them onto someone. This is a handy enough power to temporarily take down Homelander himself, but in the comics, Malchemical is an outright monster who had been assumed to be too offensive for a live-action "The Boys" series. 

The main antagonist of "The Innocents" arc, Malchemical is a shapeshifter who can turn into virtually anything, from dangerous gases and other people to razor-sharp tentacles and even a giant pair of underpants. Thanks to his abuse of said powers, he's reassigned to lead a bottom-tier superhero team called Super Duper, where Billy Butcher — who's temporarily unsure of whether to trust Hughie Campbell — has sent Hughie to go undercover.

Malchemical proves himself to be an absolute powerhouse and an all-around nightmare person who's ready to make everyone else's life hell for his own amusement. He's also very difficult to fight due to his versatility, and Butcher is only able to beat him because he makes the mistake of turning into  flammable gas while the Boys' leader happens to have a light. 

"The Boys" Season 5 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.