Vought International

*For the Dynamite version of Vought, see Vought-American/Comics.*

―Madelyn Stillwell[src]

―Vought's official slogan

**Vought International**, formerly known as **Vought American**, is an American multi-billion dollar superhero entertainment conglomerate, currently led by Homelander; with Ashley Barrett serving as the puppet CEO. It was previously led by Stan Edgar and previously managed by Madelyn Stillwell. The company is famous for founding the Seven and managing the global population of licensed Supes. Vought also has several other businesses industries including but not limited to tv networks, sports drink companies, music apps and fast food chains. The corporation is also extremely corrupt and aims for world domination, being founded by former Third Reich member Frederick Vought.

## History

―Madelyn Stillwell[src]

Vought was founded by Frederick Vought, a Nazi scientist whom Adolf Hitler himself appointed as the chief physician at the Dachau concentration camp in 1939 where Vought would perform unethical experimentation on human test subjects in order to develop Compound V to enhance human beings into what are now known as "Supes". Vought eventually created the first dose of Compound V and had his first successful superhero, his own wife, Klara Risinger. When Vought realized that the Nazi Party's defeat was certain, he defected from Nazi Germany and the Allied forces smuggled him to the US and allowed him to give his newly developed Compound V to military soldiers to increase their odds against the Nazis. This prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to pardon him in 1944 and allow him to continue his research on Compound V and create more supes (most notably Soldier Boy) and gave him his own corporation to further the development of the supes as an advanced race of living weapons. At some point after Vought died, Stan Edgar would take over as CEO and (perhaps like his predecessor) would cover up any casualties caused by the supes. Compound V is shrouded from the public, who are led to believe that supes are chosen by God. Instead, Compound V was shipped across the US to hospitals by Samaritan's Embrace under the guise of medical supplies. Hughie Campbell was able to stop the Compound V shipments by threatening to release damaging information to the public about Samaritan's leader, Ezekiel.

Vought's goal has always been to capitalize on supes, cutting deals with independent cities and states for protection; Madelyn Stillwell tried to offer Baltimore's Nubian Prince at the price of $300 million a year, however the deal was tanked by Homelander. Vought's goal was to get the Seven into the military and perhaps a number of other supes. Due to her good work, it was Edgar's wish that Stillwell replace him as CEO of Vought. However, things begin going awry after Homelander arranges for the creation of the Supe Terrorists to create enemies only Vought had the means to combat, which results in Compound V being exposed to military personnel and the higher-ups during raids on terrorist compounds, resulting in major scrutiny towards Vought and Compound V being evaluated by the FDA. In addition to this, Homelander, due to his growing mental instability, kills Stillwell upon learning she deceived him, putting Edgar's plan to retire on hold. After Compound V is exposed to the public, Vought places blame on Stillwell, using her as a scapegoat, but the exposure nonetheless causes Vought's stock to plummet down drastically.

With the growing popularity of Stormfront, Vought incites the public to possible Supe terrorist attacks, which leads to paranoia and xenophobia tainting the culture at large. With the public afraid or angry, they are supporting Compound V supplements to be given to law enforcement all across the country. Before the first shipments of V can be sent out, Stormfront has her past as a Nazi exposed and leads to further distrust in Vought. After Stormfront is defeated by the Boys, Vought uses the exposed Stormfront as a scapegoat by saying she was the one who framed Starlight as a traitor, and Mr. Edgar announces the shipments of Compound V have been permanently halted.

## Company Culture

Vought International, as a corporation, is highly merciless and will do everything and anything if it means pleasing their stockbrokers. Vought's quest to maintain it's vast wealth and power often comes at the cost of the innocent lives they have ruined.

The vast majority of notable Vought employees have been shown to be extremely corrupt and nefarious individuals. While at first glance, the company seems to care about being progressive and inclusive, it is nothing more than a thinly veiled façade. In reality, almost all of the individuals that hold positions of power within the company are either apathetic or abusive sociopaths.

Despite the company’s corporate “progressivism” that it constantly proclaims in its marketing and products, Vought also has serious racial equity and representation issues that it has never bothered to solve and has a long history of racism that appears to be persistent to this day (all the more concerning considering the company’s ties the Nazi party and its founding by a Nazi scientist), since it was revealed that 92% of their supes are Caucasian, whereas only 6% are African American and the last 2% are divided between Asians and Latinos. In addition to being racially hegemonic, Vought has notable issues when it comes to its treatment of female superheroes. According to Starlight, there was never a superhero team lead by a woman before she was appointed as the co-leader of the Seven, also indicating a gender bias of leadership in the company (despite multiple women, such as Ashley Barrett and Madelyn Stillwell, holding positions of power).

Vought has been shown to have a culture of silence as well, where any evidence or rumors of wrongdoing by the superheroes they own is quietly slept under the rug (such as the video showing Homelander accidentally killing an teenager in Africa being scrubbed off the internet and bribing victims of supes with low compensation from speaking out). Many employees (especially the higher-ups) have a decidedly indifferent and blasé attitude towards internal corruption, as seen where Stillwell apparently knew about the Deep's history of sexual misconduct but decided not to do anything until Starlight publicly spoke out against him.

Among the members of The Seven, almost all of them are morally bankrupt and completely disinterested in helping anyone other than themselves, with Starlight being the only member of the team who actually cares about people and actively refuses to be like her colleagues. Queen Maeve was originally a similar position as Starlight when she first joined the team, but she quickly started to feel so exhausted from the corruption and greed surrounding the Seven that she eventually just gave up being hero and choose instead to become a mere bystander to her teammates’s grotesque behavior, silently watching them carry on with their callous acts.

The only times Vought seems to care about corruption is when it becomes public knowledge and if they could scapegoat someone else in order to avoid bad PR, such as Stan Edgar blaming Kenji Miyashiro for Stormfront's massacre of a predominately black residential building during a press conference about the incident.

## Notable Staff

### Current Staff

* Ashley Barrett (Demoted to a currently unknown low-ranking position; Former CEO/Figurehead; Former Senior Vice President of Hero Management; Former Director of Talent Relations)
* Seth Reed (Public Relations Writer)
* Evan Lambert (Public Relations Writer)
* Doug Friedman (Assistant)
* Bill Marsh (Board of Directors Member)
* Pat Willis (Board of Directors Member)
* Maureen (Board of Directors Member)
* Anika (Crime/Security Analyst)
* Also Ashley (Development Executive)
* Homelander (Former leader of The Seven; President/CEO)
* The Deep (Formerly part of The Seven; Head of Crime Analytics)
* A-Train (Formerly part of The Seven)

### Former Staff

* Frederick Vought † (Founder and original CEO)
* Stan Edgar (President/CEO)
* Madelyn Stillwell † (Senior Vice President of Hero Management)
* The Legend (Senior Vice President of Hero Management)
* Jonah Vogelbaum † (CSO/Scientist)
* Becca Butcher † (Senior Director of Digital Marketing)
* The Seven
	+ Stormfront †
	+ Lamplighter †
	+ Translucent †
	+ Supersonic †
	+ Black Noir †
	+ Mister Marathon (Alive; Retired)
	+ Starlight (Former Co-Leader; Resigned)
	+ Queen Maeve (Alive; Resigned)

* Payback
	+ Soldier Boy (Former Leader)
	+ Crimson Countess †
	+ Gunpowder †
	+ Swatto †
	+ Mindstorm †
	+ TNT Twins †

## Departments

* **Research and Development Department**: Vought's R&D department, dedicated to developing and fabricating Compound V and other pharmaceutical products. They contain multiple highly skilled geneticists and scientists.
* **Crime Analytics Department**: A subdivision dedicated to analyzing information for the Supes, so that they can fight crime more efficiently. After The Deep was named as the new Head, he fired everyone who had tweets that were critical of Homelander, leaving Anika as the only remaining staff.
* **Hero Management Department**: A department dedicated to managing the many superheroes present in the company. After the death of Madelyn Stillwell, it is unknown who is in charge of the department.
* **Digital Marketing Department**: A division dedicated to dealing with the company's presence in an online environment. One of their duties is creating social media's accounts and profiles for the many superheroes of Vought.
* **Talent Relations Department**: A department whose job is to attract and retain high-quality employees for the company. Creating a work environment that fosters professional growth, loyalty and collaboration is also their job.
* **Public Relations Department**: Vought's PR department, dedicated to managing how information about the company and its employees are disseminated to the public.
* **Crisis Management Team**: A team whose job is to execute appropriate crisis response procedures whenever the company is under threat. They usually have to deal with the crimes and controversies caused by the irresponsible and careless behavior of the company's “heroes”.
* **Vought Special Services**: A secret division of Vought International that specializes in cleaning up the messes left behind by supes, in other words, it's their job to get rid of incriminating evidence that is left behind everytime one of the company's heroes commits a crime.

## Subsidiaries and Products

### Entertainment

Vought's primary source of revenue. By using their "heroes" as part of the advertisement, Vought has expanded their influence across every single form of entertainment, including movies, comics, music and TV shows. Much of this media typically depicts a highly sanitized version of the company’s supes; presenting them as courageous, selfless, and more in line with conventional, pop culture expectations of an superhero, rather than the depressing reality of most Vought-owned supes being either hedonistic celebrities or cold-blooded sociopaths. Stan Edgar had a desire to remove the company out of the entertainment business, since he believed that supes were never meant to be "heroes" and that they should be a "serious company". However, Edgar’s plan was stopped by Homelander and Victoria after they scapegoated him for Vought’s crimes and was let go from the company.

#### Comics and Magazines

* **Vought Comics**: Responsible for the production and publication of superhero comics.
* **V-PLE**: A weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news.
* **Vought Sports**: A sports magazine known for its annual Super Swimsuit Spectacular issue. It is a parody of *Sports Illustrated*.

#### Movies and TV

* **Vought Studios**: Responsible for the production and release of superhero movies, such as Dawn of the Seven and Invisible Force.
* **Vought News Network**: Network news channel, dedicated solely to Vought related news.
* **Vought+**: A streaming service. It streams primarily Vought related content, with a big focus on superhero tv series and movies, though it also has content owned by other companies.
* **VSPN**: Sports channel. It is a parody of the sports channel ESPN.
* **Vought Entertainment Television**: A fashion and pop-culture channel. It is a parody of Entertainment Tonight.
* **VTV: Television for Women**: A TV channel directed at women viewers. It is likely a parody of the Lifetime and Hallmark channel.
* **Vought Kids**: A preschool TV channel for kids.
* **Voughtoons**: A series of cartoons, starring heroes and other characters owned by Vought.

#### Music

* **Vought Soul**: A music channel, which also includes TV shows. It is a TV channel directed at members of the black community and other minorities. It is a parody of the Black Entertainment Chanel. "A-Train To Africa" is one of the many shows available on this channel.
* **Voughtify**: A music streaming service. Music videos such as: "Never Truly Vanish", "Faster" and "Bow and Quiver" can be accessed within the service. It is a parody of Spotify
* **Vought Records**: A music company. Eagle the Archer's new album, *Bullseye Beats,* was announced to be coming from them.
* **Vought Music Group**: Another music company. In 2008, they produced the "Rock My Kiss" music video.

#### Gaming

* **VS4**: Also known as the VoughtStation 4, it's a Vought-branded video game console. It's also a parody of the PlayStation and Xbox series of gaming consoles.
* **VS5**: Also known as the VoughtStation 5, it's another series of the Vought-branded video game console.
* **The Middle Passage**: An unreleased video game developed by Thinkyard Games. It features A-Train as the main character in a story set during the transatlantic slave trade.

#### Other

* **Voughtland**: An amusement park themed after Vought's superheroes.
* **Planet Vought Casino & Resort**: A casino resort located in Las Vegas. In 1986, Mindstorm performed live shows called "Mental Magic with Mindstorm" at the establishment.
* **Vought International (Youtube Channel)**: Vought's official youtube channel, dedicated to posting in-universe commercials and other videos.
* **Supie Awards**: An extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for Vought International's superhero film and television industry.
* **VoughtCon**: An annual convention hosted by Vought for fans of it's superhero-related media. It is a parody of Comic-Con.
* **Supe Porn**: A pornographic website.
* **V**: An online social media and social networking service. It is a parody of Twitter.

### Medical

In their early days, Vought was a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the research and development of Compound V and its secret formula. However, despite the source of their success coming from the blue serum, the company started to neglect their original purpose overtime and put their focus on the entertainment industry instead.

* **Sage Grove Center**: A psychiatric facility in New Jersey. Acts as a front for Vought's tests of Compound V on live adult subjects.
* **Global Wellness Center**: A therapy service dedicated to helping Supes, especially retired superheroes.
* **Compound V**: An alchemical super serum. While originally created for the purpose of creating super soldiers for Nazi Germany, it is now used by Vought to create their superpowered celebrities which they can profit out of.

### Housing

Vought owns multiple residential institutions and group homes. Said institutions are often used by the company to house their supes, especially those who lack a legal guardian.

* **Red River Institute**: An adoption center for superpowered children.
* **Vought-doption center**: Another adoption center for superpowered children.

### Charity

Vought owns and funds a variety of non-profit organizations, likely so that they can retain a good reputation.

* **Samaritan's Embrace**: A charity organization lead by Ezekiel. Acts as a front for the distribution for Compound V to hospitals.
* **Timothy Foundation**: A nonprofit organization dedicated to cleaning the oceans. It is led by the Deep and it was created to honor the memory of Timothy.
* **Starlight House**: A non-profit organization dedicated to helping homeless and at-risk youth.
* **Toys for Voughts**: A program which distributes toys to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas. It is a parody of Toys for Tots.

### Clothing

* **XLR8**: A brand of running shoes owned by Shockwave.
* **Starlight Diapers**: A brand of diapers owned by Starlight.

### Food

* **Planet Vought**: A restaurant chain. It is a parody of Planet Hollywood.
* **Vought-A-Burger**: A fast food chain. It is a parody of Whataburger and McDonald's.
* **Vought Water**: A plastic water bottle brand.
* **Vought Fresh Farms**: A frozen food company that sells various vegetable products.
* **Lean Lady Frozen Dinners**: Another frozen food company that sells frozen pre-made meals.
* **Heaven's Harvest**: A farming company that was acquired by Vought. It is a beloved Christian-owned organic farm to shelf grocery store chain. The company sees to be going well, pleasing Vought and Wall Street investors.
* **Turbo Rush**: A brand of energy drink that uses A-Train's image on its cans as part of the advertisement.
* **Brave Maeve Pride Bars**: A brand of snack bars that uses Queen Maeve's image as part of the advertisement. During the holidays, Maeve has donated part of the profits from this snack bars line to sponsor Christmas care packages for New York City's LGBTQ+ homeless population.
* **Frosted A-Trains**: A brand of cereal that uses an image of A-Train on its boxes as part of the advertisement. It is a parody of Frosted Flakes.
* **Speeding Bullet Ale**: A brand of beer that uses an image of A-Train on its bottles as part of the advertisement.
* **Colombian Black Noir Dark Roast**: A brand of coffee named after Black Noir. It was once one of the top-selling coffees in the United States of America.

### Defense and Security

Among other subdivisions, Vought also has a defense and arms contractor division, manufacturing military-style weapons, supplies and other such products. Since crime-fighting is part of the work done by Vought's "heroes", the company also has subdivisions dedicated to facilitating such activities.

* **VR-15**: Vought-made copy or variant of the real-life AR-15 rifles.
* **GalGear**: GalGear tactical firearms for women, commonly referred to as GalGear, are a brand of pink-colored pistols launched by Vought. It is a hot seller with an increase in sales of nearly 200% since their debut. While their target audience are American women, some men have also bought the product.
* **Vought Rifle Association**: An organization dedicated to advocating for gun rights. It is a parody of the National Rifle Association.
* **Vought's Bulletproof Backpacks**: A brand of backpacks intended for kids. They contain images of Vought's heroes and were made for the intent of protecting children from Supe-Terrorists and other dangers.

### Energy

* **Vought Petroleum**: A gas company with Alaska oil reserves.

### Educational

* **Godolkin University**: A university dedicated to teaching Supes on how to become heroes.

## Associates

Vought has a large number of organizations and companies which they have invested in or have made deals with, among them:

### Current Associates

* **Capes for Christ**: A fundamentalist Christian organization led by Ezekiel; dedicated to spreading Christianity across America using superheroes such as Homelander as their spokespersons. They are affiliated with Vought's charities including Samaritan's Embrace.
* **Our Sheet**: An American company that makes a great variety of affordable and made in America only products, including bed sheets, 94% cotton triple ply toilet paper and dark roast southern harvest coffee. The Supe Blue Hawk is the spokesmen of this brand. It appears to be a parody of the real-world company MyPillow.
* **Saving Our Seas Aquatic Animal Foundation**: A non-profit organization dedicated to protecting sea life. It is sponsored by Vought and the organization gave Dinky to Oceanland as a replacement for their previous lead dolphin.
* **Oceanland**: An aquatic zoo sponsored by the Deep. After the accidental death of its previous lead dolphin, during the Deep's failed attempt to free the creature from Oceanland, the Saving Our Seas Aquatic Animal Foundation gave a baby bottlenose dolphin named Dinky to the zoo as a replacement.
* **Kirei Shoyu**: A Japanese seafood restaurant chain. The Deep has done a commercial for the franchise, advertising its beautiful soy sauce and tasty food. The restaurant chain appears to have an octopus and a flying bottle of soy sauce as its mascots.
* **Chelsea's Angels**: A charity organization. They worked on partnership with Queen Maeve in order to help New York City's LGBTQ+ homeless population.
* **G Fuel**: A brand of caffeinated drink mix sold by Gamma Labs. They partnered up with Vought to release a new energy drink inspired by Compound V. It sharpens focus, increases energy, and in select cases, gives people super-powers.
* **Opera GX**: Powered by Opera GX, "V", the social media arm of Vought International, will allow users to interact with profiles of well-known supes such as the members of The Seven. V users can also explore Godolkin University and catch up with some of its most popular students. Users will be able to keep up with Godolkin University’s latest student rankings as students battle for the top position and the opportunity to join The Seven.

### Former Associates

* **Liquid Death**: A canned-water company. The Deep has done a commercial for this company, advertising the product as an eco-friendlier replacement for plastic water bottles, since aluminum cans are more recyclable and are less likely to end up in the oceans. As of right now, the Deep is no longer the chief sustainability associate of the company, due to burning plastic trash and releasing toxic fumes near children.

## Enemies

Vought has acquired enemies and rivals over time, among them:

* **The Boys**: A team of vigilantes under the CIA with the mission of bringing down Vought International and The Seven.
* **Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs (FBSA)**: A government agency dedicated to dealing with supes who have committed crimes.
* **Bremer and Bremmer Law Firm (B&B Law Firm)**: A law firm that has filed a lawsuit against Vought International on behalf of dozens of superhumans and their families for non-consensual exposure to Compound V.
* **Russia**: After World War II, the Cold War and the involvement of American superheroes in both events, anti-supe sentiment became very strong in Russia. Unlike the Americans, most Russians see supes in a negative way to the point that graffiti depicting supes as monsters is quite common in the country. Due to Russian hatred of superheroes, Vought products are also considered contraband, however the Russian media is still allowed to talk about superhero related topics. Besides that, the Russian military is also secretly studying Compound V, most likely so that they can gain an advantage over the USA in case of another war.

### Former Enemies

* **M.M's father**: After Soldier Boy accidentally killed Mother's Milk grandfather, his father would spend years of his life fighting Vought to get proper justice. He believed that no one was above the law, and he would try to use his knowledge as a lawyer to defeat Vought at the court of law. However, he failed at achieving his goal and died at 55.

## Trivia

* There are a number of differences between the series version of Vought and its comic counterpart.
	+ The comic version of Vought was known as Vought-American, whereas the show version is known as Vought International. As a nod to the comics, its revealed in flashbacks that the company was originally called Vought-American; the name was changed at some point between 1984 and the present.
	+ In the comics Vought was an incompetent arms company that hastily rebranded as a superhero company after recruiting Jonah Vogelbaum. The series version was founded by Nazi scientist-turned-businessman Fredrick Vought and was a 'superhero company' from the start.
	+ The series' version is far more sinister then in the comics. While they were already highly amoral in the comics, covering up heroes' vicious actions and willing to kill those who step out of line, the series version was created as a secret Nazi conspiracy to build an 'army of Supermen' to take over the world; and have also been secretly practicing human experimentation for decades. Vought is even willing to experiment on children, as Homelander's origins reveal.
	+ The company in the comics existed during World War II, during which time they manufactured aircraft (similar to the real-world Vought corporation). In the TV series, they are not founded until after the war.
* A real company called Vought existed between the 1920s and the 1960s and was responsible for manufacturing many famous military planes. In the original *The Boys* comic series by Garth Ennis, one of the planes built by the fictional Vought company is called the F7U; this was also the name of a plane built by the real Vought company.

## Commentary

* Vought International has many similarities with Veidt Enterprises from the original *Watchmen* miniseries, as both are international corporate conglomerates with a monopolistic hold on consumer products and mass media. They also coexist within superhero universes where they profit off the names and likenesses of supes through merchandising and entertainment in order to fund large-scale conspiracies (the deadly 11/2 Psychic Shockwave in Manhattan secretly conducted by Adrian Veidt from *Watchmen* and the true origins of superheroes and the coverup of the numerous crimes and atrocities committed by them on behalf of Vought International).

## References

1. ↑ "About Vought International:
Today's heroes. Tomorrow's future."-Vought's official youtube channel
2. ↑ Amazon summary