Who Is Sister Sage in <i>The Boys</i>? (2024)

America’s most political show is back, and this time with some new faces. In season 4 of The Boys, which drops its first three episodes today with the remaining episodes arriving weekly thereafter, two new superheroes become part of Homelander’s master plan for power and control of the country (and maybe even the world).

After Homelander kills a man on camera during a fit of rage at the end of the third season, his followers become even more emboldened. He senses the opportunity to capitalize on this and enlists Sister Sage and Firecracker to join The Seven, and Sister Sage agrees to secretly pull the strings on his quest for power. Sage has been sidelined for years, uninterested in the superhero world that feels pedestrian compared to her extreme intelligence. But when Homelander approaches her to collaborate and agrees to follow her plan without interference, she jumps at the chance—no matter where she falls on the ideological spectrum.

“All democracies fail because people are fucking stupid,” Sage says to Homelander all-knowingly in a voiceover that soundtracks the teaser trailer for the new season, which gave fans their first taste of the new supe. “The people will tear it apart themselves. You just gotta nudge ’em a little. Then you get to swoop in and be the one saving it.” Here’s what to know about Homelander’s newest, smartest ally.

Sister Sage is the smartest superhero.

“Sage” refers to wisdom and Sister Sage’s power is that she’s “the smartest person on the planet.” Prime Video’s introduction to the character noted that she’s “already a thousand steps ahead of you,” indicating her brain prowess. Her superhuman intelligence is an asset to Homelander, and she wastes no time in concocting a scheme for world domination for him by turning Starlight fans into public enemy #1.

She’s portrayed by Susan Heyward in The Boys.

Susan Heyward, who has previously starred on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black and HBO’s Vinyl, steps into Sister Sage’s brown and gold suit. In an interview with Black Girl Nerds, Heyward admitted that she initially wished her superpowers were flashier. “People have super strength and Homelander can see through walls,” she reasoned before saying that she realized “there is a certain power in stillness.”

Playing one of the main antagonists of the season, Heyward also questioned Sage’s motivations, telling ScreenRant, “We have to look at what we do to be close to power, to use it, and to think that we can wield it and control it. It calls into question a certain type of responsibility…when do we say I was just doing my job or I had to do this to survive and when do we say I made this choice and I’m taking ownership?”

She hails from Detroit.

Looking for new blood to help execute his strategy, Homelander goes to Detroit to find Sister Sage surrounded by books in her cramped apartment. Before she is inducted into The Seven, Sage is often seen wearing Detroit-themed T-shirts, including one of the now-demolished Palace of Auburn Hills where the Detroit Pistons used to play.

Showrunner Eric Kripke told Entertainment Weekly that her roots in a low socioeconomic location were intentional to play off of her extreme brain power. “It’s such a funny power,” Kripke said. “...We wanted a Black woman who was raised in a low socioeconomic area, so no one fucking listens to her. It's both commentary and satirical that you have literally the smartest person in the world that could cure all of society’s ills, but she just can't get anyone to listen to her. So then she becomes a bitter misanthrope.”

Sister Sage did not appear in the comics.

While the official teaser sets Sage up to be an integral part of the new season with a powerful monologue depicting her power-hungry worldview, she is an entirely new character created for the live adaptation. It’s not the first time Kripke and his writing team have introduced original characters into the series—Sage’s fellow Seven teammate Firecracker is a new creation, as was Translucent from season 1.