A gifted Air Force Captain and combat pilot, Samuel Joseph Speirs was selected for an experimental Compound V program intended to create a more stable, tactical super soldier. Unlike stronger supes built for brute force, Joey's enhancements focused on reflexes, perception, stamina, combat awareness, and aerial precision, making him one of the deadliest pilots and field operatives Vought ever produced.
Closest 'Marvel' equivalent: Ironman/War Machine.
Enhanced Reflexes: Processes movement and danger far faster than normal humans. Can react to gunfire, explosions and sudden attacks almost instantly. Exceptional dodge and evasive maneuver capability.
Accelerated Perception: Experiences combat situations in a hyper-focused, slowed-down/motion state. Able to rapidly assess threats, terrain, enemy movement and escape routes, much like a computer. Extremely difficult to overwhelm in chaotic combat.
Tactical Combat Awareness: Naturally predicts enemy movement patterns and combat behavior. Excels in aerial dogfights, ambushes and battlefield strategy. Highly adaptable under pressure.
Superhuman Agility: Enhanced coordination, balance and body control. Can maneuver through dangerous environments with precision. Capable of advanced acrobatics and rapid directional movement.
Enhanced Strength: Stronger than peak human athletes and soldiers. Able to overpower normal humans and other supes with ease. Can lift several tons under strain, though not entirely at the same level as Homelander or Soldier Boy.
Enhanced Durability: Resistant to bullets, blunt force trauma, explosions, and high-impact crashes. Can survive injuries that would normally kill, not fully invulnerable; stronger supes and heavy weaponry can still seriously injure him. Accelerated healing aids in his recovery.
High-Altitude Adaptation: Resistant to oxygen deprivation and extreme altitude conditions. Can withstand intense G-forces and rapid atmospheric pressure changes. Perfectly suited for aerial warfare and high-speed aircraft operations.
Elite pilot expertise, expert marksman, military combat training.
Assisted Flight: He cannot fly like Homelander or Stormfront, however, he utilizes aircraft, glider systems, prototype wing rigs, and military flight equipment/suits. His reflexes and aerial perception make him nearly unmatched while airborne. Often described as "dangerous once he has wings."
Samuel was born in Denver, Colorado to a decorated Army Air Corps pilot and a schoolteacher who firmly believed in the "American apple pie" dream: hard work, kindness, family, and the idea that goodness still existed in the world and was always worth fighting for. Raised in a home built on discipline, compassion, and patriotism, Joey grew up with one foot in duty and the other in hope, taught from an early age that strength meant very little if it wasn’t used to protect people.
But beneath the medals and ambition, the center of Joey's world was always his younger sister, Lila. Ten years apart, the two were practically inseparable whenever he was home. Lila followed him everywhere as a child, sitting cross-legged in hangars while he spoke endlessly about aircraft engines and the feeling of flying above the clouds. Joey wrote to her constantly while stationed overseas, pages filled with hand-drawn planes and the view from where he sat, terrible jokes and promises that one day, when the war was over, he'd take her flying himself. She was the one person who knew Samuel Joseph Speirs before America turned him into "Halcyon."
By nineteen, he had earned his wings. By twenty-three, he was flying bombing runs over occupied Europe with a reputation for impossible recoveries and near-suicidal precision. The papers called him "The Golden Falcon of the Air Force." Vought-American called him an opportunity.
As the war escalated and Compound V experiments quietly expanded behind closed doors, Joey was selected for one of Frederick Vought's early military enhancement initiatives: a classified program designed not to create celebrities, but weapons the public could still believe in.
Unlike the unstable brute-force subjects before him, Joey's Compound V variant enhanced reaction time, spatial awareness, stamina, reflexes, and sensory processing. He wasn’t built to smash tanks with his bare hands. He was built to survive impossible odds, think faster than everyone around him, and kill with terrifying efficiency before the enemy ever saw him coming.
Vought marketed him as "Halcyon":
America's airborne guardian angel.
The calm in the storm.
The soldier who always came home.
The truth was much less glamorous.
Most of Halcyon's missions never officially happened. He escorted covert Vought retrieval teams into occupied territory, destroyed evidence of failed Compound V experiments, and ran reconnaissance on both Axis forces and Vought competitors. Somewhere along the line, Joey stopped being a war hero and became company property.
Still, unlike many of Vought's earliest supes, Joey never lost the part of himself his mother raised right. He protected civilians when he wasn’t ordered to. Disobeyed commands when collateral damage got too high. Refused to participate in Vought publicity executions staged as "victories." It made him popular with fellow soldiers. It made him dangerous to management.
Stormfront despised him almost immediately. Where she believed power justified domination, Joey still believed power came with responsibility, an idea Vought considered naive at best and insubordinate at worst. Their ideological clashes became infamous behind the scenes of Vought's early wartime campaigns, especially as Joey began suspecting the company's patriotism was little more than branding wrapped around fascism.
The only thing that consistently pulled him back from paranoia and violence was Lila. Even overseas, Joey wrote to her religiously. Some of those letters never arrived. Some came back opened. Eventually, entire pages were blacked out by military censors. Vought monitored every word their "golden boy" sent home, terrified that one day he might say too much.
In 1945, during a classified operation in the Bavarian Alps, Halcyon vanished.
Official reports claimed mechanical failure.
Vought blamed enemy fire.
The truth was buried.
Joey had discovered evidence tying Vought directly to human experimentation programs operating alongside Nazi research divisions. Before he could expose it, his aircraft was sabotaged and he was recovered by a Vought black-site team under orders to disappear him permanently.
Back home, Lila never believed the official story. While the world moved on and Halcyon became another smiling face frozen in wartime propaganda, she spent years trying to uncover what really happened to her brother. Letters to government offices went unanswered. Military officials avoided her. Vought representatives offered condolences rehearsed enough to sound mechanical.
Eventually, even his records began disappearing. Instead, executives placed Joey into cryogenic suspension, believing his unique Compound V mutation could someday be reverse-engineered into a more stable military formula. For decades, Samuel Joseph Speirs became a ghost story buried beneath newer heroes, newer wars, and shinier propaganda.
...Now awakened in a world ruled by corporate superheroes, influencer celebrities, and men like Homelander, Joey finds himself horrified by what Vought became, and devastated by the realization that Lila lived an entire lifetime believing he was dead.
She grew old without him.
And he never got to say goodbye.
That loss becomes the emotional core of his character because unlike many supes in The Boys, Joey still has something profoundly human left to grieve.
